The Australian Labor Party Needs to Ditch Neoliberalism Instead of Doubling Down
The Write Stuff, a recent collection of essays from the ALP’s conservative wing, argues that Labor must shift even further to the right to become electorally successful. The book’s authors couldn’t be more wrong — to win, Labor must ditch the neoliberal policies they celebrate.
Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.
How Labour Built Neoliberalism, a book by political economist Elizabeth Humphrys, is a meticulously researched diagnosis of the malaise that has plagued the Australian labor movement since the 1990s. It’s a vital perspective on politics in Australia over the last thirty years.
Wayne Swan, the national president of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), recently decided to engage with her argument on Tom Ballard’s podcast in a characteristically thoughtful and constructive manner:
Someone published a book recently claiming the Hawke–Keating years were neoliberal which is just rubbish . . . we’re a laborist party with unions affiliated with us and I find it offensive, some of that analysis, which somehow suggests that the union movement of the country and Labor politicians of enormous stature . . . were somehow neoliberals.
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