When the Great Barrier Reef of Australia wasn’t obviously dead – 10 to 15 years ago – there were fierce battles between various factions of Queensland (and global) business sectors over what needed to happen.
The mining industry, under scrutiny not just for the emissions from all the coal burnt but also the danger posed by the building of ports and the routes ships took, would brandish reports by “independent” (ha ha) economists showing that there were “x thousand jobs at stake” if efforts were made to do anything for the reef.
Other sectors – agriculture and especially tourism – would brandish THEIR reports, of “y thousand jobs”, where y was a bigger number than x, often by a factor of three or four..
Then the mining lot (and not just the companies – the unions too) would brandish their trump card – the mining jobs were REAL jobs, not namby-pamby being a tour guide or hotel receptionist. They were, how to put this… MEN’S jobs (1).
This came to mind just now (2) as I read the entertaining Bluesky feed of Dylan Difford.
Another thing about this – often ignored – is that not just are Labour already losing a higher % of voters to LD/Grn than to Ref, but a much higher % of the potential Reform defectors have defected than potential LD/Grn defectors. Future pain is not going to come from Reform.
I suspect Morgan McSweeney, hating all the “softness” – as he sees it – to be found in the Corbyn view of the world, also has a bit of Blue Labour nonsense going on.
What does it all mean?
What’s going on? Well, just for once (and this is unusual, oh yes) I think the problems might be traceable back to both the patriarchy and the fragile fragile egos of those who have fought long and hard to achieve positions of control (to cope with their feelings of fragility).
I think what ties the two – Queensland jobs and Midlands votes – together is this. The people who work in air-conditioned offices, with spreadsheets and concepts, they feel like frauds. They don’t feel they’re doing “real” jobs. Of course, they also have contempt for the suckers and losers doing ‘real’ jobs, and are happy to see them underpaid and stripped of their rights and dignity. They don’t want to BE those people doing real jobs – god forbid – but they want to pretend that they are themselves respected by those doing Real Jobs (skilled manual labour as they see it). Because people doing Real Jobs are Authentic, not frauds…
Mining jobs are real (men’s jobs), to be applauded. Tourism and agriculture jobs, not so much. Reform voters to be loved, Libs and Greens not so much…
And this of course is before you even factor in the R word – race.
The problems we face – the problems that have been created by modern society (check out my reflexive modernisation video if you want)
aren’t amenable to simple and “manly” solutions. That doesn’t stop our “leaders” cos-playing that though. Our “leaders” are too thick, too obedient, too scared to even guess at the scale of the problems we face, let alone to propose any action to roll with the punches.
O temperature, o mores.
See also
Hudson, M. 2017. Wind beneath their contempt: Why Australian policymakers oppose solar and wind energy
Footnotes
- The broader question – of the mining jobs being slightly more secure (ish) was mostly elided.
- Because this is how my brain works. Dunno why; it is what it is.
marchudson.net 
Leave a comment