Shaun Wilson

When Labour Makes a Difference: Union Mobilization and the 2007 Federal Election in Australia

In advanced democracies, unions influence industrial relations through collective action and law. They also maintain influence in politics through their alliances with labour parties. But the weakness of some labour movements, most apparent in falling membership, raises questions about their capacity to shape future industrial relations policy, reach voters and maintain their party alliances. Drawing on literature in industrial relations and political sociology, this article provides a framework for understanding how the Australian union movement successfully campaigned against the conservative Howard governments labour laws called WorkChoices. We characterize the union movements campaign — Your Rights at Work — as a form of political organizing that responded to both shifting state strategy and the limits of traditional defences constituted by industrial action, legal protection and reliance on the Labor Party. Political mobilizations produce different kinds of impacts. Given that the campaign relied on a sophisticated electoral strategy, we analyse Australian Election Study (AES) 2007 data to assess its impact on voters and on activism. We find that the campaign increased the salience of industrial relations to voters, that union activism jumped in the lead‐up to the election, and that unionized voters voted against the government in record numbers. While this article primarily assesses electoral impact, we offer brief perspective on the movements impact on policy and politics in the conclusion.

Wedge Politics and Welfare Reform in Australia

The election of the Howard Government has marked a paradigm shift in welfare policy with the implementation of far reaching reforms around the concept of mutual obligation. At the same time, there has been media speculation about the Governments use of ‘wedge politics’ to sustain its political agenda with respect to welfare and other policies. Wedge politics, however, is yet to receive detailed analysis in Australian political science. We define wedge politics to be a calculated political tactic aimed at using divisive social issues to gain political support, weaken opponents and strengthen control over the political agenda. The purpose of this paper is thus twofold: to develop a definition of wedge politics and to investigate how the Howard Governments welfare reform agenda might be understood as an example of such politics, drawing out its longer-term implications.

Precarious work: Economic, sociological and political perspectives:

This article brings together labour relations, sociological and political perspectives on precarious employment in Australia, identifying local contexts of insecurity and setting them within the economics of regional supply chains involving the use of migrant labour. In developing the concept of precarious work-societies, it argues that precarity is a source of individual and social vulnerability and distress, affecting family, housing and communal security. The concept of depoliticisation is used to describe the processes of displacement, whereby the social consequences of precarious work come to be seen as beyond the reach of agency. Using evidence from social attitudes surveys, we explore links between the resulting sense of political marginalisation and hostility to immigrants. Re-politicisation strategies will need to lay bare the common basis of shared experiences of insecurity and explore ways of integrating precarious workers into new community and global alliances.

The Limits of Low-Tax Social Democracy? Welfare, Tax and Fiscal Dilemmas for Labor in Government

The Australian Labor Party, following its election to government in 2007, has implemented an ambitious social policy agenda with spending on hospitals, pensions and community workers, as well as programs for parental leave and disability. It has also reformed taxes, in part to finance these reforms, implementing the mining and carbon taxes in 2012. Labor, however, has difficulty avoiding deficits because tax revenues are too low to finance expanded welfare. This article explores the political constraints and opportunities involved in financing welfare by examining voter responses to the ANU Poll of September 2011. Spending on welfare is supported by low-income earners, while taxing big industries finds greater support among university-educated voters. The article advances an explanation for this mismatch and for why tax resistance has hindered Labors efforts to finance welfare expansion. 澳大利亚工党在2007年选举上台后实施了雄心勃勃的社会政策计划，涉及医院、养老金、社区工作人员、带薪育婴假、残疾人等项开支。它还在2012年改革了税收，推行采矿及碳排放税为上述改革筹集资金。不过，工党苦于避免赤字，因为税收太少，资助不了扩大的福利。本文分析了选民对2011年9月ANU民调的回应，探讨了资助福利之举的限制与机遇。低收入者支持福利开支，受过高等教育者则多支持向大企业征税。本文解释了这种矛盾，以及为什反税收阻碍了工党资助福利扩张的努力。

Struggling on the Newstart unemployment benefit in Australia: The experience of a neoliberal form of employment assistance

The low level of the Newstart (unemployment benefit) payment has become a major source of concern about Australia’s willingness and ability to protect unemployed Australians from poverty. Despite this disquiet, there has been little scholarly examination of the implications of living on Newstart. In this article, through the use of a survey and in-depth interviews, we examine features of everyday life for Newstart recipients in the Sydney area, experiences that reveal the scarring potential of low benefits. The article illustrates that for a majority of interview participants, the most basic items were difficult to purchase and many of the interviewees were living in inadequate and even unsafe situations owing to an inability to afford satisfactory accommodation. For some, their lack of disposable income had severe health implications. Social isolation was a common phenomenon, and many of the interviewees found that the low payment made finding employment a lot more challenging.

Central bank independence : a social economic and democratic critique

The advent of quantitative easing by the world’s major central banks invites renewed questions about the meaning and role of central bank independence in an age of economic crisis. This article draws together insights from economic sociology, history and democratic theory to engage in further discussion about the proper role of central banks in democratic society. We stress some related themes. Our brief history of central banks aims to show how these banks have always been embedded in economic and political coalitions and conflicts, therefore qualifying the term independence; our study also aims to show that in satisficing between conflicting tasks, central banks need to maintain a balance between cognitive competences and normative expectations. Independence is better understood as a form of dependence on the coalition of interests that supported the financial climate prevailing before the global crisis of 2008, one of low wage-price inflation, high borrowing and debt, and loss of prudential control. We argue that independence amounts to a form of re-privatisation of central banks, and that they are increasingly suborned to the pressures of financial markets. At the same time, asset price inflation has sacrificed growth and employment and therefore prolongs the crisis. The economic measures now demanded by the financial crisis prompt new doubts about the independent central bank experiment, potentially in favour of the ex ante model of governmental oversight of central banks.

Australian Social Attitudes 2: Citizenship, Work and Aspirations

Across 13 chapters, the book develops an in-depth and accessible understanding of how Australia is responding to new realities in work, globalisation, industrial relations reform, retirement, citizenship, political trust and family and community life. ASA2 draws on the latest research and analysis of some of Australia’s leading social scientists to challenge conventional wisdoms about Australia, and assesses the impact of John Howard’s decade in office. It also shows how contemporary Australian social behaviour and attitudes vary from those held in previous years and decades and how they compare with other citizens from other countries with respect to citizenship, trust and political involvement. Based on data from the the second Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA) fielded in August 2005. Sequel to: Australian social attitudes : the first report.

Not my taxes! Explaining tax resistance and its implications for Australia's welfare state

In discussing Australias need to increase taxes to pay for future social security, Michael Keating worries that voters see taxes as a ‘burden’ and that ‘the link between taxation and citizenship has been broken’. This paper deals with the problem of tax resistance (preferring lower taxes even when tax cuts risk public services) for Australias welfare state. First, I describe how two Australian fiscal institutions—a residual welfare system and visible income taxes—promote tax resistance among voters. Second, I draw on these insights to develop several explanations for tax resistance: voter self-interest, voter hostility to minorities, voter disengagement (low trust and lack of interest in politics), and individualistic attitudes. The main conclusion is that tax resistance in Australia is institutionalised, making it easier to mobilise interests around low taxes, and harder to advocate for alternatives. Results of multivariate analysis using AES 2004 data indicate that an ‘anti-tax coalition’ can build on three diverse publics; one of higher and middle-income earners attuned to self-interest, another hostile to welfare beneficiaries, and another ‘tuned out’ of politics and willing to support any call for tax cuts. Inevitably, the debate about the welfare state is shadowed by a debate about voter willingness to pay taxes that finance it.

The Two Faces of Economic Insecurity: Reply to Goot and Watson on One Nation

Goot and Watson’s article on One Nation 1 represents a considerable advance on other studies of One Nation, its electoral support and its social foundations. They correctly identify the importance of conservative social attitudes amongst One Nation supporters. However, we take issue with the strong conclusion reached by the authors, which more or less rejects the argument that One Nation has emerged out of the growing economic insecurity of its supporters.2 We do not agree that this conclusion is either the unambiguous finding of their own analysis or a conclusion that can be reached without considering a wider range of factors. Our criticisms fall into four areas:

Downward flexibility: Who is willing to take an inferior job?:

Most workers look forward to better jobs across their careers, but in an age of rising inequality and insecurity at work, some are willing to accept an inferior job in order to avoid joblessness. We use the Work Orientations III survey from the 2005 International Social Survey Programme to explore such ‘downward flexibility’ and develop several regression models specified for 19 OECD countries to test hypotheses and explore macro- and individual-level variations. Workers in liberal ‘labour market regimes’ are more tolerant of downward adaptations, in line with evidence that these regimes produce strongly institutionalized norms of flexibility. Tolerance of a worse job is also higher among those with weak labour market positions (low-income respondents, women and young people). Further macro-level analysis suggests that the ‘model’ country with the most downwardly flexible workers would be rich and unequal, with weak unions and low levels of social protection and industrial rights.