An agenda for Labor

Furthermore, welfare groups will be looking for Labor to reverse punitive reductions in welfare payments for single parents and the disabled, as well as embracing a broader expansion of Australia’s social wage.

Many voters will also be concerned that any moves to remedy Australia’s water crisis not prove a slippery slope to water privatisation.

Labor also has a decisive advantage over the Coalition on environmental questions. Rather than squandering this advantage, Labor needs to commit to barring uranium exports to countries not already signed on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; to sign the Kyoto Protocol; introduce a carbon tax; and support the development of renewable energy alternatives through research and public infrastructure investment. Importantly, moves to introduce a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme should be combined with tax and welfare reform that fully compensates those on lower incomes.

Finally, Labor should not shy away from visionary policies aimed at establishing economic democracy. A “co-operative incentive scheme” which included tax breaks, assistance and advice for co-operative enterprise, and the provision of cheap credit would be one ideal mechanism for enhancing democracy in the workplace.

Furthermore, a “wage earner scheme” which reserved a portion of corporate profits for the issuing of shares for democratic funds, comprised of unions and regional communities, ought to also be brought into the debate. Such a scheme, if implemented, could finally properly compensate workers for wage restraint embraced in the 1980s.

While such forward steps seem far away for a labour movement which has been on the defensive for over a decade, radical ideas need to be introduced in order to relativise the debate, and provide room for the emergence of progressive policy. Another positive step would be proposals to re-socialise Telstra and re-establish a public bank as has already occurred in New Zealand under Labour - hastening the development of new infrastructure, improving competition and moving Australia on course for a democratic mixed economy.

Labor has established a commanding lead over the government in some opinion polls, with Rudd scoring an impressive 65 per cent approval rating in the AC Nielson poll. Now is the time to capitalise on such success, taking Australia forward towards a more progressive tax system, a fair and just IR system, an expanded social wage and visionary nation-building and industry policies.

Labor needs to build for the future rather than embracing a policy that relegates the movement to “one step forward, two steps back”.