Labor must remember what it stands for

In the first of a two-part series, John Menadue argues the upcoming ALP National Conference must do more than produce careful resolutions – it must confront Labor’s loss of values, membership and purpose.

The 2026 ALP National Conference provides an opportunity for Labor to spell out its values and their contemporary relevance and listen to the concerns of the rank and file. Will that happen or will the conference get lost in weasel words that won’t embarrass the government? That is the question.

Labor’s primary vote has declined from about 45 per cent to 50 per cent 60 years ago to less than 30 per cent today. Labor has lost its clear identification with the working class, as we used to understand it. But the working class has changed. It is now more white than blue collar. It is young, female and migrant.

The division of wealth between rich and poor is greater now than ever before. While income inequality has largely plateaued, wealth inequality in Australia is at historic highs. Driven by surging property and asset values, the net worth of Australia’s wealthiest households is racing away from the rest of the country. That needs a Labor response in serious tax reform.

Labor’s natural constituency and membership has declined. It used to be about 100,000 when I joined the ALP 70 ago. It is now about 15,000, while the population has trebled in those 70 years. A dismal record. Something is wrong.

To contain the loss, Labor has increasingly committed itself to focus groups and marginal seat strategies. Values and vision have given way to marketing. Money has replaced membership as the driving force of campaigns.

The trade unions remain the most important institutional Labor supporter. They have a proud record, but their influence is out of proportion to their role in the community and the Labor constituency.

The ALP no longer represents the people who vote for it. It is controlled by an unrepresentative coterie of factional heavies and officials. Party members have little influence. Factions control Labor pre-selections. Networks of political professionals, union officials and staffers, rather than membership, are supreme. Internal politics is conducted almost entirely within an elite class.

This has produced a managerial, cautious, poll-driven approach to politics, and timidity. Raising money and the compromises that come with it, including with gambling interests, have supplanted party membership. By refusing to take the community seriously, and by hiding from public discussion, Labor has disenfranchised its natural constituencies.

As a result, the big-ticket items run into the sand: climate change, major tax reform, relations with the United States and AUKUS, relations with China, foreign ownership and control of our mineral resources, reconciliation, relations with Asia and drug reform.

Labor needs to express itself in the best of Australians’ values. Otherwise, the political contest is reduced to satisfying short-term materialist aspirations, appeasing vested interests and managing the media cycle.

Moving to the right on issues such as refugee policy and health care simply legitimises the conservative position – a position from where exploitation of people’s fear is likely to drive out sensible and reasonable political debate. Selectively compromising – a little socialism here, a little free market there – only confuses Labor supporters and the electorate because it presents inconsistent values.

Social democratic parties, including Labor, were founded on an optimistic view of human nature and on recognition of the public sphere where people could realise their full capabilities.

In his emphasis on the ‘social question’, John Curtin gave effect to these principles, acknowledging that only a strong society, including a strong and respected government, can support a strong economy. And of course, there is no point in an economy that does not serve social ends.

Curtin’s vision contrasts with the notion that ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’, which legitimises destructive social divisions. It encourages people to separate themselves from society in physical or metaphorical gated communities – private schools, private health insurance – and allows the connection between contribution and reward to be severed. It encourages rent-seeking, speculation and protection of privilege rather than productive investment, and then compensates the ‘losers’ with social security handouts.

Labor governments provided leadership to face great challenges in the 1980s. Today Australia faces even greater challenges – climate change, US decline and the rise of China, population ageing, reliance on commodity-based exports, deficits in human capital and a weak base for public revenue.

The politics of ‘what’s in it for me’ discourages us from facing these challenges, for there will have to be trade-offs. Some will have to pay more than others, and some will have to forego benefits now for the sake of longer-term benefits. Such transitions can be painful, but they are more likely to gain support when people understand what Labor stands for.

Values such as fairness, freedom, citizenship, stewardship, ethical responsibility and national sovereignty would be generally accepted by most people. To translate those values into practices, Labor must make choices that then lead to policies.

Fairness can be expressed in the principle of a stronger link between contribution and reward – a link which has been severed by hugely disproportionate executive pay, high returns to rent seekers and financial speculators, and the long head-start of inherited wealth.

A fair go is primarily about economic opportunity. People should be provided with a good education and those who put it to socially useful ends should be rewarded. Fairness promotes social mobility and limits division and resentment. The path to prosperity with fairness is through productivity and well-paid employment. The Scandinavians have demonstrated that education and incentives for participation produce fairness and economic prosperity.

Fairness also implies that we are tough towards ‘bludgers’, whether they be tax dodgers, the vulgar and indulged who inherited wealth, who are protected from competition, receive government handouts and favouritism or cheat on social services. Fairness implies full employment as a macro-economic goal to ensure human capabilities are not wasted.

Yet we fall short in fairness in many areas: by allowing housing to become a means of wealth creation rather than a human right; the treatment of Indigenous people and refugees; the government’s failure to articulate its support for the Voice referendum; the diversion of education funding to wealthy schools; and our miserly overseas development assistance.

Freedom also matters. We all have rights to the extent that they do not lessen the rights of others. Denial of freedom does not happen overnight. It is eroded step by step. We must be vigorous in promoting freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the rule of law and free and fair elections.

Yet freedom is also under strain. The growing power of cabinet and executive is not adequately balanced by parliament. We have what looks like an elected monarchy. We have no Human Rights Act. We have reduced freedom through counter-terrorism legislation. The media increasingly fails to protect our freedoms by holding the powerful to account and abuses its influence. There is a lack of transparency in freedom of information, whistleblower protection, integrity bodies and lobbying.

Citizenship is also central to Labor’s purpose. We are more than individuals linked by market transactions. Our life in the public sphere is no less necessary than our private lives. As citizens we enjoy and contribute to the public good. It is where we show and learn respect for others, particularly people who are different. It is where we build social capital – networks of trust.

Citizenship is weakened when government subsidies to private health insurance and private schools discourage the coalescence of socially mixed communities around shared hospitals and public schools. It is weakened when people are valued as celebrities and for their wealth rather than as contributing citizens. It is weakened by a failure to understand, fund and articulate the case for multiculturalism.

Stewardship should also guide Labor. We have inherited a stock of assets or capital: environmental capital, public and private physical capital, human capital, family capital, social capital, cultural capital and institutional capital. That stock of assets must be retained and, where possible, enhanced.

But we fall short. Australia is among the highest per capita carbon polluters in the world. Despite overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change, we are still influenced by sceptics who ignore the facts and cling to ideology. We waste water and degrade the land. We continue to log old-growth forests. We are degrading the Great Barrier Reef.

Ethical responsibility is no less important. Those in prominent office should promote the qualities that draw on the best of our traditions and the noblest of our instincts. The duty of those with public influence is to encourage hope and redemption rather than despair and condemnation, confidence rather than fear. It is to promote the common good, respect truth and strengthen learning to withstand the powers of populism and vested or sectional interests.

Labor’s challenge at Adelaide is not to produce more carefully worded resolutions that offend no one in government. Its challenge is to tell Australians what it stands for.

Without values, policy becomes marketing. Without membership, campaigns become transactions. Without a clear constituency, Labor becomes a machine for office rather than a movement for reform.

That is not enough.

 

This piece is an update from an original article by John in 2014.