Labor Right
Encyclopedia
The Labor Right, or Labor Unity in some State branches, or Centre Unity in NSW, is the organised faction
of the Australian Labor Party
(ALP) that tends to be more economically liberal and socially conservative than Labor Left.
Nationally, the Right is a broad alliance of the various Right state groupings. Each state may have one or two different sub-factions, generally the right and centre leaning factions of each state branch. State based factions (national sub-factions) which make up the National Right include:
New South Wales
Queensland
Australian Capital Territory
Victoria
Western Australia
Factional power usually finds expression in the percentage vote of aligned delegates at party conferences. The power of the Labor Right varies from state to state, but it usually relies on certain trade unions, such as the Australian Workers Union and the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association which send factionally aligned delegates to conference and also from ordinary party members with right wing alliance.
The Right is currently the dominant faction
in the Labor party. The faction also holds a majority on the party's National Executive. The faction has 41 of the 115 Federal Labor MPs. The arrangement is that the federal leader of the party is from the Right, while the deputy leader is from the Left, although presently Julia Gillard
, the federal Labor leader and prime minister, is from the Left with support of the Right. Most of the Labor state Premiers are associated with the Right; there are some exceptions, such as Queensland Premier Anna Bligh
and South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill
.
describe the factional system in Australian Labor
as being less about ideology and more about patronage
. Faulkner pointed out that Unions did not control the ALP but rather the factions which control the party also control the Unions. Furthermore, he described the typical career path for aspiring political apparatchiks "a university degree in law or industrial relations, a paid job in a union, leadership in a union, various positions in the ALP (including paid positions) culminating in a State Secretaryship or the like, nomination to the Senate or to a safe House of Representatives seat." Unions retain 50% of the votes at ALP conferences, and the majority of union secretaries are from the Labor Right.
and that time is measured by what Labor right thinks to be community expectations and needs rather than "political correctness
".
Many Roman Catholics have been prominent and influential in the Labor Party, both inside and outside the auspices of the Labor Right faction. Labor socialists and Protestant conservatives alike have historically criticized the faction as beholden to papal authority. However, this has decreased since the 1970s with the gradual erosion of sectarianism in Australian politics.
The Right views itself as the more mainstream and fiscally responsible faction within the ALP. In an address to the Australian Fabian Society
, Right faction luminary Robert Ray
warned that not "every candidate needs an Honours Degree in Apparatchikism". In the same speech he described factionalism gone wrong, criticising "the suffocating collaboration of factional Daleks – such as Conroy
and Carr
.
The Right is most famous for its support of Third Way
policies over Labor's traditional social democratic
/democratic socialist
policies, such as the economic rationalist
policies of the Hawke
and Keating
governments, like floating the Australian Dollar
in 1983, reductions in trade tariff
s, taxation reforms, changing from centralised wage-fixing to enterprise bargaining
, the privatisation of Qantas
and Commonwealth Bank, and deregulating the banking system.
, would now be considered in the Socialist Left; especially in comparison to more recent Right leaders such as Paul Keating
, Kim Beazley
and Kevin Rudd
.
The underlining criticism of the dominance of the Right in the ALP is that, while incorporating a Realpolitik
philosophy, it has led to the erosion of its traditional support to the Greens, particularly on some serious issues of policy, such as Economic Management, Immigration & Refugees, Tax Policy, Industrial Relations, National Security and gay marriage. However, the Right emphasises that the only way to enact policy would be to win and maintain Government. To this end, they stress the need to build and maintain a broad constituent base, especially one that incorporates the swinging, 'aspirational' voters of Middle Australia.
The Right's chief objective is to ensure the ALP remains an electable, credible and, above all, superior alternative to the Coalition
, if need be at the expense of the Socialist Left. Internal ballots are often vigorously contested between Left and Right candidates and, in the past, allegations of unscrupulous conduct in regard to balloting processes (e.g. branch stacking
) have been a feature of such contests.
Political faction
A political faction is a grouping of individuals, such as a political party, a trade union, or other group with a political purpose. A faction or political party may include fragmented sub-factions, “parties within a party," which may be referred to as power blocs, or voting blocs. The individuals...
of the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
(ALP) that tends to be more economically liberal and socially conservative than Labor Left.
Nationally, the Right is a broad alliance of the various Right state groupings. Each state may have one or two different sub-factions, generally the right and centre leaning factions of each state branch. State based factions (national sub-factions) which make up the National Right include:
New South Wales
- Centre Unity
Queensland
- Labor Unity (Old Guard) - Qld Centre.
- Labor Forum - Qld Right.
Australian Capital Territory
- Centre Coalition
- Labor Unity - ACT Right.
Victoria
- Labor Unity
Western Australia
- WA Labor Centre
- WA Labor Right
Factional power usually finds expression in the percentage vote of aligned delegates at party conferences. The power of the Labor Right varies from state to state, but it usually relies on certain trade unions, such as the Australian Workers Union and the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association which send factionally aligned delegates to conference and also from ordinary party members with right wing alliance.
The Right is currently the dominant faction
Political faction
A political faction is a grouping of individuals, such as a political party, a trade union, or other group with a political purpose. A faction or political party may include fragmented sub-factions, “parties within a party," which may be referred to as power blocs, or voting blocs. The individuals...
in the Labor party. The faction also holds a majority on the party's National Executive. The faction has 41 of the 115 Federal Labor MPs. The arrangement is that the federal leader of the party is from the Right, while the deputy leader is from the Left, although presently Julia Gillard
Julia Gillard
Julia Eileen Gillard is the 27th and current Prime Minister of Australia, in office since June 2010.Gillard was born in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales and migrated with her family to Adelaide, Australia in 1966, attending Mitcham Demonstration School and Unley High School. In 1982 Gillard moved...
, the federal Labor leader and prime minister, is from the Left with support of the Right. Most of the Labor state Premiers are associated with the Right; there are some exceptions, such as Queensland Premier Anna Bligh
Anna Bligh
Anna Maria Bligh is an Australian politician and the Premier of Queensland since 2007. The 2009 Queensland state election was the first time a female-led political party won or retained state or federal government in Australia...
and South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill
Jay Weatherill
Jay Wilson Weatherill is an Australian politician and current Premier of South Australia. He has represented the electoral district of Cheltenham in the South Australian House of Assembly as a member of the Australian Labor Party since the 2002 election.-Early life:Born in the western suburbs of...
.
Factional control
In a 2005 speech prominent Left Faction member, John FaulknerJohn Faulkner
John Philip Faulkner is an Australian politician. He has been a Labor member of the Australian Senate since 1989, representing the state of New South Wales. Following a period serving on various Senate Committees and as Deputy Whip, he was a Minister in the Keating Labor government 1993-96...
describe the factional system in Australian Labor
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
as being less about ideology and more about patronage
Patronage
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...
. Faulkner pointed out that Unions did not control the ALP but rather the factions which control the party also control the Unions. Furthermore, he described the typical career path for aspiring political apparatchiks "a university degree in law or industrial relations, a paid job in a union, leadership in a union, various positions in the ALP (including paid positions) culminating in a State Secretaryship or the like, nomination to the Senate or to a safe House of Representatives seat." Unions retain 50% of the votes at ALP conferences, and the majority of union secretaries are from the Labor Right.
Political views
An overriding stated theme of Labor right wing governance is of balance between progressive social change and the need for sound economic management as the pathway to community development and growth. For Labor right, there is a time for change and a time to maintain the status quoStatus quo
Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...
and that time is measured by what Labor right thinks to be community expectations and needs rather than "political correctness
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
".
Many Roman Catholics have been prominent and influential in the Labor Party, both inside and outside the auspices of the Labor Right faction. Labor socialists and Protestant conservatives alike have historically criticized the faction as beholden to papal authority. However, this has decreased since the 1970s with the gradual erosion of sectarianism in Australian politics.
The Right views itself as the more mainstream and fiscally responsible faction within the ALP. In an address to the Australian Fabian Society
Australian Fabian Society
The Australian Fabians was established in 1947. Inspired by the Fabian Society in the United Kingdom, it is dedicated to Fabianism, the focus on the advancement of socialist ideas through gradual influence and patiently promoting socialist ideals to intellectual circles and groups with power.The...
, Right faction luminary Robert Ray
Robert Ray (Australian politician)
Robert Francis Ray , Australian politician, was an Australian Labor Party member of the Senate from July 1981 to May 2008, representing the state of Victoria....
warned that not "every candidate needs an Honours Degree in Apparatchikism". In the same speech he described factionalism gone wrong, criticising "the suffocating collaboration of factional Daleks – such as Conroy
Stephen Conroy
Stephen Michael Conroy is an Australian politician and the current Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy in the Gillard Ministry...
and Carr
Kim Carr
Kim John Carr is an Australian politician. He has been an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian Senate since April 1993, representing the state of Victoria. He was elected to the Senate at the March 1993 election, and was due to take his seat on 1 July...
.
The Right is most famous for its support of Third Way
Third way (centrism)
The Third Way refers to various political positions which try to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies. Third Way approaches are commonly viewed from within the first- and second-way perspectives as...
policies over Labor's traditional social democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
/democratic socialist
Democratic socialism
Democratic socialism is a description used by various socialist movements and organizations to emphasize the democratic character of their political orientation...
policies, such as the economic rationalist
Economic rationalism
Economic rationalism is an Australian term in discussion of microeconomic policy, applicable to the economic policy of many governments around the world, in particular during the 1980s and 1990s....
policies of the Hawke
Bob Hawke
Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke AC GCL was the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia from March 1983 to December 1991 and therefore longest serving Australian Labor Party Prime Minister....
and Keating
Paul Keating
Paul John Keating was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1991 to 1996. Keating was elected as the federal Labor member for Blaxland in 1969 and came to prominence as the reformist treasurer of the Hawke Labor government, which came to power at the 1983 election...
governments, like floating the Australian Dollar
Australian dollar
The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
in 1983, reductions in trade tariff
Tariff
A tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....
s, taxation reforms, changing from centralised wage-fixing to enterprise bargaining
Enterprise bargaining agreement
Enterprise bargaining is wage and working conditions being negotiated at the level of the individual organisations. Once established, they are legally binding on employers and employees....
, the privatisation of Qantas
Qantas
Qantas Airways Limited is the flag carrier of Australia. The name was originally "QANTAS", an initialism for "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services". Nicknamed "The Flying Kangaroo", the airline is based in Sydney, with its main hub at Sydney Airport...
and Commonwealth Bank, and deregulating the banking system.
Criticisms
While the Right has dominated Federally since the 1950s, the gradual shift of the paradigm of economic policy within Australia towards the Right, particularly since the 1970s, has led to the situation where past leaders of the Right, such as Ben ChifleyBen Chifley
Joseph Benedict Chifley , Australian politician, was the 16th Prime Minister of Australia. He took over the Australian Labor Party leadership and Prime Ministership after the death of John Curtin in 1945, and went on to retain government at the 1946 election, before being defeated at the 1949...
, would now be considered in the Socialist Left; especially in comparison to more recent Right leaders such as Paul Keating
Paul Keating
Paul John Keating was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1991 to 1996. Keating was elected as the federal Labor member for Blaxland in 1969 and came to prominence as the reformist treasurer of the Hawke Labor government, which came to power at the 1983 election...
, Kim Beazley
Kim Beazley
In the October 1998 election, Labor polled a majority of the two-party vote and received the largest swing to a first-term opposition since 1934. However, due to the uneven nature of the swing, Labor came up eight seats short of making Beazley Prime Minister....
and Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...
.
The underlining criticism of the dominance of the Right in the ALP is that, while incorporating a Realpolitik
Realpolitik
Realpolitik refers to politics or diplomacy based primarily on power and on practical and material factors and considerations, rather than ideological notions or moralistic or ethical premises...
philosophy, it has led to the erosion of its traditional support to the Greens, particularly on some serious issues of policy, such as Economic Management, Immigration & Refugees, Tax Policy, Industrial Relations, National Security and gay marriage. However, the Right emphasises that the only way to enact policy would be to win and maintain Government. To this end, they stress the need to build and maintain a broad constituent base, especially one that incorporates the swinging, 'aspirational' voters of Middle Australia.
The Right's chief objective is to ensure the ALP remains an electable, credible and, above all, superior alternative to the Coalition
Coalition (Australia)
The Coalition in Australian politics refers to a group of centre-right parties that has existed in the form of a coalition agreement since 1922...
, if need be at the expense of the Socialist Left. Internal ballots are often vigorously contested between Left and Right candidates and, in the past, allegations of unscrupulous conduct in regard to balloting processes (e.g. branch stacking
Branch stacking
Branch stacking is the act of recruiting members for a branch of a political party for the principal purpose of influencing the outcome of internal preselections of candidates for public office...
) have been a feature of such contests.
Youth Wing
While the senior faction is broken into various state and union based groupings the Young Labor Right is organised around the various parliamentarian factional leaders and power brokers. The major Victorian Right Faction Youth Wing is Young Labor Unity. The NSW Young Labor Right known as Young Centre Unity or simply the NSW Right is by far the largest right wing youth faction.Further reading
- Cumming, Fia (1991) Mates : five champions of the Labor right. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86373-021-4. Library catalogue summary: Paul Keating, Graham Richardson, Laurie Brereton, Bob Carr and Leo McLeay recount events which shaped the Australian labour movement from the 1960s to the 1980s.
- http://www.laborunity.com Labor Unity (Victoria) website