Ruling class relaxes: parliament set to function again

Nick G.

The ruling class has a new federal government to carry out its wishes.

With counting still taking place in seven seats, Labor leader Shorten has conceded defeat, allowing Coalition leader Turnbull to declare victory in the 2016 election.

Turnbull led the Coalition to the brink of defeat, proving that US presidential-style personality politics have yet to completely mesmerise the Australian people.

Neither Turnbull’s smarmy affability, nor Shorten’s gormless vacuity, could deliver the Coalition the landslide vote it sought.

And despite Turnbull’s strategy of using a double dissolution and changing the rules around Senate voting he was unable to reduce the presence of minor parties in the upper house.

Shorten pledges his loyalty to capitalism

Far from pledging to lead the people against every reactionary measure on the Coalition platform, Shorten used his concession speech to pledge his loyalty to the interests of the ruling class, offering to work with Mr Turnbull to find "common ground" and make the parliament work. 

The question “Work for whom?” was not on his agenda, and its absence immediately signalled to the ruling class that they would have no cause for alarm.

Having served its purpose, the parliamentary circus can now pull down its tent and leave town for a further three years.

Ticket sales were down and a substantial part of its former audience have gone to new entertainers. It remains to be seen what their performance will really consist of: early indications are that even clowns dressed in racist costumes may have some role to play in frustrating part of Turnbull’s agenda. They have yet to declare that they intend to “find common ground” with the Coalition.

Build the revolutionary movement armed with class analysis

In a new publication, Parliament and Elections – a superficial democracy, the CPA (M-L) steps away from the particular personalities and politics of this year’s election and restates some fundamentals of bourgeois democracy.

In an introduction, we state that “…it is our view that Australia’s parliament administers and protects the exploitative and corrupt economic system of capitalism, and that real democracy will grow out of a grass roots movement with an independent working class agenda based on the needs of working people.”

We recommend this small publication, available as a download from our website, as an antidote to the endless reams of rubbish written in the Murdoch and Fairfax press, and spoken on the radio and television of the monopoly media.

We must continue to build a revolutionary movement that can build people’s confidence in actual mass struggle for anti-imperialist independence and socialism in Australia.