"When will the time ever be right for Labor to do the right, I mean, the left thing?" Sadly, Betteridge's Law of Headlines applies. It will never happen while Albo is PM. Chalmers might surprise us - at least his thinking was developed in the present century, unlike both Albo and Trump.
Yeah, I wonder about Chalmers. What's his party memory like, I wonder? I know he's a huge Keating stan, which might be a mixed blessing. Still, he seems the best option. Maybe the only option?
Far less a party animal than anyone else who is comparably senior. And Keating was very much a fan of Labor as the party of initiative, even when this involved reversing previous initiatives.
Thanks Tim, historically insightful and very worrying. We need the ALP to stand up now, but it’s hampered with poor understanding, or wilful disregard, and is wimping out.
I said it before, I’ll say it again, Albanese, supposedly from the left wing of the ALP, continues to lead from the centre right. My guess is because he is scared shitless of the Murdoch Press, both print and TV. Also, the apparent conservative nature of the Australian public. I mean look at the surge of One Nation that I’m sure holds him back and the failure of The Greens to capitalise on the perceived failures of the ALP to push a left agenda. Also, again my guess, Albanese time in the bunker of NSW Part HQ and the time in the federal,parliament has made him by nature a managerialist. I mean look at his ongoing failure with the NACC, and Freedom of Information, Privacy, Whistleblower Legislation. All his recent changes are linked to a desire for the ease of function of government and the public service. Oh, and his failure to address the failures of social security. Again I guess desire to avoid upsetting the Murdoch Press.
I think you're right on all points, Mark, though I suspect there are enough people who aren't as conservative as you suggest. They are not radical necessarily but they are open to something better, as their voting patterns suggest. But it's hard to bust through all the constraints without decent leadership. 🎶Which brings us back to doe...🎶
I have no respect for Albanese, but surely not even he will be stupid enough to join a Board of Peace onto which Putin and Netanyahu have been invited? I see that, according to the BBC, even Keir Starmer is holding off from signing over Russia's possible participation. If there has been a Western leader of the 'left' more pathetic than Albanese, it has been Starmer.
I suspect he won't join, esp, as you say, Avril, now that there is an international precedent, and not just Starmer. I'm not so sure how he felt a week ago. He would've had the four-dimensional tiddlywinks out plotting something cunning...
I think that Albo and others like him see Trump as an aberration, and that we will go back to the way things were after the US 2028 elections. The problem is that there is nothing to stop, not even plans to change US legislation, to prevent a similar demagogue from arising.
In short, the US can no longer be trusted to uphold ANY alliance, be it on Military, Political or Trade issues.
I think you're right, martin, but it would be a terrible bit of miscalculation. What comes after Trump is potentially much worse--and almost certainly things will NEVER return to what they were. Which is why it important to remove ourselves asap.
I fear the chaos in the Coalition opens the way for a realignment that incorporates One Nation. This legislation in the hands of such a government could dissolve unions at the drop of a hat with some simple amendments.
Ugh, I hadn't really thought of that, Godfrey. But yeah, the right is shifting and One Nation is part of it. It all spells a more extreme right wing formation because that's where all the rightwing incentives are, from who finances them to who promotes them. Plus there is almost no "moderate" ballast to work against it. Remember this quote from Turnbull? "What has happened is that the right wing of the Liberal Party, which consists of most of the Liberal Party nowadays..." It was in the context of climate change but he was making the general point. https://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/malcolm-turnbull-interview-with-patricia-karvelas
Notwithstanding the issues with certain groups in the CFMEU, Albanese’s knee-jerk response to conservative media reporting effectively established a blueprint for a future hostile RW government to cripple Unions.
Similarly, his (& the State Premiers) equally ill-advised capitulation to the Zionist lobby and their allies in the media with the ‘Anti-Hate’ laws has created a tool for the increasingly feverish reactionary forces in Australia to suppress free speech, dissent and protest.
So much for playing ‘the long game’, Albanese’s lack of conviction and courage are facilitating an authoritarian Australia under a more unscrupulous government. Talk about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. What a plonker.
The Rowland/Speers interview is beyond belief. How is it possible that the AG of the country is completely unable to speak to the legislation that she (theoretically) drew up? She appeared miles out of her depth, kept insisting to Speers, 'That's why we've been perfectly clear" - when nothing of the sort has happened. Literally, the reverse has happened - 2 + 2 = 5 indeed.
As 'Dad's Army's Private Frazer' catchphrase rings out “We’re doomed, I tell ye! Doooomed!” so it seems like global, national and local events are overwhelming one's ability to keep up.
(A straw pollmight reveal, what, 50% of the readers wouldn't have a clue what I'm referencing there'. Will we prove Frazer wrong yet again or perhaps this time he may just be .....?)
Where are the intellects in the ALP? Are there any left? Do they read beyond the oped pages of The Australian and sports pages of the Terrorgraph? They have their collective heads under the doona hoping to wake up in 1995. The National Party, One Nation Liberal Party and most of the ALP, including Albo's notional 'Left' faction, are all chasing the same constituency - Howard's old grey power army (most of whom are now dead), the mythical aspirational tradies and poorly educated rednecks from 'regional and rural Australia'. Who represents the millions of women and men in low wage jobs in the service industry, highly paid urban professionals, the tertiary educated, anyone under 35, First Nations people, the LGTBIQ community, the 30% of Australians born outside this country? Why does Albanese over and over again buy into News Corp's framing of the world? Who is advising him? It just makes me despair how provincial and stupid this country is.
It is completely astounding how captured the political class is. And there are captures within captures, and I keep thinking of Albanese's boast about his big three influences, the party, the church and a footy club. What sort of breadth is that for understanding something as complex as a nation? No wonder he wants to maintain structures in which he feels at home, esp the two-party system.
As he told an interviewer not long ago: “I’ve never seen the Labor Party so united as it is,” Albanese says. “Some of the old ideological divides in the party have just disappeared.”
Yes, it feels like ‘Relaxed and Comfortable: The Sequel’ though this time Howard is in Run DMC tracksuit spinning indie discs at a Marrickville nightclub.
It is astonishing how much has been made clear about where Labor stand since the (continuation of the ) genocide in Gaza and the second Trump presidency. There are still some good people in Labor, I know, I worked with them when I was in the Senate. Sadly, they clearly have not yet reached the time of feeling they have to take the sign out of their window, despite as you say, “exactly what is happening”. They are banking on most voters of the left and centre not being tuned in at all, or if they are, feeling powerless and so throwing up their hands and voting for the folks they have always voted for and begrudgingly trust as the best of a bad lot.
I am curious about the stagnation in the Greens vote in these circumstances - I think it’s a manifestation of our biggest weakness - they don’t think that the Greens have power to change things either.
The surge in the Greens vote in the UK under Zack Polanski is interesting. Our platforms and focus are very similar. I don’t have any inside information but I think Polanski’s skills as a communicator - and interest in him from the mainstream media are notable factors. And maybe the political climate in the UK where the rise of Reform makes it is clear that massive realignment is possible gives voters the sense that if they vote Green that change can happen.
Shows how important it is to model different behaviours rather than just presuming that "the centre" is this eternal thing you have to appease. I talk about this a fair bit in the new book; or at least, it informs the discussion. I think we have this sense that compulsory voting and pref voting somehow drags everything to "the centre". More likely that such systems help create "a" centre. Yes, it has balancing effect, lessening polarisation, but it is still a contested space, not a predetermined destination.
I agree. I think Labor’s sense of the centre being the predetermined destination and voters buying into that are big factors that we have to to address
I’m troubled by how much faith we’re still placing in individuals to rescue a party whose instincts now look almost entirely procedural.
Chalmers may well think in a more contemporary register, but that only matters if the machine he’s operating inside hasn’t already decided that risk avoidance is its core ideology. Parties forget faster than people do. Institutional memory has a nasty habit of retaining only the lessons that justify caution.
Incrementalism isn’t the problem. Incrementalism without direction is. That’s not realism, it’s drift that confuses communication with belief.
If Labor wants to show some actual backbone on “authoritarian drift”, it could start by doing it upward. Smashing the capacity of people like Rinehart and Palmer to hoard wealth while poisoning the public sphere would be a good place to begin, rather than expanding executive power and calling it safety.
If Chalmers ever does surprise us, it won’t be because he’s cleverer than Albanese. It’ll be because he’s willing to break with the idea that saying nothing is the same as governing wisely. That’s a very big if.
Fair point. I don't even think a given party can save us. The work is really outside the structures that got us into this mess, as important as it is to rebuild--redesign--those structures.
Labor has long, long been 'left' only in the sense of being the left-most of the "major parties" selling icecream on the beach. Its leaders have long loved their CIA study tours to visit great and powerful friends - Labor in government has long cherished Australia being the type of 'middle power' that voted spinelessly at the UN with the USA and fellow-travellers like Israel and the old South Africa, for whatever highly implausible resolutions might be the command of the day. Those Labor politicians who indicated any genuinely left views were somewhat tolerated as a side-show to propitiate sections of the membership, tolerated only as long as they had no real influence and didn't actually stop capital getting outcomes it could live with. To all those who felt it was important to support Labor because otherwise Dutton, well congratulations and well done. It's not too late to walk away from the hollowed-out husks of the old parties, support the Greens or Australian Socialists or your local community independent, anyone except the old parties (or the ghouls to their right).
It's interesting going back through the record, even around the time of Whitlam, and see how unradical they have been. I'm not diminishing the genuine achievements, but as you suggest, "left" is a very relative term. One interesting quote is from quote from sociologist Raewyn Connell: Whitlam pursued a course ‘entirely within the framework of the legitimacy of property rights and the legitimacy of business leadership’. RW Connell. Ruling Class Ruling Culture. CUP. 1977. p.114. So yes, vote outside the majors.
"When will the time ever be right for Labor to do the right, I mean, the left thing?" Sadly, Betteridge's Law of Headlines applies. It will never happen while Albo is PM. Chalmers might surprise us - at least his thinking was developed in the present century, unlike both Albo and Trump.
Yeah, I wonder about Chalmers. What's his party memory like, I wonder? I know he's a huge Keating stan, which might be a mixed blessing. Still, he seems the best option. Maybe the only option?
Far less a party animal than anyone else who is comparably senior. And Keating was very much a fan of Labor as the party of initiative, even when this involved reversing previous initiatives.
Thanks Tim, historically insightful and very worrying. We need the ALP to stand up now, but it’s hampered with poor understanding, or wilful disregard, and is wimping out.
The wimping out is almost defining now. It's what they call sensible incrementalism or realism or whatever the fudge du jour is.
I said it before, I’ll say it again, Albanese, supposedly from the left wing of the ALP, continues to lead from the centre right. My guess is because he is scared shitless of the Murdoch Press, both print and TV. Also, the apparent conservative nature of the Australian public. I mean look at the surge of One Nation that I’m sure holds him back and the failure of The Greens to capitalise on the perceived failures of the ALP to push a left agenda. Also, again my guess, Albanese time in the bunker of NSW Part HQ and the time in the federal,parliament has made him by nature a managerialist. I mean look at his ongoing failure with the NACC, and Freedom of Information, Privacy, Whistleblower Legislation. All his recent changes are linked to a desire for the ease of function of government and the public service. Oh, and his failure to address the failures of social security. Again I guess desire to avoid upsetting the Murdoch Press.
I would love to see some essays on this platform Mark. You’ve come across as thoughtful without easy answers.
hear hear
I think you're right on all points, Mark, though I suspect there are enough people who aren't as conservative as you suggest. They are not radical necessarily but they are open to something better, as their voting patterns suggest. But it's hard to bust through all the constraints without decent leadership. 🎶Which brings us back to doe...🎶
I think this more an issue of organisation (and it’s lack) rather than ideology.
I have no respect for Albanese, but surely not even he will be stupid enough to join a Board of Peace onto which Putin and Netanyahu have been invited? I see that, according to the BBC, even Keir Starmer is holding off from signing over Russia's possible participation. If there has been a Western leader of the 'left' more pathetic than Albanese, it has been Starmer.
I suspect he won't join, esp, as you say, Avril, now that there is an international precedent, and not just Starmer. I'm not so sure how he felt a week ago. He would've had the four-dimensional tiddlywinks out plotting something cunning...
I think that Albo and others like him see Trump as an aberration, and that we will go back to the way things were after the US 2028 elections. The problem is that there is nothing to stop, not even plans to change US legislation, to prevent a similar demagogue from arising.
In short, the US can no longer be trusted to uphold ANY alliance, be it on Military, Political or Trade issues.
I think you're right, martin, but it would be a terrible bit of miscalculation. What comes after Trump is potentially much worse--and almost certainly things will NEVER return to what they were. Which is why it important to remove ourselves asap.
Sounds like you agree with me, above ...
I fear the chaos in the Coalition opens the way for a realignment that incorporates One Nation. This legislation in the hands of such a government could dissolve unions at the drop of a hat with some simple amendments.
Ugh, I hadn't really thought of that, Godfrey. But yeah, the right is shifting and One Nation is part of it. It all spells a more extreme right wing formation because that's where all the rightwing incentives are, from who finances them to who promotes them. Plus there is almost no "moderate" ballast to work against it. Remember this quote from Turnbull? "What has happened is that the right wing of the Liberal Party, which consists of most of the Liberal Party nowadays..." It was in the context of climate change but he was making the general point. https://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/malcolm-turnbull-interview-with-patricia-karvelas
Notwithstanding the issues with certain groups in the CFMEU, Albanese’s knee-jerk response to conservative media reporting effectively established a blueprint for a future hostile RW government to cripple Unions.
Similarly, his (& the State Premiers) equally ill-advised capitulation to the Zionist lobby and their allies in the media with the ‘Anti-Hate’ laws has created a tool for the increasingly feverish reactionary forces in Australia to suppress free speech, dissent and protest.
So much for playing ‘the long game’, Albanese’s lack of conviction and courage are facilitating an authoritarian Australia under a more unscrupulous government. Talk about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. What a plonker.
Yes, and all ably aided and abetted by Labor state governments, esp in Victoria and NSW.
The Rowland/Speers interview is beyond belief. How is it possible that the AG of the country is completely unable to speak to the legislation that she (theoretically) drew up? She appeared miles out of her depth, kept insisting to Speers, 'That's why we've been perfectly clear" - when nothing of the sort has happened. Literally, the reverse has happened - 2 + 2 = 5 indeed.
In fairness, she only had 48 hours to digest it. 😅
Yes, it was shocking.
And as people keep saying, imagine these powers under a less "progressive" govt?
As 'Dad's Army's Private Frazer' catchphrase rings out “We’re doomed, I tell ye! Doooomed!” so it seems like global, national and local events are overwhelming one's ability to keep up.
(A straw pollmight reveal, what, 50% of the readers wouldn't have a clue what I'm referencing there'. Will we prove Frazer wrong yet again or perhaps this time he may just be .....?)
Showing our age, Gavin.
Where are the intellects in the ALP? Are there any left? Do they read beyond the oped pages of The Australian and sports pages of the Terrorgraph? They have their collective heads under the doona hoping to wake up in 1995. The National Party, One Nation Liberal Party and most of the ALP, including Albo's notional 'Left' faction, are all chasing the same constituency - Howard's old grey power army (most of whom are now dead), the mythical aspirational tradies and poorly educated rednecks from 'regional and rural Australia'. Who represents the millions of women and men in low wage jobs in the service industry, highly paid urban professionals, the tertiary educated, anyone under 35, First Nations people, the LGTBIQ community, the 30% of Australians born outside this country? Why does Albanese over and over again buy into News Corp's framing of the world? Who is advising him? It just makes me despair how provincial and stupid this country is.
It is completely astounding how captured the political class is. And there are captures within captures, and I keep thinking of Albanese's boast about his big three influences, the party, the church and a footy club. What sort of breadth is that for understanding something as complex as a nation? No wonder he wants to maintain structures in which he feels at home, esp the two-party system.
As he told an interviewer not long ago: “I’ve never seen the Labor Party so united as it is,” Albanese says. “Some of the old ideological divides in the party have just disappeared.”
And he says it like its a good thing.
Yes, it feels like ‘Relaxed and Comfortable: The Sequel’ though this time Howard is in Run DMC tracksuit spinning indie discs at a Marrickville nightclub.
Shudder
This is exactly how I see their (read Albo lead) second term. More interested in their survival vice actually governing with purpose.
It is astonishing how much has been made clear about where Labor stand since the (continuation of the ) genocide in Gaza and the second Trump presidency. There are still some good people in Labor, I know, I worked with them when I was in the Senate. Sadly, they clearly have not yet reached the time of feeling they have to take the sign out of their window, despite as you say, “exactly what is happening”. They are banking on most voters of the left and centre not being tuned in at all, or if they are, feeling powerless and so throwing up their hands and voting for the folks they have always voted for and begrudgingly trust as the best of a bad lot.
I am curious about the stagnation in the Greens vote in these circumstances - I think it’s a manifestation of our biggest weakness - they don’t think that the Greens have power to change things either.
I keep wondering about the Greens too, Janet, and that stagnation.
Have you been watching Zack Polanski in Britain. I'm sure you have. Can we learn anything from him or do the situations just not compare?
The surge in the Greens vote in the UK under Zack Polanski is interesting. Our platforms and focus are very similar. I don’t have any inside information but I think Polanski’s skills as a communicator - and interest in him from the mainstream media are notable factors. And maybe the political climate in the UK where the rise of Reform makes it is clear that massive realignment is possible gives voters the sense that if they vote Green that change can happen.
Shows how important it is to model different behaviours rather than just presuming that "the centre" is this eternal thing you have to appease. I talk about this a fair bit in the new book; or at least, it informs the discussion. I think we have this sense that compulsory voting and pref voting somehow drags everything to "the centre". More likely that such systems help create "a" centre. Yes, it has balancing effect, lessening polarisation, but it is still a contested space, not a predetermined destination.
I agree. I think Labor’s sense of the centre being the predetermined destination and voters buying into that are big factors that we have to to address
I’m troubled by how much faith we’re still placing in individuals to rescue a party whose instincts now look almost entirely procedural.
Chalmers may well think in a more contemporary register, but that only matters if the machine he’s operating inside hasn’t already decided that risk avoidance is its core ideology. Parties forget faster than people do. Institutional memory has a nasty habit of retaining only the lessons that justify caution.
Incrementalism isn’t the problem. Incrementalism without direction is. That’s not realism, it’s drift that confuses communication with belief.
If Labor wants to show some actual backbone on “authoritarian drift”, it could start by doing it upward. Smashing the capacity of people like Rinehart and Palmer to hoard wealth while poisoning the public sphere would be a good place to begin, rather than expanding executive power and calling it safety.
If Chalmers ever does surprise us, it won’t be because he’s cleverer than Albanese. It’ll be because he’s willing to break with the idea that saying nothing is the same as governing wisely. That’s a very big if.
Fair point. I don't even think a given party can save us. The work is really outside the structures that got us into this mess, as important as it is to rebuild--redesign--those structures.
Labor has long, long been 'left' only in the sense of being the left-most of the "major parties" selling icecream on the beach. Its leaders have long loved their CIA study tours to visit great and powerful friends - Labor in government has long cherished Australia being the type of 'middle power' that voted spinelessly at the UN with the USA and fellow-travellers like Israel and the old South Africa, for whatever highly implausible resolutions might be the command of the day. Those Labor politicians who indicated any genuinely left views were somewhat tolerated as a side-show to propitiate sections of the membership, tolerated only as long as they had no real influence and didn't actually stop capital getting outcomes it could live with. To all those who felt it was important to support Labor because otherwise Dutton, well congratulations and well done. It's not too late to walk away from the hollowed-out husks of the old parties, support the Greens or Australian Socialists or your local community independent, anyone except the old parties (or the ghouls to their right).
It's interesting going back through the record, even around the time of Whitlam, and see how unradical they have been. I'm not diminishing the genuine achievements, but as you suggest, "left" is a very relative term. One interesting quote is from quote from sociologist Raewyn Connell: Whitlam pursued a course ‘entirely within the framework of the legitimacy of property rights and the legitimacy of business leadership’. RW Connell. Ruling Class Ruling Culture. CUP. 1977. p.114. So yes, vote outside the majors.
The Future of Everything is being displayed to us all.
This planet is being overwhelmed by homosapiens (or whatever you want to call us).
The powers that be are busy working backwards.
Unfortunately, by the time we are wipedout, the atmosphere will probably be beyond control.
The atmosphere may be unable to maintain our complex structure, and collapse to a raw mess.
Then, back to square one - how many times has that happened?
Bye!
So true Tim, well said.