Guy Rundle is a coordinating editor of Arena and author of Between the Last Oasis and the Next Mirage: Writings on Australia.
The 1975 “dismissal” of Australian Labor PM Gough Whitlam is often seen as a constitutional crisis initiated by an old British-led establishment. In reality, it was a bloodless analog of other US-orchestrated coups against reforming left governments.
Australia’s right-wing Liberal Party is in freefall, while Labor — now the party of capital — is set to retain its parliamentary majority. It’s a historic transformation, rooted in the demise of Australian 20th-century social liberalism.
Labor’s Anthony Albanese has been elected Australia’s prime minister just as the economy looks set to plunge into a recession. To avert the worst effects, he’ll need the audacity to transform production — which means taking on the right wing of his own party.
The 1975 “dismissal” of Gough Whitlam by the Queen’s representative, Sir John Kerr, is one of the defining moments in Australia’s modern history. It also forms part of a Cold War history that saw left-wing governments around the globe punished for daring to break with US hegemony.
Adem Somyurek was sacked from his position in the Australian Labor Party last week for alleged branch-stacking. It’s the latest indicator of how Labor has been emptied of all mass politics and become a forum for factional power brokers to vie for control of the creaking party machine.
3-D printing in its current form could be a return to “small is beautiful” drudgery, but it has the potential to do much more.
When Black Friday devours Thanksgiving, capitalism consumes one of its sustaining myths.