Strangio asks: ‘Is Labor still the party of initiative in Australian politics … the past two years seem only to have deepened the party’s uncertainty about its mission. The ALP seems as nonplussed as ever about a finding a formula for speaking simultaneously to workers from the inner cities, suburbs and regions.
This article was written in early days of 2021 before the Morrison Government COVID vaccine stroll-out fail. However, it still covers some relevant ground for the next election cycle. Strangio writes (in edited form):
The foundation of the early Commonwealth, was a project of both Liberal Protectionist and Labor ministries. Labor governments were the architects of the two 20th century national macro-policy settlements: John Curtin and Ben Chifley (1941-49) post-war Keynesian welfarist order; and the Hawke-Keating governments post-Keynesian or market-based economic order (softened by social wage measures). Both periods were regime building. The long-run Coalition governments that followed them, led by Robert Menzies and John Howard respectively, were consolidators of the Labor paradigms.
In between these 1940s and 1980s periods was Gough Whitlam’s modernising government 1972-75, pioneering social and cultural reforms, among them universal healthcare.
Labor prime ministerships have been disproportionally significant in their transformational effects. However, the recent period of national government under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard disappointed.
Winning office on a small-target program, Rudd’s prime ministership is best remembered for its management of the Global Financial Crisis and the Apology to the Stolen Generations. Gillard’s government a price on carbon and the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Yet the larger picture of the Rudd-Gillard years was one of debilitating internecine leadership conflict.
The early 21st century has been mostly about policy stasis by both Labor and the Coalition. The neo-liberal era has run out of puff and there is no coherent new settlement between citizen and state. Australia is not alone here.
Does Labor still possesses the creative capacity to be the party of initiative? In 2019 election, it campaigned on a broad suite of policies, but lacked the language to describe the overall sum of those parts. This mission problem seems to have deepened. This is not unprecedented. During the Menzies era, Labor took time to develop a new generation of leaders and ideas. Some of the Hawke-Keating reforms years were a response to contingency rather than forethought.
Labor will run on a relatively constrained program whenever the next federal election is held. At some point, the party will have to answer whether this latest long wait for a Labor government has been worth it.
[External link to The Conversation]
Related readings
Why we need to talk about Labor – by Janet McCalman , Open Labor, Aug 2020
A pox on both your houses – the rise of populism – by Andrew Charlton & Lachlan Harris, The Monthly, Dec 2016
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