Labor ideals left behind
LABOR’S shock lost in the federal election was decades in the making, Deakin University political expert Geoffrey Robinson argues in a new book about left-wing politics in Australia.
The senior lecturer in Australian studies within the school of humanities and social sciences said Labor had long abandoned its commitment to a fundamental critique of Australian society and this robbed voters of choice at the ballot box.
“Labor’s grab bag of promises and retro rhetoric failed to offer a clear alternative at a time of stagnant living standards and popular disaffection with the status quo,” Dr Robinson said.
“The party wasn’t able to demonstrate its commitment to the concerns of a restive and increasingly angry Australian electorate.
“Promises of higher wages didn’t convince voters who, for decades, had been told that wages were up to the market.”
Visiting Geelong, Tony Burke, manager of Opposition business in the House of Representatives, said the party was still dissecting the reasons for the election defeat.
“The simplicity of it for us was the Australian public said no to the message we put forward,” Mr Burke said.
“We needed to hear that message. Exactly what the reasons were is why we are having a thorough review.
“You’re trying to crystallise the views of 24 million people into a single handful of reasons.
“It’s more complex than that, but ultimately what matters right now is we’re back on our feet, we’re listening, and you’d be mad to be dismissing anyone who comes forward with constructive ideas.”
Dr Robinson’s book, Being Left-Wing in Australia: Identity, Culture and Politics after Socialism, examines how activists, thinkers and politicians across the spectrum of the left have grappled with the legacy of the collapse of the socialist vision in the 1980s.
He said Labor’s disappointments at federal level should not obscure the fact there had been decades of success for the left in Australia.
“We have seen the rise of the Greens, the development of a more cosmopolitan and diverse society, the recognition of sexual and cultural diversity and major expansions in indigenous land ownership,” Dr Robinson said.
“Conservatives have won Australian elections to a large extent because they accepted these changes.
“But the price of the left’s success has been that it has become part of the establishment and abandoned aspirations for fundamental social change.”