Labor youth branch ‘too like the Greens’

A Labor-aligned think tank has lashed out at the party’s youth wing for failing to implement reforms that would broaden its membership.

John Curtin Research Centre executive director Nick Dyrenfurth. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

A Labor-aligned think tank has lashed out at the party’s youth wing for failing to implement reforms that would broaden its membership from inner-city university students that are “socially liberal and likely non-religious or atheist”.

John Curtin Research Centre executive director Nick Dyrenfurth has accused Young Labor — for members aged 15 to 26 — of having a narrow membership that “contributes to the cultural problems and electoral weakness of federal Labor”.

Writing in the think tank’s next Tocsin publication, Dr Dyrenfurth is critical of Labor for failing to reform its youth wing and mandate a working-class quota.

“There has been no attempt to reform Young Labor which draws upwards of 95 per cent of its members from our university campuses, mainly G8 unis; in other words, not from the 72 per cent of non-tertiary degree-holding Australians,” Dr Dyrenfurth wrote.

“Our proposal for reforming Young Labor aimed to diversify, to recruit and retain non-university students … by 2022, aiming for (a) membership ratio … one-third university students; one-third TAFE/vocational students; and one-third young workers not studying/employed/looking for jobs.

“Too many Labor MPs and especially our young activists look and sound the same as ostensibly rival Greens: university-educated, socially liberal and likely non-religious or atheist, and destined for white-collar, higher-income secure work, living in the inner cities. Labor does not properly reflect the full diversity of working people in its ranks.”

Dr Dyrenfurth wrote that Labor “must change ourselves before we can change Australia”, and warned Anthony Albanese against relying on a small-target strategy. He said the reluctance to reform the youth wing and put “labour back into Labor” had contrasted with the ALP’s national executive intervening in the Victorian branch over the Adem Somyurek scandal.

“For many, it is bewildering that similar action cannot be taken with respect to the long-term future of the party – its youth wing.

This is all the more troubling given the recent debate, a healthy one, about the ethnic diversity in Labor’s parliamentary ranks.

“If only the same energy was expended on creating a more diverse Young Labor … in terms of having more Labor people speaking the lingo of the suburbs and regions from an economic, material standpoint.”

Dr Dyrenfurth will also urge the Opposition Leader against relying on the government’s failures in the Covid-19 pandemic as an election-winning strategy.

“Vaccination rates will almost certainly hit 80 per cent ‘double vaxxed’ by year’s end,” he wrote.

“The economy will be in recovery mode … The well-worn ‘Scott Morrison had two jobs’ (vaccinations and quarantine) line will likely have passed its political use-by-date. Labor will need a Plan B electoral strategy.”