As we know, history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. In 1966 , leader of a Liberal government that had invited itself to America’s war against Vietnam, brought presi- dent Lyndon Johnson to Australia. In one of the great David Moore’s most memorable photo-

LINDSAY BARRETT graphs Holt, referred to as ‘my friend’ by John- son, was pictured fawning behind the president the young and the at airport. Later, in Sydney, young anti-war protesters lay on the road in front of restless Johnson’s limousine. Liberal premier Bob Askin told the driver to ‘run over the bastards’. Nearly four decades later, dead currawongs lay on the lawn at Parliament From the Suburbs: Building a Nation House, having ingested poisoned bogong from our Neighbourhoods moths. The moths had been terminated, so Pluto Press, Annandale, 2003 argued Senator Bob Brown, in order that their ISBN 1-86403-189-1 infestation not disrupt the warmonger George RRP $24.95 (pb) Bush’s address to Australia’s parliament. With the moths dispatched, Bush’s address went ahead. Just as his presidential predecessor had Crowded Lives done, Bush told us that he was proud to call Pluto Press, North , 2003 our prime minister ‘my friend’. ISBN 1-86403-272-3 The Johnson visit of 1966 was a turning RRP $22.95 (pb) point for Labor Party. Led by , Labor was devastated at the election that followed a few weeks later, with the campaign dominated by the war against communism to the north. But the defeat gal- vanised the ALP and it reformed under the pragmatism of and the anti- war activism of . The result was what we call ‘the Whitlam era’. So far, George W. Bush’s Australian visit of 2003 has failed to stir the same sort of political emotions. made an eloquent, polite speech of dissent that went largely unnoticed. The Liberals

LINDSAY BARRETT—THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS 217 and Nationals shouldered each other aside in ideological backbone, seems almost fictional. order to get the biggest pat on the back from the Did Australians once really think and act like strong American hand. The dead currawongs this? Did they really struggle over competing, meanwhile, their demise remarked upon only radically divergent versions of a future society? by Brown, seemed the only collateral damage of Were they really prepared to put their careers this minor episode in the ‘global war on terror’. on the line for principles that could not, in the It’s now commonplace to remark that con- end, be compromised? Was the Australian temporary political processes in Australia bear political process once really about working to an almost total absence of what can be termed spread social justice, rather than simply market ‘vision’. Across the spectrum, for the political testing policies designed to appeal to the basest class the horizon of the possible and the achiev- instincts of the selfish suburban swingers and able appears to have shrunk to a space some- the grasping aspirationals? The answer to all of where between that of the morning radio these questions is yes it was, though increas- appearance and the evening television news. It ingly, as our historical and political memory wasn’t always like this, but to be reminded of becomes shorter and shorter, and the media- this fact one often needs to turn to sources saturated perpetual present in which we’re all other than the goings-on in either the House of forced to exist becomes ever more pervasive, Representatives or the press gallery. One could, we have only the testimonies of those such as for instance, read Merv Lilley’s novel The Merv Lilley, those who were there at the time, Channels. Published in 2001 (not without dif- to remind us. ficulty due to its ‘unfashionable’ subject matter), As with all social processes, a complex inter- The Channels is a remarkable piece of work, a play of factors has led us into this space of stream of consciousness narrative flowing from apathy, anomie and futility. An increasing the memories of an antediluvian communist, a reliance by both the Liberal and Labor parties memoir of a young agitator’s life on the east on market research and public relations strate- coast of Australia in 1950. This was a time gies, resulting in an obsessive focus on a narrow when the comrades worked for the overthrow band of electors whose voting patterns are of both capitalism and liberal democracy, a time malleable, is one key factor at work here. The when prime minister Menzies fought to ban expansion of the media sphere to the point them, to jail them, to wipe them from the face where it is actually becoming the ‘space’ in of the earth if possible, and a time when Labor’s which politics is articulated and enacted is leader Dr Herbert Evatt charged into court and another. As we know, when Howard wants into battle to defend them, and to defend their to set an agenda he goes on talkback radio, a democratic right to struggle for goals he per- medium that, together with television talk sonally found appalling. shows, has displaced the more traditional spaces From a contemporary perspective the sketch- of politics, such as parliament. Another factor ing of such vision, such commitment, such is the general acceptance now of the ideologies

218 VOLUME10 NUMBER1 MAR2004 of economic rationalism and market funda- From the Suburbs and Crowded Lives. The title of mentalism, which, with their focus on the Latham’s book may invoke, for some at least, ongoing instantaneity of the market, make for- 1980s Perth entertainer Dave Warner lament- ward social planning and governance increas- ing the fact that suburban boys like himself ingly difficult. All of these factors, for one reason found it so much more difficult to hit on chicks or another, have favoured the Howard govern- than did sophisticated middle-class urbanites. ment more than Labor. Such a pop culture echo, though, is not as Another commonplace assertion now is that fatuous as it may at first seem, as both of these since the demise of ’s ‘big picture’, books are, unlike Latham and Tanner’s previous the has been struggling publications, grounded in a politics of the per- to work out what it actually stands for, and who sonal as much as of the national or the global. it actually represents. Not that it has struggled Consequently, they both take us straight to the quietly. Two key figures in this activity have heart of the problem facing the Australian Labor been Mark Latham, from the New South Wales Party: how does a social democratic political Right of the ALP, and Lindsay Tanner from the party affiliated with the trade union movement, Victorian Left, currently Leader of the Opposi- and formed by striking shearers in Queensland tion and Shadow Minister for Communications in the 1890s, represent a contemporary popu- respectively. Both in their forties, the two were lace increasingly distanced from the traditional ridiculed a few years ago by the perpetually structures of twentieth-century working-class self-satisfied as ‘the young and life? Here, both Latham and Tanner approach the restless’, his allusion to the fact that neither this conundrum from the ground up, as re- of them were particularly happy with the leader- flected in the subtitle of Latham’s book ‘building ship of . This malaise meant that a nation from our suburbs’. So, in such a con- they spent their time writing books, said text, disaffected suburban boys are far more Costello, an activity that, as part of the Howard than a pretext for a pop song: in fact, they’re a government’s relentless attempts to dumb- mainstream political issue. Tanner even goes so down the electorate, was held up as some kind far as to have a chapter titled ‘Connecting with of suspect, possibly un-Australian activity. In- young men’. deed the very titles of two of their previous These are crucial issues. But there is also no books, Civilising Global Capitalism and Open doubt that these books, particularly Tanner’s, Australia, seemed to raise issues that any com- are a consequence of the dramatic extent to fortable, scared, relaxed and insecure resident which Howard and the Liberals are dictating of Howard’s Australia would be better off not the mainstream agenda of Australian politics. thinking about.1 It is unlikely that any Liberal will publish a Now, the late-term of yet another Howard counter text to Tanner’s, one outlining the con- government sees two more books by Latham servative approach to relationship management. and Tanner, both published by Pluto Press: One reason is, of course, that few members of

LINDSAY BARRETT—THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS 219 the are capable of any Similarly, unlike the vacuous ahistoricism of so form of contemplative social philosophy: as much of the right-wing discourse flooding Aus- Mark Latham points out, the Liberal Party is tralian public life at present, Tanner’s opinions almost exclusively a ‘lawyers’ party, governing are grounded in a coherent project of social and for the ‘conservative establishment’. (135) But historical analysis. His references range widely, another reason that any Coalition thinker is from the populist Thomas Friedman’s Lexus and unlikely to produce a text to match Lindsay the Olive Tree to the incisive resonance of Richard Tanner’s survey of personal relationships is the Sennett’s Corrosion of Character, while at the fact that, by and large, such issues are not centre of his polemic is a succinct critique of important to the Howard government. Conse- the contemporary formation of the social quently, the personal provides the only real subject. Tanner’s principal argument is that the ground for Labor to work on, ground which ‘wave of social change that has occurred since the government, with its stranglehold on the the 1960s’ has produced as many problems as national agenda through its manipulation of it has improvements. Despite the increase in immigration, defence and economic manage- freedom for women and homosexuals, and the ment, appears willing to concede, or at least, rise of environmentalism as a mainstream issue, just willing to leave alone. So, despite the cen- the libertarian revolution of the 1960s pro- trality of these issues, the focus on them in duced, Tanner argues, an ethic of individualism Crowded Lives is also indicative of the degree to that has done massive damage to the social which Labor is being sidelined. This politics of forces of community and collectivism. Now, the personal is important, but a concentrated this rampant individualism ‘has been absorbed focus on it can run the risk of producing a and magnified by the materialism and con- shopping list of policy positions from which the sumerism that also grew out of the postwar consumerist voter can pick and choose accord- boom’, with the result being a selfish society in ing to personal taste. Thus a reader of Lindsay which ‘personal gratification has become a Tanner’s book may find themselves in agreement primary driver of economic activity’. (31–3) with certain prescriptions, such as the need to The atomised individual consumer is the end devote more attention and resources to the rise point of this process for Tanner. Consequently, in single parenting or the education of boys, and the rest of his book explores the possibilities in disagreement with others, such as making for the development of our relationships with Anzac Day Australia’s national day, favouring each other. the direct election of the president of a future Unlike Crowded Lives, Mark Latham’s From republic or opposing voluntary euthanasia. the Suburbs is not a monograph but a collected Even so, it is essentially the job of a politician volume of speeches and conference papers to produce ideas and hold them up for public given over the last few years. Latham’s focus is analysis, and it is perhaps unfair to criticise also more structural, and in this sense he covers Tanner too much for simply doing this job. much more traditionally political terrain than

220 VOLUME10 NUMBER1 MAR2004 Tanner. Latham also provides the standout a range of quite radical market-oriented pro- sound bite from the two works: ‘Increasingly, I positions, such as his idea for nest-egg savings get the feeling that all politics is cultural’. (19) accounts for low-income earners, and the pro- To a great extent, Latham’s key focus is the vision of social venture capital for community impact of globalisation, with all of his analysis groups as an alternative to welfare. and policies influenced to some degree by this Latham is right, all politics is cultural now. overarching contemporary phenomenon: , of course, is well acquainted with the power of the politics of culture. This is For the past decade, the Left has been de- why he has been such a vigorous participant in bating globalisation as if it were solely an the culture and history wars, for he under- economic event, when in fact its main stands, possibly better than anyone, that the political impact has been cultural. The manipulation of the electorate is achieved as mass movement of people, the inter- much through the manipulation of the sym- nationalisation of crime and the free flow bolic as it is through the manipulation of interest of information and cultural products all rates. In fact, with an independent Reserve challenge our sense of social stability and Bank, symbols are a lot easier to manipulate belonging. In a world without borders and than interest rates. And this is what is making it often without order, people are struggling harder and harder for Labor to work out who to maintain the anchors of their everyday and what it represents. Once upon a time there life—family support, community pride may have been neat, separate realms constitut- and national identity. (18–19) ing our lives, the material on the one hand, the symbolic on the other. Increasingly now though, Fair enough, this sort of description of the there is only the symbolic, a realm that has not processes of globalisation is standard in cultural so much displaced the material, but incorpor- studies now. However, Latham is not a cultural ated it. In Growth Fetish, Clive Hamilton argues studies academic, he’s the new federal leader of that ‘questions of identity, social structure and the Australian Labor Party, and, at a time when political orientation are now determined more the traditional role for Labor, pointing the way by consumption activities than by production to Chifley’s ‘light on the hill’, is just not work- and employment’.2 This is in striking contrast ing for the electorate anymore, it’s crucial that to the forces determining identity formation such theories actually do get put into practice. throughout most of the twentieth century, For what’s at stake is, as Latham puts it, ‘the where the relationship between workers and core challenge of Information Age politics: are capital played the key role, resulting in the the shared bonds and responsibilities of a good Western subject identifying with others pri- society still possible? Is collectivism still pos- marily through membership of a work-related sible?’ (35) Answering his own question, Latham group, such as a trade, a profession, a union then puts forward in these speeches and papers and so. Now, Hamiliton argues, the individual

LINDSAY BARRETT—THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS 221 identifies primarily as a lone consumer, in com- increasingly the case, particularly in post- petition with all the other lone consumers in industrial countries such as Australia, that con- the insatiable quest for new, better and bigger sumption is no longer a method of simply purchases. Hamilton’s work has been quite attaining the good life, but the motor that keeps influential, and Lindsay Tanner draws on it our society literally working. As Latham ob- extensively in constructing his theory of con- serves, the ‘aspirationals’ are not going to go temporary alienation in Crowded Lives. away. (67) And this is where Labor’s problems really It’s difficult to draw definitive conclusions as begin. The Labor Party established itself rep- to where these transformations, which are liter- resenting predominantly male trade unionists. ally turning our social fabric inside out, will From the 1930s onwards it also began to rep- take us. But there’s no doubt, and it’s no sur- resent the educated middle-class professional, prise, that at the moment this reification of an alliance that found its full expression in the individualism is favouring the most un- in the 1970s. As Mark imaginative, selfish, mean-spirited and divisive Latham argues, one of Howard’s key preoccu- government Australia has ever had. But, it’s also pations has been the smashing of this alliance simply not the case that Howard has no oppo- that has sustained Labor’s successes over the sition. Both of these books, From the Suburbs past three decades. So far it has been a largely and Crowded Lives, are thoughtful, creative and successful campaign, though this has had as full of ideas. And another of history’s repetitions much to do with the cultural transformations is the fact that, in the last instance, ideas are outlined by Hamilton and Tanner as it has with powerful things. Howard’s abilities as a ruthless manipulator of —————————— electoral rhetoric. Labor, so the argument goes, designed to represent the material world of LINDSAY BARRETT is head of the BA Communi- work and unions, is increasingly finding itself cations program at the University of Western without a constituency as a significant section Sydney, and the author of The Prime Minister’s of the population mistakenly identify them- Christmas Card: Blue Poles and Cultural Politics in selves as members of the ruling class rather the Whitlam Era. than the ruled. This is an incisive argument, —————————— but it is also grounded to a degree in a modern- 1. Mark Latham, Civilising Global Capitalism, Allen and ist logic of false consciousness, which sees Unwin, Sydney, 1998; Lindsay Tanner, Open Aus- tralia, Pluto Press, Sydney, 1999. marketing and public relations as largely respon- 2. Clive Hamilton, Growth Fetish, Allen and Unwin, sible for the contemporary malaise. Another Sydney, 2003, p. 149. way of looking at this situation, though, is to acknowledge that, more than just a pastime or a method of spending disposable income, con- sumption is in fact the new work. For it is

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