Yes its time Labor started listening to ordinary Australians. Not poets, song writers, actors, human rights activists, child abuse activists, pensioner groups, youth advocacy groups, NGO’s who do heaps of community work with homeless people and battered wives, volunteers who work overseas in third world countries, grassroots Aboriginal community leaders and workers who do amazingly good work with little or no funding.
These people have been listened to (but not heard) for far too long by both sides of politics.

Its time ordinary Australians had a go at being listened to and not heard.

The main thing the Federal Labor Party should do is to realise the facts, there are a lot more working people than millionaires, this is a Party that grew from the union movement, but which these days is disenfranchised from the ordinary working person, because they are toooooooo conservative, offer no solutions to the ordinary family in the suburbs, poverty,homelessness, Industrial mRelations, only a return to the status quo, no improvement in lifestyle. They need to come out loud and strong in support of working people, and move from the "right" back to centre, or centre/left to gain the support of the working poor, pensioners and middle income Australia

Thank you for all the comments. I agree with them in the main.

Whilst IR reforms create a real opportunity for Labor to seize the middle ground of economic debate, I hope they don't waste it by pandering to the unions and calls for widespread increases in wage indexation and centralisation, like they did in the 2004 election.

I think Labor can create a policy that defines them as competent and "better reformers" than Howard. Latham proposed reform but his prescriptions were seen as incompetent and policies like Medicare Gold certainly were.

Addressing policy competence and creating trust in a future Labor government would be a key to success in 2007.

This will require more candidates from beyond the established avenues. The public wants to be convinced of totemic change and a real move toward representing local community and in particular those living in outer-suburbs.

My experience is that Labor staffers often have come from varied backgrounds but then spend 10 or 15 years in politics never really speaking to anyone other than other ALP members and staffers. In short they become disconnected.

A connected party can found from having people involved with support from many walks of life.

The other point I was making is that the wide variety of seats means that Labor needs a large variety of candidates, and some variation of campaign message for the various areas. ie. if you campaign in Queensland you need a slightly different message/emphasis to seats in Melbourne. And often local issues and candidate recognition are decisive indicators of a party in touch and able to connect.

Thanks again for your comments.

Thanks Corin,

Yes grassroots representation would be excellent but I can help but think that even if they were elected they'd find themselves on the backbench, isolated, and voting in blocks according to the desires of factional number crunchers. Remember good ol Richo?

I think what you propose has great merit but structural and cultural reform in the upper echelons of Labor needs to be visibly apparent before even the most hard nose grassroots activist or community oriented leaders will look twice at the Labor party.

In my experience of watching Labor pre-select, they are much more conservative than many realize and tend to select manageable people, people who can demonstrate their fidelity to the party ethos rather than to their community. My observations suggest that even the best community leaders (in the states) are in battle with State Labor Ministers and then their yes men and women in their electorates.

It apparent to me that state Labor governments don’t want a Labor Federal government in power and I doubt they’d openly push for one either. Beattie’s silence on federal issues in the last election was deafening. This silence sent a diagonal message to the electorate that should not be underestimated in the next fed election.

I too hope for a Leftist resurgence, but my instincts tells me that this won't happen whilst Labor premiers are paying lip service to national issues

Rainer you're are talking about social disintergration of family breakdown,child abuse battered wives,youth alienation,crime etc?

Has it ever occurred to you that the soft option leftist mentality has been instrumental in creating all these problems over the last thirty yrs?More Govt handouts will only worsen the problem.

Where is the personal responsibility,independance and courage that our leftist whimps have failed to cultivate?In order to gain power the left have appealed to the most base of our instincts,sloth,lack of intestinal fortitude and not taking responsibility for our own actions.Yep,the Govt was going to solve all our woes.

We have become a pathetic culture and the Chinese business class will soon be the gate keepers of our economy.

Rainier,

Pessimism is a fools paradise in the long run. I guess it depends how long you have.

I'm only 30 - and don't think power should be held by people without widespread personal experience - so feel I have a fair bit of time.

Therefore I'd accept the possibility that these ideas will be unpopular in the ALP for sometime, but in the long run similar thinking will prevail.

People want a competitive connected ALP. Most people want that in the wider community. Politics needs that. The progressive concensus for better education for the young and expanding economic opportunity will be assisted by a Labor party that is connected to the aspirations of the great majority. These are reward for hard work, obligation to community, and respect for the poor where that poverty has not been their fault. This last agenda item is the most difficult to frame.

These values are better scrutinised by wide participation than by membership only politics. Debating community values must be a conversation between political leaders (the ALP) and the community. It is a self perpetuating benefit, to have widespread popular issues debated by the political party, and by people who come from the communities we live in.

Corin