The Last Word

I don't know what to say about Beazley's resignation. He was, I think, disastrous for Labor because the public liked him but no one really wanted him in power. He's a politician who has disappointed me so often, not least because he seems to suffer from the lesson of Whitlam's defeat (don't let anyone know what you stand for because people won't vote for you) more than anyone in a party seriously afflicted by it. The result of that, of course, is that when it comes to last words, his are good. Good enough to make you curse him for not saying them earlier, all the more so because he seems not to employ spin doctors, or at least, not good ones, so he doesn't say the diplomatic thing, he uses the opportunity to say the thing he wishes he'd said all along.

He set a couple of records straight, particularly about the inconsistency of the conservatives' record on financial management, which was just a joy for a True Believer like me. Today he also said "When you wish to assault democracy, first you attack the unions; when you wish to restore democracy, first you start with the unions." He talked about the ability of solidarity to break dictatorships both Left and Right. And further that 'One of the great things about politics is it extracts you from your natural selfishness; you cannot help it.'

This time, his last words mark the distance between old and new Australia, and old and new Labor. Not surprising, given his history with the party. His father was in Chifley's parliament and went on to be Whitlam's Minister for Education, in which role he put in place one of the most remarkable tertiary education systems in the world, for all that he was very much on the Right of the party. But its Chifley's conception of the party and of politics that marks Beazley jr. even now. For Beazley, Unionism isn't a means to the end of better working conditions; it is an end in itself. A trade union is the basic and most fundamental political unit, the means by which people participate in politics and exercise agency in their own lives and in the means of production (of their income).
I don't know if that's true anymore, and either way, Labor isn't the party of the Unions anymore. I am really sad that the Australia described in Kim Beazley's valedictory speech is passing.