My article from last week’s Fin is over the fold
A couple of images from the last few weeks have shown the extent to which global political alignments have come to dominate Australian politics. As the APEC leaders assembled in their Drizabones, George Bush was doing everything he could to help his friend and ally John Howard.
At the weekend Al Gore returned the favour, giving an equally clear endorsement to Kevin Rudd and his promise to ratify the Kyoto protocol. Dismissing Howard’s ‘Sydney Declaration’, Gore argued that ratification would have an electrifying effect on the international negotiations at Bali in December
Until recently, the differences between Democrats and Republicans had no resonance in Australian politics. The dominant policy position was that of bipartisan support for alliance with the US. To the extent that Australian political alignments mirrored those of any other country, it was the UK.
The position has changed quite radically since the Bush-Gore election of 2000. Conservatives in Australia have become Republican partisans, drawing their ideas from Washington thinktanks and rightwing US blogs. Alexander Downer draws support for his worldview from Fox News and from rightwing commentator Mark Steyn. (a Canadian whose primary political allegiance is to Bush).
The left has followed suit more gradually. Opposition to Bush and his Administration has gradually turned into acceptance of the Democrats as the lesser of evils and then into outright support, particularly manifested in nostalgia for the Clinton Administration and hope for a new one.
It is not surprising then .that Australian political leaders should seek, and obtain, endorsements from their political allies in the US. In taking sides between Howard and Rudd, we are also making a judgement about Bush and Gore.
The forthcoming election may be seen a rerun of Bush-Gore in 2000 in other respects. Looking on at the time, most observers (including me) thought that the outcome of the close-run race would not make much difference. Gore was a Southern Democrat, prominently associated with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. Bush was running as a ‘compassionate conservative’ and an exemplar of consensus politics. The differences between the two were just about invisible.
In retrospect, though the 2000 election has been the pivotal event of the 21st century. Gore might not have been able to prevent the September 11 terrorist attacks, but he would surely have responded very differently, ignoring the distraction of Iraq and focusing on the fight against Al Qaeda. With the full power of the United States directed against him, and without Iraq as a recruiting tool, it seems unlikely that bin Laden could have survived so long.
The impact of the election was equally dramatic in other respects. Having campaigned on a promise to control carbon emissions, Bush promptly repudiated the Kyoto protocol after his election. And his electorally convenient compassion turned out, in practice, to be reserved for the wealthy beneficiaries of his massive tax cuts.
The similarities with the forthcoming contest between Howard and Rudd are obvious. Both leaders have made a rush for the centre, to the extent that, on many issues, they appear indistinguishable. And yet, on a whole range of issues, a Labor victory would make a huge difference.
Kyoto is one example. Iraq is another. Until now, Australian forces have been allocated mainly to relatively low-risk roles, with the remarkable result that we have suffered no combat fatalities. It is now clear that the war will outlast the Bush Administration, and that the scarcity of troops will become acute by mid-2008 as Britain and others pull out. If Australia stays, the pressure to take on a frontline role will become irresistible.
Even more significant will be the long-run effects on the labour market. While both sides have sought to soften the edges of their policies, the resulting compromises are unsustainable. Labor will surely come under pressure to remove more of the restrictions on unions embodied in the system.
On the other hand, the government’s expanded fairness test has proved unworkable, as indicated by the decision of the retailer Spotlight to return to the award system. If re-elected the government will surely feel justified in simplifying the system and stripping away many of the additional protections. The end result, inevitably, will be the kind of labour market exemplified by the US under Bush. Great opportunities for skilled and educated workers coexist with a low-wage sector, encompassing around half the workforce, where, with the exception of a brief upturn under Clinton, real wages have been stagnant for decades.
The political divide opened up by the Bush-Gore election will not close any time soon. In a couple of months, Australian voters will have to choose where they stand.
John Quiggin 
John, the differences between Bush and Gore in 2000 were only invisible because the press forgot to tell us what they were. The heathers were too busy lying about Gore’s “earth tones” or his “sighs” to bother themselves with, you know, policy.
Bob Somerby has been banging on about this for years: http://www.dailyhowler.com
Anyway, regarding your main thesis: the forces aligning foreign parties (better and faster communication, convergence on basic principles, leading to convergence on governing priorities and probably common tribal identity) are only likely to get stronger. This will begin to blur what we understand by the term “national interest”, probably leading to its eventual demise.
For example, the epithet “anti-american” flung at lefties in Oz who opposed the Iraq War has lost nearly all meaning now that the Democrats hold power in Congress. Iraq war supporters are forced to use terms like “anti-Bush”, which does not have the same national interest/treasonous connotations.
BTW, you forgot to mention the Howard/Obama incident, which would have been a good example of feedback in the system.
I don’t think the current race resembles Bush v. Gore at all. The difference: both Bush and Gore were born with silver spoons, neither Howard nor Rudd were.
Bush and Gore are fundamentally out of touch with the average voter – Bush by being part of a dynasty and all the sense of entitlement that entails, and Gore in the same way most Hollywood celebrities are out of touch.
It’s a good piece, John. Howard campaigned in 1996 in very similar ways Rudd in 2007: “don’t get spooked, not much will change – just the bits you don’t like… and you can get rid of that annoying incumbent.”
But Australia changed dramatically under Howard, just as it will under Rudd if he gets in.
SJK, where do you get the “…Iraq war supporters are forced to use terms like “anti-Bushâ€?, which does not have the same national interest/treasonous connotations” from? For an Australian to be anti-American is “treasonous”???? Is that really what you mean?
How much of this apparent similarity comes from the need to present a small target.
‘The left has followed suit more gradually. Opposition to Bush and his Administration has gradually turned into acceptance of the Democrats as the lesser of evils and then into outright support, particularly manifested in nostalgia for the Clinton Administration and hope for a new one.’
It is kind of funny tho, that the ALP has moved in tandem to the US business community if the WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119127620102645595.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us) is to be belived.
caio
dylwah
gordon,
Yes, that is exactly what I mean.
I think it was Alan Ramsey who first alerted me to the fact that when Howard referred to Bush it was always “the President said this, the President said that” never “the *US* President said this or the *US* President said that”.
It was a sub-conscious indicator, demonstrating what I have always suspected: There are some Australian conservatives who either wish they were American or in some sense believe they are an (honorary?) American. For them, America has simply replaced Britain as their “mother country”.
From the POV of these conservatives, any Australian who disagreed with US action were in some sense traitors.
Of course, with the Democrats now controlling congress, these honorary Americans are suffering from a case of cognitive dissonance. They themselves cannot be anti-American yet they do not support the majority viewpoint of real Americans.
It must be very confusing for them. But either way, it means the end of the “anti-american” epithet.
Pr Q says:
Yes, that explains the massive series of tax-cuts implemented by the small-government loving Howard, starting with the removal of the GST in 1998. And the massive series of structural deficits he bequeathed to… Ohh, wait a minute, that was in a parallel universe where Pr Q’s Bush-Howard analogy held.
Okay, then maybe Howard took his cues about gun-control from Bush. Hmmm, post-Port Arthur that line is not looking so good.
Alright, Howard based his civil emergency, regime-change and nation-building philosophy on Bush’s rotten performance in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina. Thats why Howard was so reviled for his disastrous performance in rebuilding of ETimor and Aceh. Not.
THe LN/P is a moderate centre-right govt. Ministers watch Fox News and Steyn are for entertainment, not edification.
Its most right-wing job has been to clean up some of the nasty little fiscal and cultural messes left by the ALP and its legion of bureaucratic and academic camp followers. Im thinking of the Beazley’s Black Hole and Theophanous’s multicultural follies. Jobs well done.
Other than that, the LN/P has mostly been the party of “steady as she goes” governability centrists. With a swag of targetted tax-cuts and spending binges around election time. Im shocked, shocked.
Pr Q says:
“Huge difference”? Not really. The AUS political system responds well to populist appeals. And the environment is popular now.
Howard is converging, kicking and screaming, on the greener Rudd position. I dont see the Bush admin doing much of this to Gore.
Howard now favours carbon emmissions trading. And he is looking towards signing onto a revised version of Kyoto, towards the end of the decade. Rudd is not about to shut down the coal industry.
Pr Q says:
Hardly. The ADF’s role in Iraq was always a token one, the regular insurance premium for the US alliance and pay-back for USMC assistance in saving ETimor. The ALP would have sent some support if it had have beenin office.
Howard is gradually drawing down our forces in Iraq. Rudd would do the same, a bit quicker. SO the ALP and LN/P are in gradual policy convergence on a largely symbolic policy. Not exactly the great schism.
Pr Q says:
I dont think the Howard needs any help from Bush to be anti-union.(Costello $ Sweets and the HR Nicholls society ring any bells?)
The US’s labour market is a million miles away from the AUS labour market. This is not so much because of the relative prevalence of awards and unions in AUS. It is largely because we have closed borders and the US has open borders. Do you need a degree in labour market economics to spot the Howard-Bush difference on this one?
Even on industrial releations the differences b/w the ALP and LN/P are exaggerated. The LN/P have been forced to introduce a fairness test into Work Choices . And the ALP are desperately trying to distance themselves from the unions.
The premise of this article is that both Howard and Rudd are hiding their real policy views, given their political convergence. I think that Pr Q is wrong on this. I bet that if Howard wins he will not lurch to the Right. And if Rudd wins he will not lurch to the Left.
The political divide b/w DEMS and REPS is fundamental and structural, based on the uneasy state of race relations in the US and the stratospheric class differences b/w Main Street and Wall Street. Bush is an outcome, not cause, of the US’s not-very sustainable civil association. This is evinced by the fact that the current crop of REPs find it very difficult to disown his policies.
The political sivide between the ALP and the LN/P is mostly “not even” superficial, witnessed by Howards conversion to symbolic reconciliation and Rudd’s acceptance of the pragmatic NT intervention. I predicted this major party Great Convergence back in the early noughties.
The reasons for this have to do with AUS’s different racial nature, political structure and cultural scriptures. AUS has a fairly well-settled ethnic constituency and its economic divisions are dampened by a selective welfare state. We have the pragmatic progressive-conservative sections of the ALP and LN/P to thank for that.
The only interesting points of similarity b/w Bush and Howard are in the Culture Wars rhetoric and a shared political strategy of a “forced march back through the institutions” of culture. THe Culture War is more about the undeclared status-war b/w suburban rednecks and urban luvvies. Rather than any incipient “race relations” problem that, if you are foolish enough to believe hysterical Fairfax op-eds on this, AUS is always on the verge of having.