When Gough Whitlam got chucked out on his ear, the Australian Labor Party decided that it needed a more broadly based electorate than it's traditional working class and disadvanteged class base. In a country like Australia where prosperity was rising, Labor's traditional voting base was shrinking.

Labor then became a chief advocate for more immigration and an advocate of refugees. If there was not enough poverty in Australia for Labor to take advantage of, then Labor would do it's best to import it from overseas. That such a policy would hardly be applauded by Labor's traditional voters is something that the Labor apparatchiks would not even consider.

Labor endorsed immigrant friendly "causes" like the Republic, guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye of any imported ethnic who resented Anglo domination of Australian culture, but it was anathema to working class and disadvantaged class Australians. Proof of this came with the referendum results. Two thirds of Beazley's own electorate voted against the Republic.

What we are seing now is election results hinging upon ethnic faultlines. Labour has now practically abandoned it's traditional Australian voters and those voters are now increasingly voting Liberal.

The only way that Labour will regain the respect of it's traditional Australian voters will be to offer to endorse Pauline Hanson as an ALP candidate in the next election. After the Latham debacle, the ALP must be insane if it thinks that a good looking sort like Julia Gropeable, a university trained functionary with an "all you need is love" philosophy, who has never run a business or had a real job, is going to get them back on the Government benches.

I know quite a few ordinary, working class 'poms' who fled Blair's Britain because of his policies. Most loathe and detest the very thought of the man.
Our "Labor" party probably wouldn't find a "working" man among it's membership of academics and union leaders.
Once 'Labor' stood for the workers, it has been many years since the main interest of the party was anything but their own quest for personal power, perks and prestige.
Get rid of the union and old university types who clog up Labor's arteries. Until then, stay on the opposition benches.

Some say Labor lost its way, or lost the plot after Hawke and Keating, both backing an Australian version of Thatcherite economic rationalism, which meant very much sucking up to Big Biz, which had really been getting a rough time right through the days of the Keynesian mixed economy, which incidently showed how Maynard Keynes after a long spell of the earlier free mrket, had taken note of the warning from the founder of Laisey-faire, Adam Smith, who said that though far more freedom was needed for business acumen, certain government utilities were better managed by government. Also Smith warned that the need for natural greed for the progress of capitalism, would also bring the need for the protection of the worker.

Futhermore, because the Thatcherite and Reaganomc version of free-market capitalism was ultra-right-wing, Labor could be called fortunate to have been able to govern those years. And though Howard might have been slow getting the market message, he has proved himself a master at it - not without a few evasions and untruths which could still get him in a lot of trouble.

Blair of course, followed pretty well the same economic trail as Hawke and Keating, really abusing the true Keynesian democratic mixed economic principle.

While Blair has been successful double-crossing the true Laborite principle, the Australian conservatives have been apparently much smarter than the UK conservatives, Australian Labor still caught in the eco-rational economic net, most of the time half agreeing in economics rather than opposing

Alex,

I live in Britain and believe in the move to the Centre. Blair is a winner no doubt.

But there is something even better: primary preselection.

Go read: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=159

It is the only way to bring into concert popular involvement and a viable sentiment for long term governance. It also ensures community involvement and choice. I'd say it is only way to ensure the Localism to which Kevin Rudd refers.

I am firmly of the view that when New Labour is beaten they will again drift into the wildernerss Left. You need a mechanism to stop this permanently.

Great article by the way,
Corin

Corin,
Yes the ALP is a carbon copy of Blair already, it has trouble opposing Howard because they are so much alike, scewed so far to the right, it is difficult to tell them from the tories.

The only way the ALP will regain government, is to regain its trafitional base, working class families, and the disabled in the community, which does look like happening any time soon.

I believe the ordinary people are sick to the back teeth of little Johhny, however as long as the ALP stays so far to the right, there is no alternative, for whom to vote. In my view this fact alone will keep the ALP in opposition for another decade.

I don't know that things are so dire for Labor. They are only 1 federal election win away from governing in every parliament in Australia. They are flush with funds, thanks to the union backing. Depending how Howard's IR laws play out, there is the possibility of Labor being swept in on the backlash as almost happened in 1998 with the GST backlash. If they change leaders and develop a couple of half-decent policies federal Labor is still a chance of a 2007 win. There is no great love for Howard, just not enough faith in the alternative.
Alex, what part of Latham's strategy did you advise him on when you worked for him? It seems to me that for a while Labor had a chance with Latham in 2004 before a series of bad strategic decisions led to his portrayal as an unstable man who could not be trusted to be PM. And weren't you with Latham on Liverpool Council in the early 90s where his failed experiments with a neo-con, economic rationalist agenda were brought back to haunt him in the 2004 campaign?