Albanese started slow, but Labor could yet be a force

Anthony Albanese must prove the party’s new-found realism is more than rhetoric. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has a plan to reshape Labor for a post-pandemic world.

After playing at bipartisan brinkmanship over energy policy, he has gone on the offensive.

Following the leak of the ALP draft policy agenda, Albanese looks set to reposition Labor from a poor imitation of the green-left to a party of workers’ rights and pub-test policy. He is pitching to a more mainstream demographic and demonstrating the kind of strategic thought too long missing from Labor.

When Albanese took the leadership, the party was reeling from its shock election loss. Former opposition leader Bill Shorten was a sure thing until voters had their say. Labor had pitched too far left, demanded tax hikes for ideological experiments and displayed astounding arrogance refusing to cost climate proposals. It looked opaque and unaccountable.

Albanese took the reins promising change but would not be drawn on Labor values. Instead, he suggested the party needed to tinker with policy and finetune communication.

Labor’s internal review put an end to the wishful thinking that the party could come back from the dead without a jolt. In hindsight, the election campaign was found seriously wanting. But the party’s problems were more than temporary. They ran deeper than an arrogant leader with a credibility problem and robotic style. The party had no plan.

The internal review chaired by Craig Emerson and Jay Weatherill was polite but damning. The party lost the election because it lacked an overall strategy that could be used to unite factions, appeal to the mainstream and present a coherent policy platform that differed from the Coalition campaign. Labor had over-committed on spending promises, which led to voter concerns about economic risk.

To make matters worse, Labor had neglected the working class in favour of the green-left, attacked Christians, defended politically correct censorship and prosecuted radical climate change policies ­irrespective of their potential to ­increase the national debt, cost blue-collar jobs and make energy prices less affordable.

Without a sense of true north, Labor had become vulnerable to the caprices of special interest groups whose grievance culture made the party reactive. Ironically, its attempt to modernise by adopting identity-based politics left it rigid in the face of change because it could no longer differentiate between core issues and peripheral noise. The quieter Australians were left behind.

Despite clear evidence the party had lost its way, Albanese spent his formative weeks as leader defending its values. He said the party did not require a major policy overhaul. But time and the internal review have worked their magic. Albanese is back to reality.

The ALP’s preliminary draft platform, revealed by The Australian last week, indicates a significant change in direction. Albanese is throwing off the ghosts of Labor past. There is a strong focus on environmental and industrial relations policy, but no return to a zero sum game between inner city greens and pro-coal electorates. Shorten’s ambition for a 45 per cent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2030 is gone. Instead, there is a focus on renewables. But the bigger picture has gone largely unremarked. Albanese has quietly interrupted Labor’s long affair with internationalism by introducing the national interest test. He has done this with a simple but powerful term: energy independence.

The ALP document reads: “Labor will ensure that Australia becomes a renewable energy superpower, harnessing our natural advantages in clean energy to become energy independent from the world, while lowering power prices, reaching zero net emissions by 2050.”

The Opposition Leader is employing the concept of energy independence to the objective of satisfying greens in the party and the traditional working-class base that will need significant support in the transition to a new industrial model. It is ambitious, to say the least. But the reasoning is sound, in political terms. If the ALP endorses the idea of energy independence and backs it up with substantial policy, it could provide a platform to unite battlers left behind by globalisation and values-based voters disenfranchised by the left’s long march into identity politics.

Consistent with the advice of its internal review, the ALP draft manifesto includes greater focus on the needs of private sector workers, particularly those in small or micro businesses. It will develop a plan for industrial relations reform for the casualised workforce. In the post-pandemic economy, any party offering those in insecure labour better working conditions and long-term financial security will prove popular, especially among female voters who predominate in the casual workforce. However, one of the many reality tests awaiting the ALP is to balance workers’ needs with those who create their jobs, namely private business owners.

Australians rejected Labor’s class-war rhetoric last election, but a protracted economic downturn could make fertile ground for the emergence of populist politics. Voters from the left and right rejected cosmopolitan centrism following the rise of jihad in the West. Consequently, champagne socialists failed to persuade the electorate that mass immigration, multicultural ideology and state-mandated minority politics were a public good. The collapse of class-war politics in the late 20th century, and identity politics during the past decade has left the Left without a clear mandate. It is not uncommon for parties to lean populist in the absence of a viable alternative and Labor could well choose that path. But without principled leadership and strategic direction, populism will descend into mob rule.

Albanese is facing two in-­principle tests: To steer Labor out of the wilderness with a strategy for the economy and the environment, he must overcome internecine battles by brokering a compromise between socialist green MPs and pro-coal realists; and to prove the party’s new-found realism is more than rhetoric, he must demonstrate a capacity to negotiate with the Coalition government over proposed environmental reforms to introduce a more agnostic approach to climate policy.

If he succeeds on these two fronts, Labor could become a force to be reckoned with.