Australian Labor - a renovator's delight

The one-day Senate committee hearing which revived memories of Tampa followed and finally there was Mr Latham’s U-turn on Tasmanian forest policy which was made even more disastrous by John Howard’s 180-degree turn in the opposite direction.

After the election, academic Dr Nick Economou wrote "Regional electorates were, and are, central to Australian election outcomes. Yet, far from seeking to secure their support, the Latham-led national ALP appeared to embark upon a strategy of deliberately antagonising regional and rural voters, particularly with its approach to environmental conservation."

He also observed "swinging voters perceive Labor not so much by the Hawke record but rather by the contribution made by the prime ministerships of Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating … These prime ministers are viewed by swinging voters as the personification of everything threatening about Labor activism … It does not help the contemporary Labor cause when the parliamentary leader leads the charge to further romanticise Whitlam and when it is reported in the press, during the campaign, that he regularly took counsel from Paul Keating."

The report asks why Mr Latham, given his understanding of the "culture wars" and identification with "the residents" and initially Tasmania’s timber workers, ended up in the subject of such comment. It is especially important, given Mr Latham’s background and instincts, that Labor determines how he became trapped in the web of the café latte set notwithstanding his resignation.

The report also details the Liberals’ clinical response to the perceived growing political influence of Protestant churches and says that "the challenge … to get out a very clear message that God isn’t a wholly owned subsidiary of the Liberal Party", to quote Kevin Rudd, will require more than making a few statements. Kim Beazley’s appearance at the Australian Christian Lobby’s conference in October may signal the beginnings of such a response.

Discussion about the political significance of religion leads to an examination of developments in the USA notwithstanding differences between that country and Australia. Baffler editor Thomas Franks has analysed Kansas’ transformation from moderate Republican (economically and socially liberal) to conservative Republican (economically liberal and socially conservative) within five years of a large pro-life rally in 1991, destroying the Democrats in the process. Mr Franks concludes "the subject of social class is always a disconcerting one for Americans, and most journalists find it simpler to blame the backlash on racism, sexism, or some unfathomable religious conviction than to broach this troubling topic. The Mods [moderates] are the worst offenders in this regard. As a rule, they do not admit the possibility that what separates them from the Cons [conservatives] is social class."

Mr Franks says, "there is a lesson for the liberals in the Kansas story … It is, rather, an utter and final repudiation of their historical decision to remake themselves as the other [emphasis original] pro-business party. By all rights the people of Witchita and Shawnee and Garden City should today be flocking to the party of Roosevelt, not deserting it. Culturally speaking, however, that option is simply not available to them anymore. Democrats no longer speak to the people on the losing end of a free-market system that is becoming more brutal and more arrogant by the day."

Last year William Galston, acting dean at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy and a Clinton Administration official, wrote "a political party in a two-party system inevitably represents a diverse coalition, not a full consensus on policy or ideology. And coalition can practice distributive politics, giving each of their major constituent groups something about which they deeply care. But while parties can give different things to different groups, they cannot give contradictory things to those groups … To hold a coalition together despite its internal differences, its members must agree on something that is at least as important as the matters about which they disagree. A shared quest for political power is not enough."

The report argues these conclusions are equally relevant to Labor. It points out John Howard has also offered "contradictory things" by championing the family and small business but supporting economic polices which advantage big business at the expense of these two. However, it says, while Labor is torn between economic rationalism and the welfare state instead of developing a different economic framework which favours average Australians and small business, it will not be able to exploit the Liberals’ Achilles heel. It also says, if Labor cannot avoid promising "contradictory things", be they economic, social or cultural, to its two constituencies it must choose the outer suburbs and the regions over its inner metropolitan voters.

Labor must overcome organisational obstacles if it is to address these challenges. Hawke Government minister John Button points out "just under half the membership of the ALP in Victoria live in eight inner-suburban seats ... In some outer-suburban seats (two of them once held by the ALP) the membership is below 100. In some rural seats it is lower still. These are symptoms of being out of touch; recipes for misunderstanding. The ALP has retreated to the inner suburbs with a few outposts in traditional Labor areas and regional towns. In parliament, the background and life experience of ALP members has narrowed immensely since the time of the Hawke Government. It’s difficult to imagine a party contesting for control of the national government in Australia without a farmer, a businessman or a blue-collar worker in its representation. That is what the contemporary ALP does."

Hawke Government staffer Derek Parker’s analysis of Labor’s federal politicians demonstrates the point: "The most striking feature … is the large number who have been full-time union officials - 35, or nearly 40 per cent of the total ...The younger generation - a bit more than half of the group - went into union work directly from university … Another important point is the number of ALP parliamentarians that formerly worked as advisers to ministers or other parliamentarians - 36 of them. The union group and the adviser group are not mutually exclusive and a significant trend, especially with younger members, is the pattern of going from a mid-level union position to a political staff position prior to entering parliament. About 15 fit into this pattern."

However, regardless of the obstacles, the message of the report is clear. Labor must make itself the preferred party of the outer suburbs and regions. Failure to do so could consign it federally to the political wilderness it experienced in the 1950s and the 1960s.