How Labour Built Neoliberalism by Elizabeth Humphrys, a political economist at the University of Technology Sydney, is a groundbreaking account of the rise of neoliberalism in Australia. Going against the mainstream left account, Humphrys argues that neoliberalism should not be regarded as an ideology or doctrine, but as a political project underpinned by state power. Author and Guardian columnist Jeff Sparrow summarizes her point in a Sydney Review of Books essay:

For Humphrys, neoliberalism should not be understood solely in terms of [a] particular political or even economic doctrine. It should be seen as a political practice, undertaken in response to an economic downturn, with the aim of restoring profitability and facilitating capital accumulation. To that end, it seeks to disorganise and defeat the organisations of the labour movement and increase the proportion of national income transferred from the working class to the capitalist class.

Crucially, Humphrys identifies the Australian agents of this political project not in the Liberal Party, but in the mainstream of the union movement and the Labor Party. This is an important difference between the Australian experience of neoliberalism, and that of the United States or the UK, where the policy shift was introduced by Reagan and Thatcher, respectively.