'New Labor' giving way to 'Old Labor'

Labor's recent positions have been no less bleak.

As Paul Kelly put it in Triumph and Demise:

In late 2013 and early 2014, after the transition to Abbott, Labor exposed as the party of Old Australia. It championed corporate welfare, taxpayer subsidies for an uncompetitive car industry and protectionist policies in the name of 'Aussie Jobs', stood with the trade unions in opposing Abbott's inquiries into union rorts, opposed spending cuts, ran scare campaigns on the GST and, to a large extent, defended the 'green scheme status quo' (2014: 220).

Now more than ever Labor needs to recapture the centre and reclaim the mantle as the party of economic reform.

Labor stands uniquely with the ability to bring old divisions together- unions and industry, blue-collar workers and tweed-coated professionals, front-line service workers and upwardly mobile trades people.

To give any party a monopoly on reform is to condemn Australia to a precarious future.