Vanguard September 2011 p. 2Ned K.
South Australia will see the end of Premier Mike Rann (centre)on 20 October this year when he steps down as leader of the state ALP to be replaced by Jay Weatherill (left of picture)parliamentary leader of the left faction of the ALP.
For people in other parts of Australia, let alone other parts of the world, this may appear to be an insignificant event.
However Rann’s removal from the position of Premier, the rebellion of working class youth in the UK in August 2011 and the mass movements against governments in countries like Spain are expressions of the working people’s struggle against neo liberalism, the political expression of imperialism.
In South Australia, neo liberalism has been practiced by the Rann ALP Government for many years, but in a particularly undisguised form in the last two or three years, starting with vicious cuts to injured workers’ workers compensation entitlements.
This was followed in the 2010 State Budget by cuts to public sector jobs and entitlements, as well as cuts and increased costs to public services.
On top of this came more privatisation with the sale of the State’s timber assets in the South East of South Australia. While these cuts were brashly announced, tax payers’ money was being used to subsidise a multinational corporation - run desalination plant.
Rann’s commitment to US imperialism’s war industries saw the ‘invasion’ of public school education by multinational defence industry companies like BAE and Raytheon.
South Australia’s future lies with BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mining expansion, people were told.
The severity of the neo liberal agenda of the Rann Government on behalf of big capital caused grave concern to thousands of workers in South Australia. 
They demonstrated their feelings on the streets of Adelaide and outside the ALP State Convention in 2010 (left).
Rann and Foley required police escorts to enter their own Convention as three thousand public sector workers condemned their attacks on services and conditions.
These demonstrations caused the resignation or sacking of Treasurer Foley from that position.
ALP backbenchers and even Ministers could see their parliamentary seats sailing in to the sunset at the next election in 2014.
ALP voters were demanding action from their local ALP MPs, some resigned from the ALP, some said they’d never vote ALP again and so on.
Within the trade union organisations, there was at first disbelief and then anger that an ALP government could stray so far from “true Labor Values”. Union leaders started talking about restoring the “labour” in “Labor” and that the only way to keep the “Labor brand” was to get rid of the Labor leaders, in particular Rann and Treasurer Foley.
Although SA Unions affiliates recognise that a change of leaders without a change of policies is no real victory, many of them cannot conceive that the solution is to look beyond the ideology of social democracy because they genuinely believe that capitalism with a human face (social democracy) is a just cause.
Even the right wing faction of the ALP could see the writing on the wall and that to keep their seats, Rann had to go.
So the right wing faction threw their lot in with their left wing rival and told Rann that it was time to go and that the left faction leader Jay Weatherill (above) would be the next ALP Premier –and soon!
Public opinion polls told both factions that Jay Weatherill was their only hope of avoiding a landslide victory for the Liberal Party at the next election.
Without the mass movement of public sector workers in particular against the worst aspects of the Rann government’s neo liberal policies, the planned internal ‘coup’ against Rann within the ALP would not have been possible.
No Wriggle Room For Social Democracy
The problem now for the new leadership team that will surround the new Premier Weatherill is that there is not much room to move. The global economic crisis of imperialism will be felt in South Australia like everywhere else.
Multinational corporations like BHP Billiton will threaten closure or stagnation of their ‘developments’. In particular they will demand that total labour costs which include workers compensation entitlements be kept low.
General Motors Holden will continue to demand government hand outs to maintain operations in the State.
Power companies will continue to raise prices of electricity.
The IMF will demand ‘small government’ continue, not to mention pressure to keep the AAA credit rating!
Needless to say, working people will continue to struggle against rising living costs.
SA Unions are promoting a Charter for workers’ struggle independent of the Labor government. (See www.saworkingpeople.com.au .)
The new Premier will have an opportunity to support mobilisation of the people to at least attempt to wind back the worst aspects of the policies of his predecessor Rann.
If not, his time as Premier will be short lived.
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