AFTERWORD

Light Pollution

PHIL O’DONOGHUE

In his history of Russia, Natasha’s Dance, Orlando Figes cites an exchange between two Orthodox theologians, one writing: “For the lamp to shine, it is necessary to do more than polish the glass, the flame within must be lit”. This collection has both work-a- day polishing as well as writing that is alight.

Reeves opens with the case for long term majority national Labor Governments. Hear, hear. He also highlights the fracturing of the Australian political landscape: “Populists from the left, more from the right, and an unencumbered centre”. Reeves’ strategy is to urge Labor to deny it’ll form a minority government, until that is, it, er, has to. It’s a pragmatic communications tactic, just not sufficient in the face of many electoral challenges. Reeves is asking the right hard questions and at least has a go at answering them.

Other contributors pose BIG IDEAS in need of more articulated strategies for success. Quinn wants everyone to have a guaranteed a job, Tons wants a universal basic income and Webb wants to ditch neo-liberal and Keynesian economics for Modern Monetary Theory.

Hey Albo, sort that by lunchtime.

We’re emerging from the COVID pandemic, the greatest global conflagration since World War II. The height of that recent crisis triggered some extraordinary public policy responses – Job Keeper, greatly increased income support payments and related ‘quantitative easing’ at unprecedented levels. It seems that big bold policy ideas are possible, but only if we ignore that they came about in response to nasty factors beyond anyone’s control.

As progressives with a commitment to democracy, I think we need to give our readers, members and supporters a sense of what we, what you, can do to make a difference. We need to be agents of change, not just the proponents of a change.

Consider Read’s contribution on inequality. He almost exclusively considers inequality in terms of income, which is particularly important for those living in relative or absolute poverty. However, wealth inequality is an important factor as well – it tends to, for example, provide a measure of economic and political power and distorts democracy. The reforms to financial systems by the ALP in government that led to the radical expansion of superannuation for working people means that today industry and public sector superannuation in Australian managed funds at a value of, wait for it, two trillion dollars – nearly ten times the wealth of the ten wealthiest Australians. That is a strategic shift in the power of wealth in Australia and why conservative governments have tried, again and again mostly unsuccessfully, to corrupt that great equalising force created by the Australian labour movement. Superannuation was more than a BIG IDEA in the minds of Keating or Kelty. For decades before the legislation of compulsory superannuation, unionists from the public, manufacturing, construction and other sectors fought long and hard workplace battles to provide working people with superannuation.

If we are to avoid the fringes of political life that Reeves warns of, then we need to confidently think, study, write about, accumulate and exercise power. Without credible and articulated strategies to win, we risk, in the words of Read, being “paralysed as the number of issues…have mounted.”

Rinzin’s essay on temporary migrant workers covers an important topic, one that might have benefited from a deeper understanding of the labour movement. In addition to the admittedly modest membership of unions from temporary migrant workers; Unions NSW hosts its Migrant Workers Hub, the Victorian Trades Hall Council has close links with the Young Workers Centre and, in my own workplace, UnionsWA, wage theft project work over several years has provided real and direct access by senior union leaders to the experiences of temporary migrant workers, in turn contributing to policy change by the federal Labor government.

Norden and Baer provide thoughtful and well-rounded contributions on our prison and university systems demonstrating an understanding of the dynamics of change in their respective fields. These are the kinds of contributions that make the reader better informed and with a sense of what they or others might do to advance those causes.

As progressives, we walk across dark, challenging and hilly terrain. There’s a lot of light pollution. It can be hard to distinguish the light of an oncoming bushfire from the bonfires of vanity or the dumpster fires of modernity. I think this eclectic collection reminds us that a light on the hill worth following is one that illuminates a path forward enabling us to take practical steps towards achieving our aims.

Phil O’Donoghue is the National Membership Secretary. He is Media Officer at UnionsWA and has previously worked as a ministerial policy adviser for a number of state and federal Labor governments and a range of direct service delivery and management roles within the not-for-profit community sector.