“Perhaps the real task is to create a radical edge, to combine our enthusiasm for new Labor thinking with outsider values. If old and new Labor are to be reconciled, this is the best way forward.” Mark Latham
We’ve discussed Australian values for a long time in Webdiary, and the values of politics, and the fate of the left, where to go when left/right labels don’t work anymore, and the way ahead for our nation.
For example, see:
Defining your politics, webdiary
Decency, our way, webdiary
Acts of conscience, webdiary
Redrawing maps of home, webdiary
Of racism and globalisation, webdiary
It’s been a traumatic time, the last twelve months, for those of progressive bent. Whatever you think of Mark Latham, at least he’s thinking, and thinking hard. His 2002 Menzies lecture is meaty and, as usual, strains hard to create a new blueprint for Labor.
The Culture War
The 2002 Menzies Lecture, Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King’s College London, 17 September 2002
It is not often I quote John Howard but today I can. In an interview to mark his 63rd birthday two months ago, Howard said that, “Bob Menzies was in power for 16 years but people in the labour movement hated him the whole 16 years.” (1)
I grew up in one of those families. My earliest political memory is of my grandparents praising Jack Lang, while giving Menzies a fair serve of Australian slang. You will excuse me, therefore, if I skip over the usual practice of paying tribute to Menzies the man. My grandparents would turn in their graves. Rather, I want to talk about the importance of values and culture in public life and draw some lessons from the Menzies era.
Most politicians think of society in terms of material items: the distribution of income, the accumulation of assets, the payment of welfare monies. While no one can dispute the importance of these issues, they tend to overshadow the other great driver of electoral behaviour: political culture.
Society is not just a set of economic relationships. It is also a dense network of personal relationships, the human emotions and connections that give us a sense of social identity. When people share these experiences collectively, they also start to build a shared set of values and norms. This process often crosses economic and class boundaries.
Menzies was the first Australian politician to understand the importance of this social dimension and to harness it for electoral success. In the 1950s and 60s, he mirrored large parts of our public culture, sharing the values and identity of a democratic majority. In today’s language, it would be called wedge politics.
Menzies used the communist bogey to convey his values to the Australian electorate. In the face of a totalitarian threat, he was for individual freedom – democratic, religious and economic freedom. In practice, this issue split the Labor Party for a generation. It divided our working class constituencies in two: Catholics against socialists.
This was more than just an economic or ideological question. It went to the heart of how Australians felt about themselves and the state of society around them. Menzies gave his supporters a sense of belonging and a sense of security. During a time of great uncertainty, he looked at issues through the prism of popular values.
The parallels with Australian politics today are striking. John Howard won last year’s election campaigning on values: border protection, national security and social order. His refugee policy divided the Labor constituency, setting inner-city activists against the suburban working class. More campaigns of this kind are certain to follow. As one of our leading political commentators, Paul Kelly, wrote last month:
Howard is about proving that the Left’s social policies – from refugees and work-family to Aboriginal affairs – don’t work and aren’t wanted by the national majority. He is going to focus on social policy this term and set out to smash the post-Whitlam political alliance between the working class and the tertiary-educated Left that defines modern Labor. The refugee issue severed this alliance at the 2001 poll and Howard will follow up with new campaigns. He senses that the 30-year-old alliance of the Australian Left is collapsing. (2)
This is the political equivalent of a declaration of war, a culture war against the ALP. The last election was not a one-off. It was merely the first round in a new form of partisan debate. Australia has entered an era of post-material politics where increasingly, the electoral contest will be determined by social values.
This matches the experience of Left-of-Centre parties around the world. The Right’s ascendancy in continental Europe and North America has been based on social and cultural issues, such as illegal migration and street crime. In many respects, this is the blindside of globalisation.
For the past decade, the Left has been debating globalisation as an economic event when, in fact, its main political impact has been cultural. Issues such as the mass movement of people, the internationalisation of crime and the free flow of information and cultural products challenge our sense of social stability and belonging. In a world without borders and often without order, people are struggling to maintain the anchors of everyday life – family support, community pride and national identity.
This is the defining feature of a post-traditional society, where people lose control and certainty over their lives. It reflects the paradox of modernity: how society has become more prosperous yet people feel more powerless. Record rates of GDP have been matched by record rates of mental illness, youth suicide and social stress. The US Democrat, Tip O’Neill, famously declared that all politics is local. Increasingly, I get the feeling that all politics is cultural.
For parties of the Left, this is unfamiliar territory. Our political outlook reflects the legacy of class analysis, positioning all issues and debates on a spectrum of Left to Right. Questions of identity and culture are external to this framework. As a result, Left-of-Centre politics has focussed on the economic relationship between the state and society, rather than the social relationships between people.
With the end of the Cold War, the effectiveness of this approach has expired. In the new economy, the boundaries between capital and labour have blurred, especially with the rise of highly skilled knowledge workers. In Australia, for instance, there are now more shareowners (54 percent of the adult population) than full-time workers (43 percent). The politics of class struggle, the historic clash between capitalism and socialism, has been replaced by the politics of public culture.
For a century or more, Labor parties won the votes of working people on the basis of economic issues. Now we are losing them in the values debate. This is not because our values are wrong. Far from it, the ideals of a more cooperative and cohesive society have never been more relevant. Rather, we are applying our values to the wrong issues.
Left-of-Centre politics is yet to engage in the language and issues of the culture war. Whether it is May Day protestors trashing a McDonalds outlet or politicians complaining about the tax-transfer system, we are missing the main game. It’s social values, stupid.
Not surprisingly, parties of the Right, with their culture of conformity and punishment, have filled this gap. They are winning elections, not because their values are the right ones for society, but because they are more comfortable and experienced in this sort of debate. During a time of social anxiety, the conservative call for order has a certain appeal, at least for the short term. While it can never solve society’s problems, it offers people respite from the consequences of disorder.
The challenge for Labor Parties internationally is to engage in the values debate. If we are to win elections, we must be competitive in the culture war. In the remainder of this lecture, I want to draw on the Australian experience as a way of contributing to this process. We have some important lessons to offer, from both the Menzies and Howard periods.
Insiders and Outsiders
A starting point is to rethink the political spectrum, to move beyond notions of Left and Right. Social values are not organised along ideological lines. Rather, they relate to shared lifestyle experiences: our interaction with other people, the way in which we process information, our proximity to power and influence in society.
By this test, it is possible to identify two distinctive political cultures in Australia. The powerful centre of our society, concentrated in the international heart of the major cities, talks a different language to suburban communities. In lifestyle and political values, they are poles apart.
At the social centre, people tend to take a tourist’s view of the world. They travel extensively, eat-out and buy-in domestic help. The cultural challenges of globalisation are seen as an opportunity, a chance to develop further one’s identity and information skills.
This abstract lifestyle has produced an abstract style of politics. Symbolic and ideological campaigns are given top priority. This involves a particular methodology: adopting a predetermined position on issues and then looking for evidence to support this position.
In the suburbs, the value set is more pragmatic. People do not readily accept the need for cultural change or the demands of identity politics. They lack the power and resources to distance themselves from neighbourhood problems. This has given them a resident’s view of society. Questions of social responsibility and service delivery are all-important.
This is a world without symbolism and dogma. Its priorities are immediate, without the luxury of waiting for social theories to sort themselves out over time. People want to know what governments can do for them in a tangible and constructive way. They look at the evidence first and then make a judgement about the solution. What matters is what works.
I would argue that the political spectrum is best understood as a struggle between insiders and outsiders – the abstract values of the powerful centre versus the pragmatic beliefs of those who feel disenfranchised by social change. This is a different framework to class-based politics. Rather than drawing their identity from the economic system, people see their place in society as a reflection of their access to information and public influence.
The insiders/outsiders divide has become a reliable guide to electoral behaviour. In recent Australian elections, politicians who are perceived as insiders, such as Jeff Kennett, have been defeated. Leaders who campaign against ‘the system’, such as Peter Beattie, have been surprisingly successful.
These changes are recasting the electoral map. The key seats are now located well beyond the CBD, on the urban fringe and regional hinterland. In the 1999 Republic referendum, for instance, the further one moved away from the centre of the capital cities, the higher the proportion of No votes. The outsiders were unwilling to support an ‘insiders’ Republic, one in which the politicians would have elected the President.
The political skill of the Howard Government lies in its ability to appeal to outsiders, even though the government itself is part of the ruling elite. At first glance, of course, this is the politics of paradox. How can an insider win the support of outsiders? The answer is quite simple. Howard’s strategy is to demonise and campaign against a different group of political insiders, those associated with the rise of progressive politics over the past 30 years. This is how he won the 1996 and 2001 elections.
This is an important point to understand. In modern politics, the insiders are not a homogenous group. For most of last century, the political establishment was associated with the conservative side – the old money interests, Right-wing think tanks, Tory MPs and their allies in the commercial media.
In the 1970s, however, a new group of influential people emerged in society. The policy advances of the Left – such as the expansion of higher education, public broadcasting and other cultural programs – produced a new generation of insiders. This was the progressive establishment, led by academics, artists and other cultural producers. (3)
Herein lay the origins of the culture war. Not surprisingly, the old establishment resented the emergence of a new insiders group, one that challenged its political power. The two groups have been fighting ever since. While they comprise different personnel and subscribe to different ideologies, their methods are remarkably similar.
Each group uses a series of labels and symbolic debates to undermine the other’s legitimacy. The new establishment is demonised as the chattering classes, chardonnay socialists and latte Left. The old establishment is disparaged as the big end of town, greedy capitalists and more recently, economic rationalists.
Both sides also practice a form of political correctness, aimed at restricting their opponent’s agenda. The progressive establishment is critical of people who openly discuss questions of race, culture and identity politics. The conservative establishment is hostile to anyone who questions the ethics and credibility of its members. (4) The combined impact is to foster conformity and predictability in the public debate.
Due to its dominance in the commercial media, the old establishment has been more successful in stereotyping its opponents. The chattering classes are now widely regarded as out-of-touch, more interested in political symbols than substance. It is important to recognise, however, that the conservatives also practice a form of transit-lounge politics. Their attachment to issues is abstract and dogmatic.
For instance, Australia’s leading conservative think tank is the Centre for Independent Studies. Even though its members have no first-hand experience with poverty or welfare recipients, it aggressively pursues a radical program of welfare reform. Several years ago the CIS organised a mini-bus tour of the public housing estates in my electorate. This is the Tory view of the world: poverty tourism from a bus window.
Likewise, none of the Howard Government’s Cabinet Ministers represent struggling suburban areas. Two years ago, when one of them visited the estates in my electorate, he said, “I didn’t know places like this existed”. This is a defining characteristic of the conservative establishment. For the purposes of the culture war, it purports to hold suburban values. Yet its members are unwilling to live or work in the suburbs themselves. It is another abstract ideology in search of substance.
This is why the Tories practice a negative brand of politics: defining themselves, not by the ideas they support, but by the people they oppose. This usually involves erecting straw men, solely for the purpose of knocking them down. If the Howard Government did not have the United Nations, NGOs, civil libertarians and various artists and academics to campaign against, its political life would be empty. It has made a virtue of demonising its weakest opponents, the so-called progressive elites.
I am reminded of the story of the Spanish town of El Borge. The local Council devised a plebiscite in which the voters had just two choices. The townsfolk were asked to declare a preference for ‘neo-liberalism’ or ‘humanity’. Not surprisingly, the latter won. (5)
So too, the Howard Government has reduced Australian elections to two choices: are people for or against the progressive establishment. Within this limited framework, the Tories cannot lose. They are able to appeal to the outsiders by provoking conflict and debates against a group of political insiders. Howard uses issues such as refugees and reconciliation as a proxy for his side of the culture war.
The challenge for the ALP is to create a third choice in Australian politics, to move beyond the struggle between political insiders: the old establishment versus the new. Traditionally, the Labor movement has defined itself as a group of economic outsiders, defending the interests of workers against the tyranny of capital. With the blurring boundaries of the new economy, however, this approach has lost its potency. In many cases, the workers have become the owners of capital.
As a political movement, our values and instincts are still sound: defending the underdog, fighting for unfashionable causes, protecting the less privileged. The challenge is to project these values beyond the economic debate and into the sphere of public culture. In short, we need to be a party of outsiders, opposed to establishment politics in all its forms.
Wherever power and privilege are concentrated in society – whether in the boardrooms of big business, the pretensions of big media, the political manipulation of big churches or the arrogance of big bureaucracies – we need to be anti-establishment. The outsiders want us to shake the tree, to take on the system on their behalf. They want us to break down the powerful centre of society and disperse influence and opportunity as widely as possible.
This is the logical consequence of a better educated and informed electorate. People want a bigger say in the decision-making process, to take control of lifestyle issues. They are not prepared to be left on the outside, as the change agents of globalisation swirl around them. Across society, institutions that tell people what to do are losing support. This is true of all forms of hierarchy, whether expressed through government agencies, political parties or media elites. We have entered an era of institutional rebellion.
Notionally this trend should suit parties of the Left, with their reputation for protest and reform. History tells us, however, that this is not always the case. In an early analysis of Australian Labor (written in 1923) Vere Gordon Childe chronicled the way in which our members of parliament were duchessed and compromised by the political establishment. (6) Goodness knows what he would have thought of the corporatist excesses of the 1980s. Old parties need to guard against this tendency, their socialisation into the power-elite.
Today, at a time when Labor’s identity and legitimacy are being questioned, the quality of our personnel is not a problem. Our MPs are the products of public housing estates, country towns and working class families. We entered politics for the right reasons: growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, determined to fight the system. Our task is to turn these instincts into a political program suited to the culture war. When people ask what Labor stands for, I believe the answer is straightforward: we are anti-establishment, Australia’s natural party of outsiders.
In recent times, social democracy has tried to create a new radical centre – a third way beyond Left and Right. While this project has delivered some significant policy gains, it has also alienated a number of traditional Labor supporters. Perhaps the real task is to create a radical edge, to combine our enthusiasm for new Labor thinking with outsider values. If old and new Labor are to be reconciled, this is the best way forward.
New Solutions
A change in political technique is also required. Last century, parties of the Left embraced the politics of bigness. It was thought that large, centralised institutions were needed to stand between the public and the prospect of market failure. Our side of politics became synonymous with big government departments, big trade unions and big protest groups. In Australia we even called our policies ‘the big picture’.
The culture war, however, is being fought on a more modest scale. We live in an era of public cynicism about organised politics, a time when many voters have given up on the problem-solving capacity of government. The big picture issues simply wash over people, lost in the public’s distrust of politicians. In this environment of low expectations, the electorate is looking for a sense of shared values: that our leaders feel the same way as we do, that they share our concerns and aspirations. In short, that they share our culture.
Social democratic ideas and values still matter. But to shift public opinion they must impact on people’s lives. They must be evidence-based and pragmatic, forged on the anvil of personal experience. For the outsiders, bite-sized changes are more desirable (and certainly more believable) than big-bang social theories.
Most people do not live their lives in neat ideological boxes. They leave that to the insiders. This is why the Left needs to personalise its politics. Being more compassionate and tolerant than the Tories does not necessarily win us support. We need to show how these ideals can lead to tangible improvements for people. Our commitment should not be defined in terms of ideology or dogma. It should be to good schools, to good health care and to the other elements of a good society.
This is an important part of the culture war. The struggle between political insiders is self-serving and superficial. It ignores the interests of the great majority of Australians who feel marginalised by both the conservative establishment and the progressive establishment. Suburban Australia has nothing to gain from this debate. While the politically correct and incorrect berate each other in the media, the bread and butter issues are overlooked. Political symbolism can never improve the basic services or cohesiveness of our community.
The outsiders are hungry for new solutions, the small nuggets of social progress. They have lost faith, however, in the ability of government to deliver them. This is particularly true of the problems of social insecurity: poverty, crime and disorder. As they have given up on the state, the working class has turned inwards, too often towards the other side of politics. In part, this explains the rise of the ultra-nationalist movement.
If Left-of-Centre parties are to succeed electorally, we must confront this problem. We need to show people that politics still matters, that governments can still find solutions. An anti-establishment stance, while essential, is not enough. We need to rebuild the public’s belief in the problem-solving power of the state.
This is where the values debate is crucial. Without the right kind of values, the electorate will simply ignore our policy positions. Social values are the key to gaining a political audience. In the time left to me, I want to talk about these beliefs, the value-laden arguments Labor needs to advance in the culture war. I put them under four headings: responsibility, opportunity, community and democracy.
1.Responsibility
In Australian politics we have an interesting tradition. When a party wins an election against the weight of media expectations, the commentators subsequently correct themselves and portray that party as invincible. After the 1993 election, for instance, it was widely assumed that Australia had become a nation of Keatingites. So too, after the 2001 election, the conventional wisdom is that suburban Australia had been recast in the image of John Howard.
The truth, of course, is more complex. Howard does not have an open mandate “to smash the post-Whitlam political alliance”. In most respects, the progressive consensus in Australia is holding up remarkably well. Whether people live in the inner-city or the outer suburbs, they want greater social investment in education and health. Likewise, they want a more sustainable urban environment, with less congestion and pollution. On social policy, even Tony Abbott has conceded there is little public support for winding back Australia’s abortion and divorce laws or reversing the many progressive gains achieved by women.
If Howard is to break the progressive consensus, he will target questions of race and responsibility. When they came together 12 months ago on the Tampa, they divided the nation. Since the election, the Government has used every opportunity to keep the asylum seeker issue alive. I would expect further campaigns on race and responsibility in the lead up to the next election, most notably on multiculturalism and Aboriginal welfare. This is where the culture war is most potent.
The challenge for Labor is to develop a progressive response, to apply our values and traditions to these policy debates. Clearly the ALP will not alter its stance on racial tolerance. This would be unconscionable. The key question, therefore, is one of social responsibility. Far from backing away from this issue, we should reclaim the responsibility agenda. It’s a great Labor tradition.
Our early leaders, such as Curtin and Chifley, had no time for indecency or irresponsibility. They knew that a strong society relies on a high level of solidarity and cohesion. They recognised that one of the pillars of social justice is the shared expectation that people are responsible for their own behaviour. (7) At a time of popular concern about issues such as terrorism, illegal migration and crime, these views remain valid today.
Too often, the political debate offers a false choice between order and freedom. In practice, a good society needs both. Creativity in the education system, for instance, requires an element of control in the classroom. Equally, entrepreneurship in the economy relies heavily on stable trading arrangements and property rights.
The conservative establishment is always preaching social order. The progressive establishment is obsessed with social freedom. Labor’s position is to advocate both: a society in which order and freedom can co-exist, bound together by the benefits of mutual responsibility.
In particular, the responsibility agenda needs to be extended to the corporate sector. As capital has gone global, people are increasingly concerned about its obligations to local jobs and local communities. If government is to demand responsibility from the weak, the same demand must also apply to the powerful. Unlike the Tories, Labor does not believe in means-testing responsibility. Rich people, poor people and everybody in between are obliged to assist each other and put something back into the community.
2. Opportunity
When the founding fathers drew up the Australian Constitution, they gave the conservative parties a significant advantage in national politics. The Australian Parliament has no specific constitutional power for education, health or the environment, the issues on which the electorate is most likely to trust the ALP. This is why State Labor has always been more successful than the Federal Party. Good policies for schools, hospitals and national parks, combined with a tough stance on law and order – this has become a winning formula for Labor in every State and Territory Parliament.
The challenge Federally is to turn education, health and the environment into national issues. This was the genius of Gough Whitlam’s program in the 1970s. He found new ways of campaigning on Labor’s strengths – creating new opportunities for people in higher education, schools funding, health insurance and urban policy. This approach moved the national agenda beyond the wedge politics of the Menzies era. It gave the true believers something to believe in, beyond the divisiveness of the Cold War.
This remains a vital lesson for the ALP. A political movement cannot afford to stand still. It needs to mobilise its base, plus attract new supporters. It needs new campaigns and new ideas. Just as Whitlam turned education, health and cities into issues of national significance, we need to do the same today. Nothing beats a Labor campaign for opportunity, developing the services and skills of a good society. I am confident this will be achieved in the current review of Federal policy.
3. Community
We also need to recognise the growing importance of localism. During a time of constant change and uncertainty, most people glaze over at the thought of complex macro-politics. Their primary interests are at a neighbourhood level: the tangible things they can touch and influence, such as improving local schools, parks and public safety.
In the era of globalisation, the politics of community matters more, not less. It is in this local realm that people first learn the habits of trust and co-operation. Globalisation is calling on each of us to trust in strangers, to understand the needs of people we have never met and are never likely to meet. This is why the inner core of society is so important. Australians are not likely to trust in strangers, such as asylum seekers and the Third World poor, if they don’t even know the names of their next door neighbours.
A solution lies in communitarianism: governments facilitating the rules of community engagement, acting as brokers in the relationships and connections between people. This is a key strategy for combating individualism and rebuilding social solidarity. Ultimately, the choice between government bureaucracies and market forces is flawed. It neglects the space in the middle where people come together in voluntary action. It ignores the mutual interests and associations that make up civil society.
The new role for government is to create the space and opportunities within which neighbourhood politics can thrive. Communities should not be campaigning for better services. They should be running them. When we talk about the public sector we should talk about community schools, civic education, local housing associations and community banks, not just government departments.
Answers are available for Left-of-Centre politics. If we are to create a better society, it must come from the inside out. It must be based on a solid, inner core of social capital. The objective is to create a new kind of solidarity, one that crosses economic and class boundaries, one that goes beyond personal identities and prejudices. Etzioni calls it a “community of communities”. (8)
This is also an effective strategy for dispersing political power. Without strong communities and grassroots action, it is relatively easy for a small number of people to control and manipulate our system of government. For democracy to succeed it must be deep and dispersed. Community action is the natural ally of the outsiders.
4. Democracy
It is not possible for the ALP to be anti-establishment if power is heavily concentrated and entrenched within our own ranks. To be a party of outsiders we must, first and foremost, be a party of democracy, encouraging a broad base of participation. Organisational reform is usually thought of as an internal process. Its main political impact, however, is external. It is one of the basic tests voters use to assess our credentials for government.
This is why the current process of Labor modernisation is so significant. It is 35 years since the Party last reformed its rules and structure. In that time, power has moved upwards, concentrated in the hands of the few, not the many. The factions have become more rigid and influential. Our conferences have become more stage managed and predictable. The purpose of modernisation is to flatten the pyramid of power and re-enfranchise our members.
It is not possible to broaden our base without making ALP membership more attractive. People are not interested in going to political meetings unless they have a direct say in the decision-making process. This is what it means to empower the outsiders, to take control and influence away from the centre and move it towards the fringe. An information-rich society demands a participation-rich politics.
In this respect, we can learn from our trade union colleagues. Recently a number of unions have recognised the need for a new organisational model, based on grassroots activism. Across the Labor movement – political and industrial – the decentralisation of power is no longer an optional extra. It is necessary for our survival.
Conclusion
Three centuries ago Frederick the Great said that, “it is pardonable to be defeated, but never to be surprised.” This adage, coined on the battlefields of Europe, is just as relevant to the political battle today. In the mid-1950s, Menzies surprised the Labor movement with his exploitation of the communist bogey. Last year we were surprised again, this time by Howard’s manipulation of the refugee issue. To be competitive in the culture war, we need to take away the element of surprise. We need to anticipate these issues and put our values and views upfront.
Generally, Left-of-Centre parties have been reluctant to revise and strengthen their foundations. Policies such as welfare, migration and multiculturalism belong to our side. We need to constantly update and explain our position, addressing points of public confusion and unease. Otherwise, the Tories will exploit these issues for political gain. For Labor, silence is never a solution.
We also need to apply our values to the other side’s issues. We need to cross-over and solve the problems of crime, people trafficking and national security. In large part, this explains Tony Blair’s success. He is that rare breed in public life: a social democrat comfortable with the values debate. Someone who is willing to share the language and emotion of the electorate and tackle issues not normally associated with our side of politics.
As a movement, our values are strong: responsibility from all, opportunity for all, community with all, democracy by all. These are the values of a just society in a globalised world. We should never be afraid to advance them, no matter the issues involved. Last century, when we applied them to the economic debate, we created the welfare state – the great civilising achievement of Western government.
The challenge this century is to apply our values to cultural issues: to the relationship between people, to questions of identity and security, to the blindside of globalisation. The culture war is there to be won. It is just waiting for the Labor movement to mobilise.
Notes
1. Interview with Paul Kelly in The Weekend Australian, 27 July 2002, page 22.
2. Paul Kelly, “The road less fellow travelled”, The Australian, 7 August 2002, page 11.
3. Guy Rundle has provided a detailed definition and analysis of this group in “The mysterious left”, The Adelaide Review, June 2002, page 8.
4. See Mark Latham, “The new political correctness”, The Age, 29 August 2002, page 13.
5. See Mario Vargas Llosa, “Global Village or Global Pillage? Why we must create a universal culture of liberty”, Reason, July 2001; also “Village Voice”, Financial Times, 15 November 1996.
6. Vere Gordon Childe, How Labour Governs, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1923. Childe (1892-1957) served as Private Secretary to the NSW Labor Leader, John Storey (1919-1921). Disillusioned with the Labor movement, he left Australia to become one of the world’s leading archaeologists. In the renovated Reading Room of the British Museum he is listed among the Notable Holders of Readers’ Tickets, alongside other notables such as Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Orwell, Russell, Disraeli, Darwin, Dickens, Tennyson and Oscar Wilde.
7. See David Day’s biographies: John Curtin a Life, Harper Collins, Sydney, 1999 and Chifley, Harper Collins, Sydney, 2001.
8. Amitai Etzioni, The New Golden Rule, Basic Books, New York, 1996.
*BLOWN MEASURE*——————————-
=