Without a Mass Membership, Australia’s Labor Party Is on the Road to Nowhere
The Australian Labor Party has been bleeding support for years, and it won't recover without active members who can engage with working-class communities. Undemocratic right-wing cliques are standing in the way of renewal, but ACT Labor shows that a different way of doing politics is viable.
Leader of the Australian Labor Party Anthony Albanese addresses the media at a press conference, 2019. (Brook Mitchell / Getty Images)
The Australian Labor Party (ALP) hasn’t won a general election in over eleven years. In New South Wales (NSW), where Labor has been out of power for a decade, defeat has almost become a part of the party’s identity.
In the lead up to the federal 2019 election, Labor anticipated gaining marginal seats in the western parts of Sydney and in other regional electorates based around towns and small cities away from metropolitan capitals. Despite the party’s high hopes entering the election, it wasn’t able to improve upon its 2016 results nationwide.
Over the same eleven years, Labor has had significantly more success in state elections. Between 2009 and 2020, state ALP parties won elections in Queensland, Western Australia, Victoria, Northern Territory, and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The party’s weakness has been disproportionately concentrated in NSW. Labor’s rare victories in the state, like a modest gain of three seats in Sydney in the 2019 federal election, have done little to reverse the tide.
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