Labor is adrift, in search of a narrative to animate its purpose ahead of the budget

Anthony Albanese speaks at a news conference during the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit.

Anthony Albanese’s government begins its third year in power this month. Yet there is a pervasive sense in the community that it is drifting, too easily blown off course by unforeseen events and lacks an overarching purpose. The government needs clear policy goals, a coherent strategic framework and a persuasive narrative for where it wants to take the country and why.

There is no shortage of activity, with a plethora of almost daily announcements across the full gamut of government, on economic policy and workplace relations to education and health, climate change and energy, defence and foreign policy, and a retrograde interventionist industry policy. Ministers regularly stage events, call press conferences and appear on radio and television.

No, this is not an idle government beset by lethargy, too comfortable with the trappings of power or unsure of what to do. But the government is probably doing too much. There is a scattergun approach to announcements designed to feed the media cycle, appear active on social media and to show constituents it is busy.

Indeed, this is a government that has an ambition to enlarge and expand the role of government. The Prime Minister does not want to merely shape Australia; he wants to remake Australia. He seeks fundamental change in almost every policy area. He leads a big-spending, interventionist, ambitious government.

But what is the joined-up purpose of these policy decisions? How do they fit together as part of a strategy that illuminates the values of the government and defines its vision for the future? Where is the theme? Even an umbrella phrase – remember Bob Hawke’s “reconciliation, recovery, reconstruction” wrapped in “consensus” – would be helpful.

Albanese took Jim Chalmers’ concept of “safe change” and made it part of his election mantra. It was a clever tactic to announce policies without frightening voters, as Bill Shorten did in 2019.

There were big ideas – a referendum, an integrity commission, Jobs and Skills Australia and the National Reconstruction Fund, an energy plan to tackle climate change – but they were not especially controversial or risky.

At Labor’s 2022 election campaign launch, Albanese stood on a stage against a backdrop that read: “A Better Future”. He lashed Scott Morrison’s government and said “Australians deserve better.” It was a speech aimed at winning an election. “Australia: if we stand still, we will be left behind,” Albanese argued. Hardly inspiring but probably effective.

At the party’s national conference last year, when Albanese carefully managed Labor’s bifurcated factions and overbearing unions, the stage was emblazoned with the words “Working for Australia”. Albanese said he was focused on delivering promises, easing the inflationary burden and a successful referendum.

Ahead of next week’s budget, the government has offered a new theme: “A Future Made in Australia”. It is best to have a clear message for budgets, which is what Paul Keating and Peter Costello did. But the Treasurer is spinning plates on sticks by promising to fight inflation, spend to provide cost-of-living relief and to grow the economy – and also be fiscally disciplined.

Labor’s structural weaknesses in campaigning and organisation, erosion of voter support and fall in membership penetrate to a deeper problem: remaining electorally viable and contemporarily relevant. I’ve long written about major party dealignment, as education and income have become more important than class in determining voter choices. Wealthy voters with university degrees who live in cities increasingly are voting Labor while the party’s share of voters on lower incomes, mostly school-educated, and those living outside major cities has declined. Forming government in 2022 with just 32 per cent of the vote should have been an alarm bell for a party that commanded 49 per cent in 1983.

Nick Dyrenfurth and Frank Bongiorno canvass these and other challenges for Labor in a new edition of their book, A Little History of the Australian Labor Party, published this month. The book offers a lively account of the party’s long history, its leaders, election victories and losses, policy successes and failures, splits, tragedies and triumphs.

Dyrenfurth and Bongiorno make the point that longevity is no guarantee of posterity. Many parties of the centre-left – labour­ist, socialist or social democratic – around the world barely survive or struggle to gain traction.

The end of the Cold War ideological battleground, the collapse of industrial-based economies and rapid decline of unions, and looser political allegiances help explain why. Labor must confront these realities.

“At every point in its history, and especially in tough times, Labor has been able to renew itself by examining, restating and sometimes redefining the goals of democracy, equality and social justice,” Dyrenfurth and Bongiorno write. “It has recognised that as part of a society whose structure, demography, values and relationship with a globalised world are constantly changing, a party committed to a politics of progress cannot afford to stand still.”

They call for a redesign of party machinery established in the 1890s alongside a rethink of “policies, strategies, rules, structures, rituals and identity” given the decline of the working class, the collapse of global socialism and the resilience of capitalism. This is a task not just for party members but for leaders, too, and being in government affords the opportunity to redefine Labor’s mission for the modern era.

Labor has always succeeded best in government when it has repurposed itself to address immediate challenges while pursuing longer-term policy goals. Leaders must identify the port they seek and chart a course to get there. So it was with the governments led by John Curtin and Ben Chifley, Gough Whitlam, Hawke and Keating, who each won re-election.

Keating once told me Labor was effective only when it was well led, with a coherent strategy and narrative of purpose. “The Labor Party is the great building force in Australian public life, but it is poorly organised and scatty,” he said. “It is also ideologically uncertain. It comes into its own when it is led and shaped.”

Keating is right; there is a premium on leadership. This is the task for Albanese.