The Labor Party Quagmire

Recently I read a Michael Pearce piece in The Age enquiring about the future of the Australian Labor Party. His general thesis was that the ALP has surpassed its historical use by date. The old battles fought by traditional social democratic parties have run their race and economic liberalism sits comfortably as the agreed economic orthodoxy of our time. In essence, what Pearce is saying hits at the very heart of the Labor Party’s current problem, a crisis of identity spurning a search for relevancy in the 21^st century.

Labor’s traditional constituency, the working class, is no longer the downtrodden, union dominated sector of society waging class wars against unfair employers. At the turn of the century this ‘working class’ has become muddled with the aspirant middle class voters, the well-to-do suburban families comfortable with their everyday living and seeking greater incentive in an increasingly competitive world.

It can no longer rely on the guaranteed support of union members, nor can it honestly sell itself as the true ‘workers party’ that has been its traditional calling card. The Labor Party today appears a prosaic tool for political careerists to climb up to the upper echelons of high office.

Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott likewise, attracted much criticism during the 2010 election campaign for their heavy focus on trivial policies, stage management and personality airbrushing. Apart from the acrimonious debate about how best to deal with climate change, it seems both parties lack a clear ideological differentiation. Hence, voters are reduced to a choice between two parties that will essentially deliver similar ideals, albeit with different personalities to sell them.

However, the problem is not as bad for the Liberal Party as it is for Labor. As Pearce mentioned in his article, it’s the Labor party, since the 1980s that has abandoned its traditional social democratic principles. It was under the Hawke/Keating governments that the party pursued economic liberal policies in line with the trends of Reaganism in the United States and Thatcherism in the UK.

Floating the dollar, deregulating the market and cutting trade tariffs would’ve been anathema to the early ALP. Nonetheless, it’s a fair argument to say that its liberals who’ve won the economic debate. The Liberal Party’s values concerning the aspirant middle class, small government and individual incentive still have relevance in the 21^st century.

That the Labor Party openly endorses these values clearly points to a shift in political ideology that leaves it searching for a clear break from its key political rival. There are a number of factors that make this task difficult.

Firstly, its endorsement of liberal economics leaves the party with social policy as an area for differentiation. However the party knows that Australia’s conservative electorate is weary of vast social change without justification. One only has to look at the parties past leaders for evidence of this trepidation.

Bob Hawke and Paul Keating were both members of the Labor Right. Kim Beazley capitulated to John Howard’s wedge politics regarding asylum seekers, Kevin Rudd felt compelled to campaign as an ‘economic conservative’ while Julia Gillard shows very little evidence of a woman once part of a socialist forum during her university days. Put simply, for thirty years Labor has been led by economic and social conservatives.

Of course, there was the brief flirtation with the erratic Mark Latham. However his contentious policies concerning private school funding and social welfare left the party languishing post 2004 election.

It was Mark Latham who penned a similar critique of the Labor Party in The Monthly some time ago. Rather than predicting the demise of the party, as Pearce alludes to, Latham predicts that the party’s future, for better or worse, lies with the green movement.

The Greens present the Labor party with a greater challenge than even the Liberals. It’s the Greens eating into the Left vote, advocating strong action on climate change and championing social progression once the cornerstone of the social democratic ALP. It seems Latham is onto something.

The Greens growth has been steady since the early 2000s. More disenchanted lefties, particularly in the inner city, have grown disillusioned with Labor and shifted their support to Bob Brown’s brainchild. How Labor deals with this conundrum signals its future direction.

The early signs are there. Julia Gillard’s ‘alliance’ with the Greens is a symptom of Labor’s necessity to establish ‘friendly’ dialogue with their new rival, while tactfully undermining them in the process. The Prime Minister’s recent speech labelling the Greens as ideologues out of touch with the needs of everyday Australians, coupled with her vehement campaigning for a carbon tax with industry compensation, is an attempt to paint the Labor party as the moderate, sensible voter’s choice for environmental care and economic stability.

If the ALP is to survive in the short term future, it’s inevitable that it will pay more lip service to green ideas to wrest back its slipping left vote. But it’s beyond the short term that presents the party with its greatest challenge. The next ten years is arguably the most important in the party’s history. It must articulate a purpose and ideology that signals a clear break from both the Liberals and the Greens. If it doesn’t, Pearce may be right, the Party could be over.