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Gillard thinks The Greens are different from Labor in two big ways. Firstly, they don’t believe in a strong economy. Secondly, they apparently don’t share the values of everyday Australians, like love of family or patriotism. It was a big call that many in the media rightly picked up on. In a different part of the speech she talked about Labor’s disdain for the “lifestyle of the socialite”.
These are conservative talking points, softened by only the barest sheen of a commitment to concepts like fairness. Attacking the Greens for their values is an unadorned gambit to differentiate Gillard and Labor from the cliché of the inner-city, latte-sipping progressive voter.
But there is a problem with this sort of rhetoric, and it’s not just the fact that many socialites happen to vote Labor. To begin with, it’s inherently divisive. By contrasting Green voters with the hard-working decent folk who vote Labor, Gillard is constructing a distasteful morality tale about good and bad people. Good people set their alarm clock early and love their nation and family. Bad people stay out late socialising and don’t believe in the dignity of work. It’s a flimsy argument that has little in common with the real world.
We are used to seeing this sort of demonisation of the idle poor and the trendy progressives from conservative politicians. And, in fact, many aspects of Gillard’s speeches appear to expound what are essentially conservative beliefs.
Two weeks after her Whitlam Institute effort, Gillard gave an address to a conservative think-tank – the Sydney Institute. It was entitled “The Dignity of Work” and much of it was devoted to her vision for welfare reform.
Gillard has self-described “high expectations” of welfare recipients:
I will fight the prejudice that says some people’s lot is drawing a fortnightly cheque, that we shouldn’t expect anything more of them and it doesn’t matter if they are forgotten by policy makers and the society around them.
The social and economic reality of our country is that there are people who can work who do not.
The subject of work – its benefits and its constraints, its necessities and exigencies – continues to be an important topic of academic research. Much recent research has focussed on the precarious nature of labour in the modern economy. In a society where a job is no longer for life, where a worker’s skills must be constantly updated to be of value, where technology destroys and creates occupations at a dizzying pace, and where footloose capital can quickly transfer large industries away to foreign countries, the topic of work is critically important.
And yet the Prime Minister seems more interested in moral opprobrium than the hard policy choices that will be required to make a dint in this problem.
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