Labor's Class Act Just Another Marketing Stunt
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday November 24, 2004
Mark Latham says he doesn't want the ALP to become a "niche party, a loose collection of interest groups" ("It's time to muscle up - the new Labor", Herald, November 23). In the next breath he says he has to attract votes from the "new middle class". Isn't that yet another interest group?
I am tired of politicians defining and buying off one particular group of people. I am waiting for the party that views the community as a whole. Good health and education policy, with access based on need, appeals to everyone. So does good economic and tax policy.Why should age be a criterion for how much someone pays for health insurance, or in tax? Surely need is a better basis.Kay Kan,Cheltenham, November 23.Your report doesn't mention what Labor stands for or what it would do to secure our future from the dangers of soaring debt, rising oil prices, climate change, global terrorism and the like. What is the sense in Labor working on its marketing without first checking the quality of the product it is trying to sell?Ian Bowie,Bowral, November 23.A recommendation for the Labor caucus: get rid of Mark Latham. Intelligence and political savvy can go with civilised behaviour (see John Faulkner).Zehra George,Oyster Bay, November 23.It is being suggested that Labor needs to appeal more to higher-income Australians to win government. However, if two-thirds of the low-income population support Labor, it has half the vote.Last election, the ALP lost lower- and middle-income seats while gaining higher-income ones. Overall, it went backwards. Labor now only holds about a quarter of lower-income electorates - a dreadful result. This contrasts with approximately 40 per cent of higher-income seats and 55 per cent of middle-income seats. Also, there are more lower-income than higher-income seats among marginal Coalition electorates.Labor should be philosophically committed to giving priority to advancing the interests of lower- to middle-income Australians; and the economic agenda Mark Latham should be working on is one which will primarily benefit this group. If Mr Latham won't do this, caucus should be working on finding a replacement leader who will.Brent Howard,Rydalmere, November 23.According to your story, "Labor plans to look at advertising tactics used in the US and Britain, new polling methods, and the latest techniques to attract voters in marginal seats". Seems to me like more of the same old same old. And why look to the US and Britain? How about some original ideas of its own?And how about "new" Labor looking to itself, getting its act together, getting rid of the factional infighting and branch stacking and - horrors - formulating some real policies.Some of us then might think about coming back.Robyn Sauer,New York, November 23."New Labor". What's new?John Lazoglou,Stanmore, November 23.In a haunting juxtaposition of social commentaries, Gerard Henderson ("Labor's feted third way was a road to nowhere", Herald, November 23) cheerfully opines that "social-values issues" policies are a road to nowhere, while Simon Castles ("So many souls drowning in the cult of the individual", Herald, November 23) wonders whether the Keating-Howard era's absorption in economic management is part of the explanation for the disproportionate rate of suicides among generation X. In an age where, it would seem, as long as the economy is prudently managed, reconciliation may be scorned, asylum-seekers demonised and integrity in government deemed a peripheral concern, Jesus' penetrating question might equally be asked of nations as of individuals: "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"Rev Dr Stephen Reid,Cherrybrook, November 23.
© 2004 Sydney Morning Herald