If the end result is no legislation being passed then surely you agree that its not a win. We can argue about whose fault it is & realistically that will be different for each bill. For the housing one I would have liked to have seen the greens get it in - it was a measurable improvement. The greens are right to complain about labor bullying but saying no every time gets us nowhere.
eureka@aussie.zone 5 days ago
Yes, and if we’re looking at the here-and-now then objectively less housing was built and people suffered. You’re absolutely right about that.
However, my experience and perspective is that Labor are the problem in that situation, and that’s not just some blame game or complaint, it’s part of a bigger picture that Labor are a conservative force who will never do enough by choice. They’ve long abandoned their labour roots and having talked with many current and former Labor rank-and-file, there’s pretty strong signs of corruption and elitism dominating the party. So unless there is material pressure on them, enough to dominate their own interests and those of their backers, they will simply just sit comfortably as “better than the Coalition”, similarly to the US Democratic Party in their two-party system - they ended up being the moderate billionaires’ party, hijacking progressive symbolism to cover for their selling-out. And we saw the inevitable result: a steady ratcheting shift towards oligarchy.
The point of that quick rant is that, the solution - not just small wins but the solution - can’t be to just work with Labor. They will appease people with little short term gains, but rarely-if-ever enough to solve these problems. They’re just not positioned to, even if most of their members want them to, because they’re beholden to their bigger backers. If we want to actually solve these problems, the worker class needs to build collective political power and force the government’s hand away from the business-owning class and towards us. The union movement is being repressed harder and harder even under Labor, so in lieu of reliable union power, the next best option is to replace Labor with the Greens, who have at least shown some level of integrity and independence from the ruling class and have shown backbone in demanding the necessary dedication towards solving the housing crisis. Yes, their resistance resulted in a real loss, but if enough people see that Labor refuses to do enough and saw what Greens were struggling for, and that ends up giving the Greens more support and more power, perhaps enough to force through legislation in a few years, then that will be a profound long-term win. I know that may sound like a gamble, but the growth of the smaller parties is consistent and given the track record of Labor over the last century, getting rid of them will be worth the unfortunate and real losses that come from when when Labor stubbornly refuse to help this country.