CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Research Online QUEENSLAND POLITICS Murray Broad The analysis produced by the broad left already mentioned implications of that and the CPA in Queensland presents that struggle for Australian politics, the state as being in the forefront of a vast, Queensland experience can be a useful meter national ruling class offensive. We regard of the effectiveness of left and communist Queensland as a testing ground for anti­ strategies. For example, there have been democratic assaults to which the rest of the many important experiences in the Australian bourgeoisie often looks for establishment of a broad alliance capable of guidance. meeting the ruling class offensive, and This view of Queensland as a pacesetter in campaigns such as civil liberties have a national campaign of reaction directly provided the acid test for working relations counterposes itself to the old notion that of different sections of the left. Queensland is a stagnant backwater, dragging its feet behind the rest of Australia. This article covers four broad areas: Such a naive assessment was accompanied 1. It briefly analyses the forces forging a by the idea that Queenslanders were restructuring of Australian capitalism; somehow innately different from other Australians. 2. It examines the historical development of the Queensland political conjuncture; However, the old jokes about Queensland have been quickly muted as recent actions by 3. It examines the way in which these same the Court and Fraser governments have forces for economic restructuring have strikingly paralleled the established pattern inflicted themselves upon that political of the Petersen government. conjuncture and explains (I hope) why Queensland has become a pacesetter for I would contend, therefore, that an the reactionary offensive; understanding of recent developments in Queensland politics ia vital to correctly 4. It looks at the actual state of political assess the emerging pattern of events across struggle over the last two years, the continent. particularly with regard to the civil liberties movement, and attempts to Moreover, because of the intense state of spell out the possibilities for struggle in struggle in Queensland and because of the 1980. - 2 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 74 XLMt A 5TW-NM£b coONTRi f\ L M t of TOURIST XZ5G6TS, o f Police attack trtc, srtieer WRcH£f&} OP SUOLLZN JAtL% & FLoet>et> COORTS^. Now this is a very complex task and necessarily my analysis is far from complete. In fact, the very pace, complexity and depth of struggle of Queensland politics over the last few years has blurred the senses of many who have tried to understand it. Yet there is a method to the madness of Queensland politics and to uncover it I shall first turn to a description of the basic forces shaping Australian economic and political life. (For many people this section will be “common knowledge” but I think the necessity to site Queensland in the overall context of Australian capitalism is obvious.) The Australian economy is situated in a well-integrated world market. The form of capital which has come to dominate this world market is crystallised in the multinational corporation. The Australian economy is heavily influenced by multinational corporations, largely based in America, Britain and Japan. (1) Over 50 per cent of all company profits are payable to foreign shareholders. This overall situation is having drastic effects on the Australian economy. The But Australia itself reflects a miniature development of a global market, not just in version of the world pattern. Out of 30,000 goods produced, but in labor itself, has put registered Australian companies, some 200 account for half the total production. Some of Australian workers in an extremely poor the largest maintain a mini-imperialism in bargaining position. Many labor-intensive the South East Asian area. Most of whatls sectors of Australian industry are being left after 55 per cent of profits goes overseas, transferred “off-shore” to low-wage goes to the 10 per cent of Australians who countries. own 60 per cent of our wealth and receive 92 During 1973-74, some 1.4 million people per cent of the income from that wealth. were employed in the Australian So it is not really the extent of manufacturing industry but today, this has “foreignness” that matters. It is the dropped to 1.17 million — a decrease of 16.5 monopoly position of the largest companies per cent in five years. This situation is which leads them to behave in an redressed in only three areas: economically common fashion, regardless of 1. Extractive industries. Multinational their country of origin. corporations have to take minerals QUEENSLAND POLITICS 3 where they are found and consequently the rate of exploitation of Australian labor, Australia is becoming a major world and for smaller, indigenous capitalists, this mineral exporter. is absolutely essential if they are to coexist 2, Some industries such as the building with their multinational competitors. industry are “ naturally protected” . For So, when Malcolm Fraser says that example, if a house has to be built for an Australian labor must become more Australian worker, labor must be competitive, he is not talking about lowering employed in Australia to build it. There wages a few per cent. To compete with the is also a building boom associated with workers of the world’s most brutal military the construction phase of mining dictatorships, Australian wages will have to projects. be cut 80-95 per cent. 3. Highly energy-intensive processes are But, in doing this, the conservative forces being shifted into Australia because of necessarily come up against the very our abundant cheap energy. For extensive and well organised (if somewhat example, a host of aluminium firms are conservative) system of Australian unions. planning, or have already commenced, If the Australian economy is to be to build new smelters in Australia. restructured in line with the needs of Apart from these areas, the future of international capital, then the whole employment in Australian (particularly structure of wages and living conditions manufacturing) industry looks exceedingly which has been won through more than 100 grim. years of struggle, must be broken down. A second major feature of today’s Hence, for the ruling class, the act of Australia is the impact of the restructuring the Australian economy must scientific/technological revolution which is take place concurrently with the destruction intimately tied up with multinational of the means by which working people can corporations. In fact, it was the development defend themBelves. It is at this level that we of modern tyransport and communications see the intimate connection between which made it possible for corporations to economic and industrial struggles and the organise their operations on a transnational struggle for democratic rights. For without scale in the first place. Now these same forces the democratic rights to organise in trade are being turned against Australian unions, to conduct strikes, to picket, rally, workers, resulting in the loss of further jobs march, leaflet, speak at public gatherings, and tighter control over those that remain. etc., the working class lacks its principal organisational means for fighting back. The important thing to realise is that the impact of multinational corporations and It is in this context of the present rapid their associated technology are rapidly intensification of the struggle between labor developing tendencies which show signs and capital that Queensland must be sited only of becoming stronger. The future we can because that struggle has reached its look forward to, 10 or 20 years hence, is one in greatest development in Queensland. which perhaps the majority of present Queensland has been the pacesetter for employment has been eliminated. attacks on trade unionism and democratic How do smaller Australian capitalists who rights. do not have the option of moving their Before I go on to examine the list of attacks operations “off-shore” respond to this state on democratic rights I’d like to look at some of affairs — those that have traditionally basic features of the Queensland political been the backbone of Liberal Party support? economy which show why these attacks Their only option is to stay put and try to occurred in Queensland first. become more competitive internationally by Australia has been dominated by reducing labor costs. That is, by sacking industrial capitalism since before the some workers and lowering the wages and depression, but in Queensland the conditions of those remaining. manufacturing sector was secondary to Hence, all major fractions of the ruling primary production up until 1966 when the class have a common interest in increasing Queensland government proudly proclaimed 4 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 74 that manufacturing production had passed government’s initiatives. And it also involved that of the primary sector. these governments in the characteristic contradiction of representing workers and During the 1960s, both the number and size maintaining a backward capitalist economy. of factories was increasing faster in Queensland relative to the rest of Australia. Because of the failure of strong This manufacturing growth was manufacturing development, a strong and accompanied by the “minerals boom” of the united industrial fraction of capital never late 1960s and 1970s. Queensland now is the emerged and a strong industrial working greatest export earner of all Australian class likewise never gained hegemony over states. In coal alone, $6,000 million worth the workers’ movement. Within this was mined between 1956 and 1978. Of this, stagnant economy, many conflicts between however, only $123 million was paid in unions and governments erupted. government royalties — a mere 2.2 per cent of the total value to mining companies. In the 1920s the railway and public service unions had to fight the state Arbitration This period also saw a concentration of Court for pay and conditions.