Contributed by Joe Montero

Labor has won the ACT election, although its share of the vote fell by 3.3 percent. This is a substantial fall. This is a good outcome. The reason for saying this will be explained in a little while. This would once have meant that the Liberals must romp into government. This is no longer the case. The changing political climate means that they only gained 1.1 percent of the vote.

The Greens lost a little of their share of the vote. Perhaps this was that they were part of the outgoing Labor led coalition. By gaining a 5 percent swing towards them, the independents proved to be the real winners.

It looks like there will be a new Labor minority led coalition with the Greens and perhaps including the independents.

Nevertheless, there I no way of getting around the reality that Labor is in national decline, and so are the Liberals. Recent election results and those that pending in other parts of Australia, don’t tell the whole story of Australia’s political shift and what is bringing this about.

The recent Northern Territory election proved a Labor route, largely influenced by its dysfunctional image and an exceptionally low voter turnout, rather than a real rise of support for the Country Liberal Party. It won thanks to its falling into a vacuum created by a dysfunctional outgoing Northern Territory government. The elephant on the room is the rising cost-of-living and the failure to turn this, leading a core of issues, where there is a perceived sameness between Labor and the Liberals.

The coming Queensland election is shaping up to by another blow for Labor. Whether this is leading to another minority government, or a fall, is still uncertain. The prospects for the Greens and independents remain unknown for now.

The pattern proves that the major parties are continuing to lose their bases of support.

A new Labor led government in the ACT was the best outcome possible. Success by the Liberals would have been a retrograde step, increasing the chances for Australia to shift gear towards a rise of a party wedded to taking Australia down the path towards extreme neoliberal dead end and the loss of civil liberties.

Wanting the Liberals out doesn’t necessarily mean Labor at all costs, or Labor just to keep the other out. Truth is Labor has been a less extreme version of its parliamentary opponents and heading down the same general path. Instead of this, Australia needs a change in direction. The challenge is that this is conditioned by the existing reality that there is resent no third force with the capacity to bring this about.

This means that the only way forward is to start building an alliance of progressive forces that can eventually step in to make all the difference. One leg is the rise of Labor led minority governments federally and, in the states and territories. The other is working for the rise of a new political movement that will recruit thousands into building an alternative political space for an Australian version of truly democratic expression and people power, built around a shared vision of where Australia should be heading to.

This strategy can only succeed if it is accompanied by a united effort to build a new broadly based community movement for change, organised sufficiently to strike deep roots among the people, and becoming the catalyst for people’s power. How this is achieved is complex process.