The dominant narrative of the election emerging in the mainstream media is not a surprising one. Labor went too far left, played up to the values of a politics-media bubble, and did not register that large sections of the broader public were not with them.
The only answer, say numerous critics, is for the party to return to the centre, and fight from there.
That myth seemed to me to be exploded by Corbyn Labour in the UK in 2017, which gained 40% of the vote, after a 2015 result in which the party under Ed Miliband had managed only 30%, with a mildly-leftist shifted agenda. There are multiple other factors of course — Brexit, voluntary voting — but the idea that a defeat necessarily means a party has swung too far from the centre needs to be interrogated.
That said, one looks uneasily at the right’s insistent carry-on after Turnbull deposed Abbott — that the party came close to loss for not being conservative enough — and can’t help but wonder if one is trapped in a symmetrical delusion, which wouldn’t be the first time for the left.
Could Labor have won this by offering a “steady state” politics — no new taxes but no tax cuts either, no bold programs but improvements to existing ones? Quite probably, as Shorten and Bowen could then have presented themselves as the adults, that mythical Australian political creature, and let the Tories come apart week by week.
But quite aside from the possibility of looking like Liberal-lite — and risking a rebellion within the party — that would have meant that Labor left ground exposed to its left to be occupied by the Greens. Contrary to the predictions and hopes of most pundits, the Greens had a good election, retaining their senate numbers and increasing their primary. Had Labor gone centrist/rightist, that would have opened up further, especially in Victoria.
The dilemmas facing Labor are manifold but they come down to one big issue for which they have been partly responsible, and that is class decomposition and contradiction. This is most visible in spatial terms, so it is being seen geographically. It isn’t geographical — it simply manifests as such. The knowledge class-divide bleeds voters off to the Greens, but the preferences return. The more serious divide is between a working class that is now a working-middle class, and a low-skilled/casualised/benefits-dependent group, which is a working class of classic condition.
The divide between the working-middle class and the rest isn’t the old division of labour aristocracy and proletariat, but between capital and its absence. By individualising the social wage, in the form of compulsory super, and then relating it to earning power, Labor set the class on a path to contradiction and conflict. Individuals and couples living off their super are living off interest from capital (however accrued) and I can’t see how that doesn’t make a huge difference.
Paul Keating created that uniquely Australian class, proletarian rentiers, and their rise coincides with Labor’s inability to claw back a majority of votes. Neither a change in leadership, nor of individual policies will solve this. Labor can only regroup politically what it has shattered socially, by devising and offering a new social contract which is to the benefit of both groups.
That requires not a cautionary tale, but a bolder story.
“That said, one looks uneasily at the right’s insistent carry-on after Turnbull deposed Abbott — that the party came close to loss for not being conservative enough — and can’t help but wonder if one is trapped in a symmetrical delusion, which wouldn’t be the first time for the left.”
It’s interesting. Something I said before the election was that, win or lose, Morrison had at the very least got back to where Turnbull was in the polls if not better, and that there were two interpretations of that:
– That if Turnbull was still leader, the Libs would be thumping Labor
– That the conservatives were actually right, and that the rightward shift to Morrison was electorally better for them… that the choice between Labor and “Labor-lite” (as many right wingers saw Turnbull’s positions) had voters going for the genuine article, with Turnbull unable to convince working class and regional voters that he cared about them, but a choice between Labor and traditional Liberal low tax, pro-business, pro-mining etc rhetoric with a leader who sounded more like them than Turnbull or Shorten could bring the Liberals more voters than they were losing in more progressive Liberals who still believed in Turnbull.
And as it turned out, the second option seems to have happened except in higher magnitude than anyone saw coming.
I also suspect that Labor could have done better with a climate policy that was actually further towards the Greens’ position, but more clearly explained and with an effort made to reassure rural and regional voters it was not going to cost them their jobs and communities. Nobody in voter land knew what the NEG was and therefore uncertain as to how it would affect them. Saying it was Turnbull’s policy (which nobody understood then either, and Labor had been attacking Turnbull so why turn around and take his policy? If they thought the Liberals would look bad for attacking Turnbull’s policy, that was a huge miscalculation) just made it sound like it wasn’t a big deal in terms of emissions reductions, and therefore why would anyone want to risk a massive cost for that? Going with a more ambitious policy could have let Labor tell more of a story about the importance of climate change.
I mean, Labor was more ambitious last time around on climate and did better. Labor had the negative gearing policy last time and did better. it’s not as simple as “go more to the center” or “go more to the left”. it’s more about satisfying different groups of voters. Wanting a job is not right wing.
It is about going to the left.
Having a proper understanding of socialist politics that move society towards eliminating class divisions or divisions related to your economic situation.
It’s not surprising that the party of organised labour finds itself in difficulty when there’s virtually no organised labour left to speak of.
It seems to me the old division into capitalist and worker doesn’t serve our needs anymore. We need a new way forward. Perhaps those who choose to live unselfishly – environmentally and socially – as far as possible, as opposed to those who choose to live selfishly. How this translates into a political organisation, though, I have no idea.
The party of organised labour spent 23 years in opposition before Whitlam at a time when organised labour was a much bigger deal.
It is true that the old divisions of left and right don’t quite serve a purpose anymore, because there’s a spectrum in both social progressive/conservative and economic progressive/conservative. Both the ALP and the Coalition have found their traditional voter bases rather stretched to the point where it has become impossible to keep them all in the tent, with some changing sides and some going out to One Nation and other protest parties.
Labor was in opposition for 23 years because those splitters, the Judaen Peoples Front, I mean Santamarias DLP made sure they stayed there.
Yeah, this is a curious rewriting of history.
It seems as though we need to learn from the past. Have no policies, have nothing that the others can poke sticks at, then when you have both houses, make the generational changes you had at the last election, claiming that you obviously had a mandate and that all the previous goals and policies were in play because they weren’t formally withdrawn…. GST, no changes to funding of the ABC, SBS, no cuts to pensions…
Nailed it Guy. A bolder story that unites us politically: proletarian rentiers, casualised precariat, and culture-knowledge-class professionals like ourselves, who are similarly divided. The meta-narrative: we’re all in this together. A message that can embrace the needs, interests, rights, hopes, desires and dreams of all of us, embracing the future of the planet, our kids, aboriginal people, asylum seekers, the queer community, women, the disabled community, and crucially the fragmented remains of the working class.
I’ll knock up a manifesto, HB. Gimme a couple of hours, should be a doddle…
Surely the answer is: not in the deep end, but gentle steps in the shallows.