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'New Labor' giving way to 'Old Labor'

By Tim O'Hare - posted Wednesday, 17 December 2014


The recent Victorian election has sparked commentary that a one term government is not immune to electoral loss what's missing is analysis of the implications this has on Labor's electoral strategy.

The previous Labor Leader to win government Steve Bracks campaigned in 1999 as a 'social progressive and fiscal conservative' distancing himself from the high spending of the John Cain Labor government and offering himself as a more conciliatory alternative to the brash Kennett.

The new Premier Daniel Andrews, who served as a junior Minister in the Bracks government, is a world apart.

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He comes from the Socialist Left with alleged ties to the militant CFMEU and unlike Bracks, who had a diverse background in business and teaching, Daniel Andrews' entire career has been as a staffer and party organiser.

Where Steve Bracks offered a tight working relationship with the business community and sometimes took the side of the employers against striking workers, Daniel Andrews owes everything to the union movement as evidenced by their financing of his formidable campaign.

Six years ago the New South Wales Labor Premier Morris Iemma and his Treasurer Michael Costa were prepared to stake their positions on electricity privatisation, today such principled devotion to a major economic reform would be unimaginable.

In fact New South Wales Opposition Leader John Robertson is now running a campaign against the very thing which Iemma and Costa stood so stridently for, now being pushed by the Liberal government of Mike Baird.

Likewise in Queensland the Labor Opposition is standing against asset sales which, in government under Left Faction Premier Anna Bligh, they were mature enough to begin.

In the short-term, this reversion to traditional instincts has proven to be effective.

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Despite offering very little alternative for addressing the $48.5 billion dollar deficit and refusing to reduce the rapidly ballooning health and education expenditure, the Bill Shorten-led Labor Party remains on track to defeat the Coalition at 52/48%.

Daniel Andrews defied history and ousted a single-term government with interventionist policies such as $100 million dollar fund to businesses to incentivise their hiring of disaffected workers along with a $200 million Future Industries Fund and a $200 Regional Jobs Fund.

In Queensland Labor has come from behind to lead the Liberal National Party 51-49 according to the latest ReachTel, which although in the margin of error, is a considerable turn around given the 2012 election where Labor was reduced to just 7 seats.

Only in New South Wales has the Labor Opposition struggled to gain traction and that's more to do with the ongoing ICAC investigation and the ineffectiveness of Labor Leader John Robertson than any objectionable policy platform.

Given the latest success, what's the issue then?

The issue is that Labor has failed to present a sustainable approach to long-term government.

In its thirteen years in office the Hawke-Keating government achieved currency reform, deregulated the financial market and QANTUS, introduced the HECS system to make tertiary education both equitable and affordable and privatised the Commonwealth Bank.

At the core of this was the Prices and Income Accord negotiated with ACTU Secretary Bill Kelty.

It was the belief in trade unions as economic partners alongside industry and a recognition that to achieve long-term economic reform you have to carry people with you.

Because of this and Bob Hawke's enduring consensus style, the Labor Party was able to achieve far reaching economic liberalisation that the Liberal Party would have struggled to achieve.

Not only is this a testament to Hawke and Keating's place as innovators in Australia's economic history but also of the pragmatic leadership of Bill Kelty.

This has been subsequently lacking with his later successor in the ACTU Greg Combet's close association with protectionists.

Calls for a renewed Accord by previous AWU Secretary Paul Howes have been abandoned by his successor Scott McDine.

History shows that quick fixes and wanton meddling in the economy will more than likely end in tears for Labor governments.

Despite Kevin Rudd branding himself as a Blairite 'economic conservative' the Rudd government presided over a 10.5 billion dollar stimulus package, propped the near lifeless car industry indeterminably and failed to facilitate community consensus on its carbon reduction scheme.

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.

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About the Author

Tim O’Hare is a Sydney-based, freelance commentator, originally from Brisbane. He has written about a range of subjects and particularly enjoys commenting on the culture wars and the intersection between politics, culture, sport, and the arts.

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