What a dream come true for Australia’s right-wingers.
First of all they can point to Gina Rinehart’s wealth (“the richest woman in the world”) as a sign of Australia’s arrival as a capitalist power and a land of opportunity.
Second, she happens to be one of them – hostile towards government regulation, romantic when it comes to the mining industry and contemptuous of most things left-of-centre or green.
Third, all this is happening at a time of Labor weakness – declining membership, a seriously wounded union movement under pressure and an unpopular Commonwealth Government.
It is in such circumstances that the right becomes emboldened to push the envelope. Back in 1975, it led them to adopt tactics in the Senate long thought inappropriate and improper by both sides. Three decades later they again used their senate members, not this time improperly but certainly aggressively, to introduce Work Choices, which not only undermined rights at work but took from the states the capacity to balance the industrial equation.
There is a radical element on the right of Australian politics that liberals and social democrats ignore at their peril (just ask Malcolm Turnbull and Gough Whitlam). I’m sure the captain of the MV Tampa – Arne Rinnan – could tell us a thing or two about right-wing radicalism in Australia.
The support base for such radicalism has always come from the restless element within Australia’s business community – mining entrepreneurs, developers, suburban and regional small businesses, and farmers at the margins. Not only do they make life hard for social democrats, they also work hard to destroy the influence of small “l” and social liberals in the Liberal Party.
Over the years the Australian Constitution, the bicameral and federal systems of government and the political and social movements of the left have provided important checks and balances. Note too that the argument can be made that the consensus-through-justice approach to politics is best for everyone – miners, small businesses and farmers included. And it is Labor’s historic responsibility to see to it that such an approach is given priority in our political debates.
This takes me back to politics today and the weakness of “Brand Labor”.
There is every possibility that the Coalition will soon be in power at both levels of government across the country – or at least effectively so. This brings us to the divisions that exist within the Coalition between reformers and conservatives and populists and liberals. The Australian right want governments to be their governments and they don’t want to hear talk of “historic compromise” or “consensus”.
They want war – war on marriage equality, war on crime, war on indecency, war on drugs, war on multiculturalism, war on regulation, war on welfare, and war on climate politics.
To succeed in these wars a number of conditions have to be met.
First, their political warriors need to be ideologically reliable, united within, and in charge. This isn’t easy given the differences of interest between farmers, miners, professionals and manufacturers. Leadership is crucial and at this stage Tony Abbott is their man, although still an unknown quantity as far as the prime ministership goes. They hope and trust that John Howard has taught him well about the art of right-wing politics.
Second, they need maximum influence over the means of communication. They don’t want print, radio or TV to report, they want them to campaign for “the Western world”, “Australian values” and “economic freedom”. They’d love to neuter the ABC but, as the Howard years showed, that’s easier said than done. Nor is it easy to control social media and the blogosphere.
There is, however, a prize that is within their capacity to control – the Fairfax empire. It is experiencing commercial challenges and is vulnerable to attack.
Enter Australia’s richest person. She has money, ideas and plenty of troops in the community – some very clever – willing to support her efforts. Why not use at least some of her resources to become a media baroness? This commercial rate of return may not be so good but the politics are too good to be set aside.
What is happening is a more sophisticated version of her late father, Lang Hancock’s earlier efforts – the Perth Independent (1969 to 1984), the Westralian Secession Movement (founded in 1974) and Wake Up Australia (1979).
Hancock had strong beliefs but most were too far from mainstream political opinion to be acceptable. Nor did his well known disagreement over mining policy with Western Australian premier Sir Charles Court help. He was, as Lancock’s biographer Robert Duffield described him in a book with the same title, a “rogue bull”.
Gina Rinehart is just as committed to right-wing values as her father but seems more strategic and focused on “working within” to achieve her commercial and political objectives. Compare, for example, her forging of a partnership with Rio Tinto to develop Hope Downs to her father’s efforts to do a deal with Ceausescu’s Romania.
What Australian progressives are facing with Gina Rinehart then is not just wealth and commitment but also political nous – a potent mix at the best of times. Just as I’m sure she is being advised not to overplay her hand, those who disagree with her politics should take the same advice.
Discriminating against businesses because of the politics of their owners is more often than not improper and nearly always counterproductive. Much better it is to keep a sharp eye and be well-briefed on company and media law (and what they require) and build support in the community for social liberal and social democratic values.
Those who don’t want Australia to fall into a right-wing world will need more knowledge, a stronger will and better organisation than their opponents. There can be no shortcuts.
Anthony Nolan
Ruminant
This sort of contribution, Geoff Gallup, is worse than useless in the current situation. You identify the threat to democracy as being from "the right" but fail in any way to extend your critique so that it addresses the right wing of the NSW ALP whose behaviour and political philosophy is not so very far from the sort of anti-democratic, asocial "libertarianism" that characterises the dark forces billowing in the wake of Rhinehart.
Moreover, you speak of "progressives" as if the ALP might somehow…
Read moreR. Ambrose Raven
none
A plentiful supply of half-truths and misunderstandings. The Right is not "radical", it is reactionary.
Note that Geoff Gallop is not merely "a member of the ALP"; he was once WA Premier.
It was he who closed the Nyungar Swan Valley Community, and dumped them on the street under the pretence of protecting them from Robert Bropho; how being on the street for the last decade has protected them is something he could perhaps explain. We may be confident that it isn't something of which he has had personal experience.
Geoff Gallop also merged half the WA State Ministries with the other half because it looked good in a press release. The result is that the worst Ministers don't bother, while the good ones are overwhelmed by the workload. And this person is Director of the Graduate School of Government?
Anthony Nolan
Ruminant
Thanks. That sort of contribution is why I value The Conversation.
Shirley Birney
retiree
"dumped them on the street" for the last decade? Are you not forgetting that unemployed indigenous folk receive the same amount of money from Centrelink as unemployed white folk. Not a penny more, not a penny less.
Robert Bropho was a recidivist paedophile. His last conviction was for giving money for sex to an eleven year old child who was a glue sniffer.
District Court judge Peter Nisbet said at the time that Bropho, 78, was arrogant, a bully and a repeat liar who had committed an act of "cynical depravity" when he bailed the young girl out of a juvenile detention centre, then raped her on the way home.
Bropho's reign at the Swan Valley camp ended in 2003 when the suicide of teenager Susan Taylor led to claims sex abuse and drugs were rife at the camp.
Less hyperbole and a reality check may enhance your credibility.
Anthony Nolan
Ruminant
Well, thanks again.
R. Ambrose Raven
none
Less hyperbole and a reality check may enhance your credibility.
Well, we've established good reasons for not admiring Bropho! But how does any of that excuse dumping them on the street and leaving them there? If the streets are a really nice place to live would Shirley Birney like to give it a go for a decade or so? Collective punishment is a crime under the Geneva and Hague conventions - except when done to the marginalised it would seem.
Many regard the Intervention as being as brutal…
Read moreR. Ambrose Raven
none
I generally torment the ABC's The Drum. But immediate posting is so much more satisfactory. The only censorship I suffer on The Drum is that for a long time the ABC Online Editor group refused to publish any of my posts to Peter Reith's weekly agitprop, plus the continuing occasional deletion of my references to Zionist misbehaviour. Zionist (which is by no means the same as Jewish) efforts to suppress dissent are commonplace, globally. One works around it.
Comment removed by moderator.
David Kelly
logged in via Facebook
The Master of the MV Tampa was Arne Rinnan (not Anne).
Helen Westerman
Editor at The Conversation
Thanks, this has been corrected.
Optimistic Alex
Garbologist
Looks, you all are really missing the point. Gina's takeover of Fairfax is a good thing - particularly for the environment movement in Australia. The play goes like this - Gina takes over Fairfax and sets editorial policy. Gina installs lots of political arsonist columnists like Bolt. Inner city mums who like the Herald stop reading it. Fairfax tanks (even more). Gina loses money. New, more interesting media springs up. Gina discovers she can't buy the internet. Everybody wins. Big, slow, annoying, entrenched corporate media dies. Boo whoo.
Mark Matthews
General Manager
I think you're spot on. The "right" is about to overplay it's hand. You simply cannot buy a media outlet and change the flavour of the outlet's message without the readership leaving in droves. Then what do you have but a few media outlets with no followers and the hatred of the public for destroying it for personal self-interest.
In the US, the mega rich (Rothschilds, Vanderbuilt) were philanthropic, investing in arts, charity, etc. Gina buys media to promote her selfish interests, destroys them (look at Channel 10s ratings and share price). This will not help her cause at all.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
This article seems like the reverse of "communists under the bed" type propaganda.
"What a dream come true for Australia’s right-wingers."
So who are these right-wingers? Can names be given?
Jay Julian
Curriculum consultant
We can always count on the inevitable insults written by conservatives against any alternative viewpoints complete with well-worn name-calling like "doughty old Class Warriors" and their perennial favourite accusation that someone is motivated by "envy of Gina's wealth and influence".
Calls to mind a salient observation made by J.K. Galbraith: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
Although Geoff's lucid argument is not one I agree with in all respects, the warning at the core of this is soundly reasoned.
To quote Mr. Galbraith again from an interview done not long he died 6 years ago: "There's no question that this is a time when corporations have taken over the basic process of governing."
R. Ambrose Raven
none
But both Laberal parties – both dominant conservative parties – have abandoned any commitment to the public good and the public interest. They serve Big Business, and beyond that transnational capitalism.
‘Politics, they say, is a battle of ideas and not a battle of personalities’. In our politics now, the reverse is true.
Rudd, Gillard and Swan and Abbott have no ideas, partly because their Hard Right ideology is so obviously in conflict with every relevant aspect of reality that they…
Read moreDennis Alexander
logged in via LinkedIn
I think the core of Geoff's argument is: "Those who don’t want Australia to fall into a right-wing world will need more knowledge, a stronger will and better organisation than their opponents. There can be no shortcuts." That is, the onus is on the centre and left of the political spectrum to do the hard yards to counter any perceived 'right-wing' hegemony and it won't be a quick fix.
Also he actually counsels "Discriminating against businesses because of the politics of their owners is more often than not improper and nearly always counterproductive." So, don't "dis" the (Gina-owned) Fairfax press just because you don't like Gina's politics. If you're going to dump on it, do it on content, style or the 'politics in print', not those imputed as flowing from the owner.
James Jenkin
EFL Teacher Trainer
Do we needed four articles in two days saying the same thing - Rinehart is a threat to democracy?
David Kelly
logged in via Facebook
Yes.
We need as many voices as possible illustrating the threat to independent and balanced journalism that Ms Rinehart presents.
James Jenkin
EFL Teacher Trainer
Hi David - fair enough, but I'd suggest when the Conversation appears to follow a party line, it's not going to attract the unconverted.
Can I ask what the aim of the anti-Rinehart push is? Is it to turn Fairfax shareholders against Rinehart, to lobby for legislation so no one investor can dominate a media company, or to create such a furore that Rinehart decides to avoid the bad publicity?
Dennis Alexander
logged in via LinkedIn
If there is a "party line" that Gina's ownership of Fairfax is anti-democratic, this isn't part of it. It is a wake up call to those who hold different political views to Gina. But it merely catalogues and classifies Gina's views as being of the 'hard right' like her father's, and by implication on a "war footing" with the rest of the 'hard right' not as anti-democratic in a non-trivial sense.
It does make a cogent point on the commercial sensibility of the investment if Gina is looking for political influence. On this see also: http://www.futurity.org/society-culture/corporate-political-gifts-go-unrewarded/#more-57757.
Russell Y
Financial planner
Optimistic Alex, I hope you are right. Should the current changes to the media (Fairfax) have occured just after the last election I think that your point would work wonderfully. Given the relatively short time period to the next election this may not happen. I am however accepting of the idea that should the Fairfax publications move to the political right, that one of the biggest casualties would be News limited by fragmenting the conservative readership even further and probably accelerating the demise of News Ltd's Melbourne and Sydney assets with even more fallout on the Australian. Finally, I am finding 'the Conversation' an excellent forum, keep up the good work.
Shirley Birney
retiree
Geoff one can not forget that it was your excellent idea to protect WA's citizens from a rogue hazardous waste industry. And after three dedicated years of research by your 3C team, comprising scientists, community and industry representatives etc, Mr McIndustry sacked the committee without explanation after you quit parliament. I trust he remains in the bleachers. We don't want him digging up yellowcake country, do we? When are you returning?
Ken Swanson
Geologist
Geoff
Read moreRheinhardt is in this for the money upon the turnaround
Your comments about the radical reactionary right are interesting. The right in Australia is very angry at the moment about what the Rudd and Gillard governments have done in the past 5 years or so. There has been too much change that has run ahead of the public's appetite for change. I know progressives cannot see this as they are convinced that what they are doing is what everyone else needs but just are too stupid to know it yet…
Anthony Nolan
Ruminant
On reflection. This development (Rhinehart buying Fairfax) ought to send the ALP very rapidly to the left as it seeks to capture a social democratic vote where the emphasis is on the social element. It is not even vaguely positioned to do this at the moment - no party support for gay marriage rights, a bollocks of a policy on refugees, too many parliamentarians operating too close to the corporate sector, a union rump dominating the floor of conference and far too little effort made to grasp the reality and scale of the ecological challenges we face. Abbott and the Libs are perfectly positioned to reap the benefits of Gina's largesse. The ALP's mistake was to attempt to position itself the same way without understanding that if you sup with the devil it is best to use a long spoon.
Gil Hardwick
Anthropologist
Ah, come on Geoff. Get off the grass. Nothing Gina can possibly do can equate with the Stalinist purges we suffered here in Western Australia, or to use your own word 'retributions'.
All of us working on social and environmental impacts went out of our way to accommodate the Greens and the Left, except that they persistently refused to turn up at meetings and when they did insisted on disrupting them, until as they slowly gained control under your watch went about destroying people they imagined…
Read moreDino Legovich
Researcher
Thanks Geoff,
But I am a political grunt/queer/illiterate.
I am right wing and I am left wing.
Don't fit anywhere.
I agree too much power, for too long can be an atrophy.
Why are there left and right ?
Why isn't there just a 'just right' for want of a better phoneme.
People are strange.
Politics is very confusing to me.