Reflections On The Federal Election

Written by: Ned K. on 25 May 2022

The federal election on Saturday 21 May resulted in the Morrison Government being replaced by the Labor Party with Albanese as Prime Minister.

The Labor Party became the government under the parliamentary system which swears allegiance to the British monarchy and its representative in Australia the Governor General.

The Labor Party recorded its lowest primary vote of about 32% as voters showed their lack of hope in the two major parties of capitalism, Liberal Party and Labor Party. 

Several "safe" Liberal Party Seats in capital cities fell to either wealthy individual candidates called "Independents" or the Greens.

The main reason for the wealthy Independents and the Greens (in Brisbane) kicking out Liberal and Labor "safe" Seat candidates was people's concern about climate change and global warming. 

In other electorates such as Boothby in SA, the Labor Party with Greens preferences kicked out the Liberal Party for the first time in decades with the Labor candidate campaigning on local community issues such as aged care crisis, funding for schools and better transport and road traffic systems.

The Liberal Party in these "safe" Seats thought that they were "born to rule" and that would get them over the line, despite them knowing that Morrison as a Prime Minister was disliked intensely by people within the bourgeoisie itself. 

Even the Murdoch press saw the writing on the wall predicting a 3% plus swing against the Morrison Government.

However, the Murdoch press knows that fundamentally capitalism and in particular US imperialist interests in Australia will be in safe hands under an Albanese Government.

So, on the Tuesday after the election, the Murdoch press The Australian has headlines - "Albanese signs up to new US-Asia Alliance". 

The new Albanese Labor Government will continue the Morrison Government's subservience to US imperialism in the latter's struggle for world supremacy against rival imperialist power China. This is a big problem for the Australian people who do not want to be involved in a war between the two largest imperialist powers.

It appears that Labor with the support of the Greens will have a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Therefore it will probably have no choice but to carry out working class pre-election demands such as abolishing the ABCC, funding a wage increase for aged care workers and improving staff to resident ratios.

However, beyond that, other pre-election demands by workers through their unions such as industry wide collective bargaining, right to strike, recognition of union Delegates to name a few, will get swallowed up by a proposed Accord like summit between big business, government and unions with the goal being to "increase productivity" through reducing the "Better Off Overall Test" in collective agreement approvals. The "Work Choices Lite" Fair Work Act will remain pretty much as it is now.

It is a good thing that the reactionary Morrison Government has been kicked out by the people. 

Many people will have high hopes that the dents made in the two-Party parliamentary system will shake up parliament and make it a vehicle for real change.

The practice of parliament over the next three years will provide people with more experience of the limitations of parliamentary road to changing capitalist society and bring more people to the understanding that it is the system itself that has to be done away with completely. 

Print Version - new window Email article

-----