What’s wrong with the Labor Party?

And if you think reliance on polling is the big problem, ask yourself: what is the most devastating, vote-harvesting political line of the last few decades in Australia, perhaps of all time. It was John Howard’s statement in the 2001 campaign that:

We determine who comes here and the circumstances in which they come.

It was taken from a focus group conducted by John Howard’s pollsters.

The Liberal Party is perhaps the most ruthless, professional, poll-driven political machine Australia has ever seen. Morally bankrupt perhaps. But successful. That’s why it exported its key advisers to help the British Tory Party in the recent UK election.

So perhaps the real issue isn’t the dominance of political professionals, just the quality of the professionals. (Now that I’ve retired, Labor should do better.)

In fact - and here I can talk from personal experience - most political advisers aren’t poll-driven, or cynical or right-wing. They’re often the idealists who sacrifice far more lucrative careers to serve our democracy, a bit like Toby Zeigler, Sam Seaborne and C.J. Cregg on the West Wing. (But unfortunately not as good looking!)

At a time when political apathy is at an all time high among the general population, I think it’s foolish to scapegoat some of our democracy’s most committed citizens - political advisers - for the problems that face Labor.

So my advice to anyone thinking about becoming a political adviser one day is - ignore the cynics - they’re driven by false nostalgia for a bygone era when politics was simpler and parliamentary parties supposedly listened to motions at local party branch meetings. The fact is, it’s never been like that, and if you don’t believe me, read Vere Gordon Childe’s history of the first ever Labor government’s in his book, How Labor Governs.

The critique from the Right

The right-wing critique of Labor can be summed up like this: “Labor has to be even more hard-headed if it wants to win.”

• Labor does not do enough to appeal to “aspirational voters”;
• it preaches a crude “class warfare” - as with its schools policy;
• it’s too close to the trendy Greens;
• it’s associated with high taxes and is seen as economically incompetent;
• it’s lost the “white working-class vote” and appeals only to ethnic minorities;
• it’s “anti-American” in foreign policy and insufficiently patriotic.

This analysis certainly has its strengths.

Monash University’s Lyle Allan, Ernest Healy and Bob Birrell recently argued Labor’s electoral support is increasingly confined to a number of electorates with higher than average concentrations of people from low-income non-English speaking backgrounds.