It is frequently claimed that Australians live in one of the world’s best democracies. Yet in the last 30 years, we have seen a demise of power held by the people of Australia. The post war era in the West has focused on preserving and advocating for civil and political rights such as voting rights, freedom of assembly and expression. Yet, economic rights such as those relating to full and meaningful work (not labour), economic security and distribution have been eroded at best, and neglected at worst.
Economic rights are about access to resources and capabilities that promote security and dignity. They are not to be confused with private property rights nor as welfare to work strategies. The neglect of economic rights in the post war era has meant that the freedom of all Australians has been radically undermined. We now need to focus on economic rights as a means not just to restore democracy, but also as a way of fighting poverty, inequality and climate change.
Historically, the existence of the Australian state has been legitimised through the expectation that the state will provide security for its citizens. The state would provide ‘internal’ protection for its citizens through the realisation of civil and political rights. In addition, the state was to provide external protection from what ever was supposedly waiting outside our borders. For Australia, the years of World War I and II were the apex where through the discourse of global tyranny, the threat of penetration by the anarchic other, white Australia rallied under the shelter of the state. There has been resistance to and scepticism of this pact through Australia’s history for example, the Aboriginal justice movements, communism and union movements. Nonetheless, the rise of neoliberalism (or sometimes affectionately known in Australia as economic rationalism) has seen the pact between the state and its citizens decline at an unprecedented rate. We have seen the state acting not in the interests of its people, but instead in the interests of capital – not only further degrading economic rights, but also civil liberties fought hard for earlier in the 20th Century and well before.
To take a quick tour of the ‘state of affairs’ in today’s Australia, the 2014 Senate Report on Inequality …
