With the advent of "democratisation" of the selection processes parties tend to become more extreme. The epitome of this is that a far left socialist, Jeremy Corbyn, has gained and kept the leadership of the UK labour party in spite of the vast majority of labour MPs not backing him. The result of which is that there is a real chance that Labour will lose enough seats to not be the official opposition party any more.

The Aus Labor party seems to be moving in the same direction with the left faction of the party gaining control of several states and pushing a "progressive" agenda that competes with the greens and ignores the back pocket of the working and middle classes.

There is a very real risk that labor in abandoning the centre ground to the Coalition, is going to make itself unelectable.

The Labor party in OZ bears no resemblance to the Labour party in the UK. OZ politics are generally to the right of UK politics. The Tory party in the UK is to the left of Labor in OZ at the moment.

Labour will go to the polls and be decimated, the loonies will lose their seats and things will gradually get back to normal, whatever normal is.

It's a long time since the ALP was anywhere near the 'centre' Shadow, and I don't think that the pommy nutter is anywhere significant enough to deserve your coining of a movement after him. The man is madder than a cut snake, and would be in a lot of trouble if he ever tried to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Shadow, not much chance of the Coalition gaining the center ground, when you have Barnyard and the Abbott Drys calling all the shots, with Turnbull acting as their glove puppet, for his own obvious political reason, to keep the captaincy. this has resulted in stagnant government, and Turnbull spending much of his time fighting brush fires lit by his enemies within. The Coalition will only gain in popularity if they move back to a liberal philosophy, which will place them in the center right of Australian politics. They very much need to ditch the far right conservative attitude, give it to the likes of Hanson, and once again adopt the liberalism they were once known for.

The British Labour Party grew out of a regimented class system, and has somewhat remained so to this day. Although through the reign of Blair it did became a more conservative force within the political system and gained popularity. The Australian Labor Party had a somewhat different upbringing, although socialists for a very long time it has mostly divested itself of that tag, and now act as populists center left party. It to should ditch the hard progressive stance it sometimes adopts, leaving that to the likes of The Greens.
No political party can survive for long, if it tries to be all things for all men. The Democrats tried and failed.

Trying to associate the ALP with the BLP is erroneous, they even spell the word differently, Labor and Labour.

Paul,

There is something in what you say. We need distinct differences between parties if people are to have any real choice. As Abbott found out, noone can be all things to all people. I, for example, went along with the Labor party until my early thirties. That Labor party no longer exists: I have no idea who or what Shorten Labor stands for. Up until John Howard (and he also started giving me the pip before he deservedly lost his own seat) I supported the Coalition. Not any more. Perhaps the Coalition has already reached what you suggest for it. As a conservative, I am pretty much stuck with Hanson, now, although I yearn for a touch more sophistication. You have your Greens.

So, we have at either end, Hanson and the Greens, and, floundering in the middle, the LNP and Labor, both of which really need to look at themselves if they wish to survive. At the moment, they stand for nothing. Certainly, they can both forget their 'born-to-rule' attitudes. Were I a betting man,I would suggest that the the Turnbull majority of one is the last time we Australians will see a government governing in its own right.

Paul,

I don't know if you are just pretending to be dense?

That the coalition has won the last two elections means by definition that if not dead center, at least holds a large swag of the center ground which makes it center right. The labor party is center left and the greens and one nation are far left and far right respectively. As for Shorten, the unions have their hand so far up his backside that they can change his mind manually.

Secondly, both the ALP and BLP originated from the unions still with significant union influence on policy and pre selection. They don't have to be identical for my commentary to be valid.

Finally, the reason that the BLP has swung so far to the left is not from the consensus of the party room, but because the leadership selection has been hijacked by left whinge activists. Given that the ALP has allowed selection of their leader by 50% contribution of the rank and file, who have already shown their more left whinge choices, there is a fair chance of this happening to the ALP.