Three key lessons for the Labour and the Left from Australia


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4:19 pm - May 28th 2012

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contribution by David Ritter

There are at least three parallels from Australian politics of the last two decades that are germane to present circumstances in the UK, each suggestive of specific strategic and tactical implications for progressives.

First, in relation to Labour’s great internal debate as to whether to move to the left or right in opposition, it is worth recalling the Australian general election of 1998.

After thirteen years in power, in 1996 the Australian Labor Party was swept from office in a landslide, but under the leadership of Kim Beazley Labor made a stunning comeback in 1998, clearly winning the popular vote (51/49), although ultimately the quirks of electoral distribution kept Labor from office on that occasion.

There were numerous factors in play during the 1998 election – such as Prime Minister John Howard’s promise to introduce a VAT should he win – but it is significant that Beazley led his party back from the doldrums from the left, including maintaining a principled stand on the then hot-button issue of the recognition of Indigenous rights to land.

Second, progressives in the UK would do well to study the public controversy over industrial relations in the lead up to the Australian general election of 2007.

Howard had won every general election since the undemocratic outcome in 1998, and in 2004 the result had gone so heavily in his favour that he unexpectedly commanded a majority in both houses of Parliament.

In his hubris, Howard then used his numbers to pass legislation for which he had no democratic mandate, a swingeing industrial relations package reducing the right of employees, known by the Orwellian moniker of WorkChoices.

It became Howard’s undoing. Your Rights at Work, a superb and targeted campaign by the Australian union movement was highly effective and in 2007, WorkChoices was the biggest factor in Howard being emphatically defeated by Kevin Rudd. That campaign is well worth studying as UK progressives gear up to try and persuade the electorate to look back in anger.

With the right campaign, the Coalition Government’s unmandated assault on the NHS could prove to be their WorkChoices.

Third, once upon a time the Liberal Democrat’s sister party in Australia – the Australian Democrats – once exercised a significant position in the political firmament in Canberra. Like the Lib Dems, the Aust Dems traditionally prospered by promising to do politics ‘differently’.

Famously, the first leader of the Aust Dems, Don Chipp, said that it was the role of his party to ‘keep the bastards honest’. But then in 1999 the Aust Dems did a deal with the Howard Government to assist him to pass controversial consumption tax legislation.

In reaching this compromise, the Aust Dems looked cheapened and opportunistic. Within ten years they’d lost every one of their seats, slumped to just over 1% of the vote nationally, and effectively ceased to exist as a political force.

These days, the electoral position once enjoyed by the Aust Dems is now held by the Australian Greens. If the parallel is any guide, the future does not look good the Lib Dems unless some abrupt and decisive action is taken.

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Reader comments


1. Galen10

@ David Ritter

I’d agree that there may be some areas where Labour could learn from the Aussie experience, but I’m not sure that the situations are similar enough for “Newer” Labour, or the broader progressive left in the UK more generally, to draw too much comfort from our antipodean cousins.

A campaign in the UK to save the NHS along the lines of the Aussie “Your Rights at Work” campaign could have some resonance, although whether the unions here are the people to do it is more open to question. I’d also question whether Newer Labour are REALLY going to be in a place to combat the Coalition from the left…. I’ve seen precious little evidence of it so far.

The Aussies also didn’t have the imponderable factor of what is going to happen at the next GE vis a vis the situation in Scotland given the 2014 referendum.

I do heartily hope that the LD’s go the same way as the AustDems tho!

2. Chris

I worry that the current definition of “from the left” won’t really amount to much. We need a hardline commitment to socialist policies, a return to Bennism if you will.

3. Freeman

The best fact learnt from Australia is that government expenditure as a percentage of GDP is only 34%, compared with the UK’s 50%.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
  1. Liberal Conspiracy

    Three key lessons for the Labour and the Left from Australia http://t.co/LjjsOe4k

  2. Jason Brickley

    Three key lessons for the Labour and the Left from Australia http://t.co/rx3afi9G

  3. leftlinks

    Liberal Conspiracy – Three key lessons for the Labour and the Left from Australia http://t.co/lKGRyidO

  4. nathanielop5

    Three key lessons for the Labour and the Left from Australia http://t.co/HLaEP44C

  5. David Ritter

    Three lessons for Labour and the Left from Australia: http://t.co/k86vqeXQ #ukpol #auspol @sunny_hundal @libcon #thereisanalternative

  6. Rachael Chrisp

    Three key lessons for the Labour and the Left from Australia http://t.co/LjjsOe4k

  7. Robert CP

    Three key lessons for the Labour and the Left from Australia http://t.co/LjjsOe4k

  8. BevR

    Three key lessons for the Labour and the Left from Australia | Liberal Conspiracy http://t.co/PpNr9KTF via @libcon

  9. sunny hundal

    'Three key lessons for the Labour and the Left from Australia' http://t.co/aRLCMyl3 by @david_ritter

  10. David Ritter

    'Three key lessons for the Labour and the Left from Australia' http://t.co/aRLCMyl3 by @david_ritter

  11. Yolanda Forster

    'Three key lessons for the Labour and the Left from Australia' http://t.co/aRLCMyl3 by @david_ritter

  12. Charlotte George

    I hope @thegreenparty takes note too RT @sunnyhundal 3 key lessons for Labour & Left from Australia http://t.co/ZOTZWnqH by @david_ritter

  13. Bella Boman-Flavell

    There are lessons to be learnt from the ALP, but these are definitely not them. http://t.co/BWCyCtPm via @libcon

  14. Pam Lynch

    Three key lessons for the Labour and the Left from Australia | Liberal Conspiracy http://t.co/rgWURFYp via @libcon

  15. David Ritter

    I hope @thegreenparty takes note too RT @sunnyhundal 3 key lessons for Labour & Left from Australia http://t.co/ZOTZWnqH by @david_ritter

  16. Hermes Trismegistus

    Three key lessons for the Labour and the Left from Australia http://t.co/zqI1zX1X #auspol #ukpol #libdem





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