"insipid Cameron/Turnbull model of governance".

'Insipid ' certainly describes Turnbull, all teared up last night about aborigines, with a smirking Stan Grant enjoying the undignified display. It's a disgrace that Turnbull doesn't direct his energies to his own culture, and our history - where there is much to be learned to fix the current mess - instead of wasting billions of dollars and fussing about a Stoneage Culture that started dying naturally with the arrival of civilization over 200 years ago. Perhaps 'stupid' is more fitting than insipid for people who sneer about their own history and values, while lauding a dead culture which has no place in the modern Australia, which is, in fact an economic and political millstone around the our necks.

Tim, the problem with the centre left is they became the centre right, and arguably more right wing than Small L liberal Menzies; even as the right moved to include/become the extreme right.

The extreme right has to include the fanatical inflexible rigid religious right And equally rigid guys like Saunders, are forcing iLabor back towards its traditional roots.

I too like Bill shorten and his attempts to broaden and democratise the party. And given he succeeds, give a de-greened Labor the best chance it can have of governing.

Simply put, we need democratic socialists and progressive conservatives, The moderates in the middle, and through them the contest of ideas, some of which must be new and untried.

Throughout the entire course of human history, all progress has been advanced via the contest of new and untested ideas, not more of the me too or the old dogma regurgitated!

Even if that requires some former union heavies, whose mouths flap most vigorously when an easterly wind blows, have to tolerate the smell of burning emanating from previously unused cerebral circuits?

AS for the unions, their power and influence, needs to be dramatically reduced, as does their (gravy train) transition from the union movement and into parliament!

And given Labor takes a leaf out of the Obama and Clinton (it's the economy stupid) hymn book, via crowdfunding!
Rhrosty.

There's more to it than that. A new generation are discovering that the ideas of (what's now regarded as) the far left have been unfairly dismissed.

A very thoughtful article. It is true that in Australia Labor has essentially repudiated the Hawke-Keating model of improving the efficiency of the economy and have reverted to tax and spend.

Aidan, the reason why the far left have been dismissed long ago in Western countries is because socialism has failed wherever it has been tried. If you doubt that, have a look at where Zimbabwe and Venezuela are now.

AJFA, to counter balance your examples of failed "socialism" in Zimbabwe and Venezuela, I offer Haiti and Burkina Faso as leading examples of failed "Capitalism". LOL

Tim O'Hare's critique of Aussie Labor, I agree with Tim, Shorten is not the man of the moment and is unlikely to ever be so. Labor badly needs to redefine itself as to what its core values are, and in what political direction it sees Australia moving in the future with a Labor leadership.
As a moderate Green I am far more likely to support a Turnbull than a Shorten, but that's not to say I wouldn't preference Labor, given Turnbull alone is not the governement.

AJFA, that's a case in point. You dismiss every aspect of socialism because of a few dubious examples.

Zimbabwe's an economic basket case, though I'd classify Mugabe as far right rather than far left, as he's an evil racist tyrant who treats all his opponents as enemies of the state.

And as for Venezuela, isn't it now in a similar political situation to Britain in the 1950s? The socialists have lost popular support but could regain it once they modify their policies.

Citing socialist failures as reasons to reject all socialist policies is a logical fallacy; we can pick and choose policies rather than accepting or rejecting the entire package. Very few socialists today would want to replace markets with central planning, even though that was once a defining feature of socialism!

I think there is still a consensus among everyone that we need to improve the efficiency of the economy. However some of the policies that appeared to do that turned out to be false economies. With the benefit of hindsight we can see where we went wrong, yet some people want to make the same mistakes all over again.