Labor Right urges AUKUS unity while Left advocates radicalism

As Labor’s factions prepare to do battle at the party’s national conference, rival publications outline their respective agendas.

Defence Minister Richard Marles. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Labor’s national Right faction has urged delegates to the party’s nat­ional conference to reject rank-and-file and Left union opposition to the trilateral AUKUS nuclear defence pact and endorse it as a key plank to foster peace in the region.

The Voice publication, prepared by the national Right and obtained by The Australian, leads with articles by faction convenor and SDA national secretary Gerard Dwyer and Defence Minister Richard Marles arguing that AUKUS warrants support.

“Our region has undergone dramatic change in recent decades and this government is determined to build a security framework that fosters peace,” Mr Dwyer writes. “AUKUS is a key plank in this strategy. Richard Marles and the Prime Minister know the importance of this project for security and stability in our region – it is an initiative that deserves our support.”

The Deputy Prime Minister has invoked Labor history, citing Andrew Fisher in World War I, John Curtin in World War II and Bob Hawke in the Cold War, to argue that acquiring nuclear-powered submarines was within party tradition.

“Labor has long understood there is no greater responsibility for a government than ensuring the security of its people,” Mr Marles writes. “The proper reading of Australian history is that when times have been difficult for our national security, Australians have always looked to Labor.”

In pushing back against widespread internal opposition to AUKUS, he writes that nuclear-powered submarines will boost industry and create jobs, and is also critical for the defence of Australia, for collective regional security and to secure Australia’s imports and exports by sea.

“Some have argued against the decision to acquire conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines,” he writes.

“These argu­ments must be respectfully, but firmly, refuted. We are serious about ensuring security of the people so we must confront complex strategic circum­stances with serious decisions.”

Meanwhile, Labor’s national Left publication Challenge, also obtained by The Australian, urges the Albanese government to abandon its “overly cautious” approach to policy that may be “increasingly out of step with the public mood,” writes editor Osmond Chiu. He says governments, not markets, now set the direction of economies. “Labor must fully embrace and articulate this agenda, but it will not be enough to simply deliver policy success, it must also speak directly to and address the fears and insecurity many people have. Unless it does so, Labor’s first-term policy achievements may not be enough to guarantee a long-term majority Labor government.”

Other Left faction figures say the Albanese government must be bolder in a range of areas such as housing, manufacturing, public service reform, legalising cannabis, ending native forest logging and in taxing the super profits of companies.

Julijana Todorovic, from the Victorian Socialist Left, says the government needs to be more radical in addressing the housing crisis. “If we’re not careful, young people will come with their baseball bats, and we may lose two generations of workers who are struggling to find safe and secure long-term housing,” she writes.

Steve Murphy, national secretary of the AMWU, says further cost-of-living relief is needed and the $15.2bn National Reconstruction Fund should be made 10 times larger.

Other ministers aligned to the Right faction have also written for Voice. Jim Chalmers says Labor’s economic and social agenda reflects “hard heads and warm hearts” in public policy, while Chris Bowen says Labor can become “a renewable energy superpower” by making climate change policy a signature reform.