Albanese’s small-target strategy, Voice ‘disaster’ risk Labor’s future: party elder

Anthony Albanese’s government betrayed working-class Labor voters by championing the Indigenous Voice, and its small-target strategy risks the party’s future, former Labor minister Kim Carr writes in his memoir.

The biting reflections make Carr the latest in a group of Labor elders – including former prime minister Paul Keating, unionist Bill Kelty and one-time foreign minister Gareth Evans – to portray the government as unambitious or weak, especially on nuclear submarines.

Kim Carr cleans up his office in 2022 after three decades as a Labor senator. Credit: Joe Armao

Carr, a senator for three decades and minister for seven years, writes in his book A Long March that a split in support for the Voice along wealth lines showed Labor was “losing touch” with the working class.

“The practical effect of the referendum was to pit one part of Labor’s broad coalition of support against the other,” Carr writes. Failing to pull out of the 2023 referendum once polls showed it would fail “was nothing less than a disaster”.

The former Victorian Labor powerbroker and internal Albanese opponent, who championed old-school left-wing causes such as domestic manufacturing, left the Senate in 2022 after being pushed out by party forces seeking renewal.

Unlike most Labor governments, Carr writes in his book to be released next month, Albanese was elected with a relatively weak mandate from a “small-target strategy” and a record-low primary vote that could drop even lower unless the party finds inspiring new policies.

“The strategy in opposition under Albanese … had been to focus on a handful of policies rather than to promote a broad, far-reaching and ambitious agenda,” Carr writes.

“For Labor in coming years, the implications of this strategy will determine its ongoing viability as a party that exists to take office in its own right, not as part of a left-of-centre coalition.”

The 69-year-old calls for a return to universal policies that assist broad swathes of the population to achieve social justice, rather than competing with the Greens on “woke” identity politics that aid particular groups.

And he laments the dearth of policy debates in caucus and the broader Labor machine, noting the growing number of MPs with frontbench positions or aspirations stopped people challenging decisions by the party’s leadership. That played a role in Labor’s decision to barrel toward failure on the Voice, Carr argues.

Labor led in the polls for much of this term, but this masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor shows its primary vote dropped from 42 per cent in May last year to 30 per cent this month as it confronted the fallout from the Voice and crises of inflation and housing. Its key achievements or reforms this term include running back-to-back surpluses, pivoting towards green energy, starting to fix the National Disability Insurance Scheme and resetting relations with China.

Evans, the former foreign minister, said in a September speech that Labor had reverted to a cautious, wedge-avoiding approach on issues ranging from gambling advertising to its post-Voice reconciliation agenda.

Former ACTU leader Kelty recently argued Labor was “mired in mediocrity” on economic reform, according to remarks obtained by The Australian Financial Review, while Keating has repeatedly castigated the AUKUS submarine pact, angering government MPs.

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