Abigail gave a speech in Parliament about the rising threats our democracy faces, and the urgent need to challenge the economic status quo. 

Abigail said:

There has been some considerable gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands on the progressive side of politics following the recent United States elections. Politicians and the media from across the political spectrum have offered their mostly opportunistic hot takes on lessons to be learnt, but as has become the norm, political parties more likely than not are going to twist the data into whatever form is required to justify their own pre-conceived views and current strategic trajectory. I say good luck to anyone in a political party yelling from the sidelines that the majority have got things horribly, tragically wrong. It is in that context, and in full awareness of the irony, that I offer my own views on the real lessons that can be learnt from elections around the world in recent months.

Although the numbers and trends are not as dire as the right‑wing and mainstream media would like people to believe—progress is never linear, after all—there is an urgent need for progressive parties to adjust their approach and policy platforms if they are to continue to garner majority support. What people are telling us, loudly and clearly, is that they are sick of politics as usual. They feel disconnected from the political and corporate class, and they feel like their concerns for their material circumstances are not only not being listened to but also are being actively belittled. They are sick of the economic status quo that has seen their living standards fall, while inequality stretches out in ways not seen since feudalism. That is the hard truth: People are doing it tough. Things are far harder now for each generation versus the one that came before. Gone are the days of expecting one could grow up to have a good job, buy a house, take a nice holiday once in a while or even be able to feed their family on a regular basis. And we wonder why increasing numbers of children are having mental health issues or turning to crime.

For many people in Australia and around the world, life has become unbearably grim. They are rightly, justifiably angry about it. For too long, they have been sold nice-sounding platforms by politicians that are just two sides of the same economic orthodoxy: a status quo and political class that claims to represent them but really represents a club of capital‑owning elites to which the astonishing majority will never belong. Capitalism is an economic system that is now eating itself from the bottom up, exactly as it is designed to. Without aggressive regulation, capitalism will continue to push wealth, opportunity and everything needed to live a good life away from poorer people and towards a shrinking upper class.

In Australia, there are more than 150 billionaires, almost two million millionaires and more than 3.3 million living in poverty, including more than one in six children. Poverty is not inevitable. It is the product of government decisions to back big business instead of to work to actively provide for the people it is elected to represent. That is not just making people poor, sad and sick; it is making them angry and in search of change. That change needs to be an end to business as usual—an end to the economic status quo. To challenge the rising fascist threat, we need to deliver real economic democracy by asserting the power of the many over the tiny few who run the economic system under which we are all struggling.

Read the full transcript in Hansard here.

13 November 2024