The End of the Party? Labor History and the Rise of the Greens.
- Introduction: The End of the Party? Hysteria and History
- Historical Context: Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left
- Historical Context: A Direct Historical Parallel - The Lang Labor Split
- Lessons from History: The Limited Scale of the Threat
- Lessons from History: The Risks of an Ideologically Isolated Labor Party
- Lessons from History: The Risks of a Divided Progressive Movement
- Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Political Philosophy And the Case for Government
- Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Progressive Policy Making in the Real World
- Conclusion
The End of the Party? Labor History and the Rise of the Greens.
- Introduction: The End of the Party? Hysteria and History
- Historical Context: Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left
- Historical Context: A Direct Historical Parallel - The Lang Labor Split
- Lessons from History: The Limited Scale of the Threat
- Lessons from History: The Risks of an Ideologically Isolated Labor Party
- Lessons from History: The Risks of a Divided Progressive Movement
- Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Political Philosophy And the Case for Government
- Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Progressive Policy Making in the Real World
- Conclusion
Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left in Historical Context
The history of the Australian Labor Party is best understood
as a history of a conflict between the forces of electoralism and the forces of
ideology. From the earliest days of the Labor party, in the shearers camps
around Barcaldine and the workers cottages in Balmain, progressives have fought
over whether the proper role of the Labor Party was to seek Government or to
promote larger scale change in society through the pursuit of ideological ends.
Labor historian Denis Murphy has described this conflict as the clash between
the ‘more immediate goals of the empiricists and liberals’ within the ALP and
the ‘long term aspirations of the socialists and idealists’.[i]
The majority of the trade unionists who had sat under the
Tree of Knowledge had their political enlightenment forged in the
practicalities of wage negotiations. Having been under the jackboot of the
Queensland Colonial Army and a hostile conservative Government, they understood
the negative power of holding government. As a result, they had specific,
practical policy goals for the Labor Party and they sought government to deliver
them.
As historian, Ross Fitzgerald has written of this period:
“Labor electoralism, to which most Queensland unions remained loyal for so long, was based on the notion that manipulation of the state was the most effective strategy for labour advancement. The immediate goals of this strategy were at no stage more ambitious than the modest extension of state enterprise and social welfare services, and ‘socialism’ was consciously redefined to fit within these bounds.’[ii]
Murphy has echoed this view, noting that
“In the years when the Labor party was establishing itself there was little intellectual tradition in Australian society. Reflecting this, the Labor party placed a greater emphasis on practical political questions and, though there were some theorists among the socialist groups, the party was only marginally concerned with theories of politics.”[iii]
To this end, the early policy platforms of the ALP were
focused on a limited number of objectives that were directly relevant to the
lives of their potential constituents: increased wages; workers compensation; workplace
health and safety improvements; protections for workers against sickness, old
age and unemployment; and electoral reforms to give workers genuine
representation (particularly universal, equal franchise, one vote, one value
and the abolition of conservative upper houses).
However, as Murphy intimates, even in the late 1890s, there
was a parallel, more ideological and militant stream of thought present in both
the party and the broader progressive movement. This stream of thought rejected
the incrementalism of the electoralists and advocated more fundamental political
change. Over the course of Labor's
history, groups both within the Labor movement (eg the Socialist Leagues, the
Industrial Workers of the World, the One Big Unionists) and outside the ALP (eg
Lang Labor, the Communist Party) have continually emerged seeking to shift
Labor from its founding electoralist objective.
The degree of success that these groups achieved in
influencing Labor’s political agenda has varied significantly. Their influence
has generally been stronger in periods of extreme adversity for progressive
voters, when more extreme policy prescriptions became more appealing to a
desperate electorate (eg wars, economic recession or depression) or when the ALP
was facing adversity of its own, generally in the form of internal divisions on
unrelated matters (eg religious sectarianism, single issue policy divides eg
conscription).
An early example of the dynamic of this conflict between the
electoralists and the ideologues within the progressive movement can be seen
over the push for the inclusion of the nationalisation of industry as the key
plank of Labor’s policy platform. Driven initially by members of the Socialist
Leagues (and later by the IWW), and opposed primarily by the Labor MPs and
candidates who ultimately had to face the voters, the nationalisation objective
divided and damaged the ALP for more than 20 years before the issue was laid to
rest.
As Ross McMullin wrote in his centennial history of the ALP,
the debate over the inclusion of the nationalisation plank in Labor’s platform
caused divisions within the ALP across the nation. When the nationalisation
plank was not included in the 1898 NSW Labor electoral platform:
"Many socialists resigned from the Political Labor League, including its secretary. According to one of them, the Labor Party had ‘degenerated into a mere vote-catching machine, doing no educational work, and generally following a policy of supineness.’"[iv]
The debate was even more rancorous in Queensland where in 1907
the Labor Premier Bill Kidston and the bulk of his Labor caucus split from the
organisational wing of the ALP over the issue and the broader question of industrial
control of the parliamentary party[v].
The split led to a decade of Opposition before a new leader, TJ Ryan was able
to reunite the Party and return Labor to Government.
Ultimately, this early scene of conflict was resolved in
favour of the electoralists at Labor’s 1922 Federal Conference. While the party
did incorporate a ‘socialist objective’ into its platform, in light of the fact
that as ‘Red Ted’ Theodore noted, ‘no two delegates would agree as to what
socialisation of industry meant’[vi],
a rider was agreed to the effect that the objective would only apply to the
extent that it was necessary to ‘eliminate exploitation and other anti-social
features’ - effectively rendering the objective moot.[vii]
Viewed within this historical context, the rise of the
Greens and their policy agenda can be seen as simply the latest manifestation
of the challenge to Labor’s electoralist mission by ideologues within the
progressive movement. In fact, the parallels between the rise of the Greens and
one particular historical conflict of this kind are particularly striking.
[i]
Murphy, D. (1990), “T.J. Ryan: a political biography”, University of Queensland
Press.
[ii]
Fitzgerald, R. & Thornton, H. (1989), “Labor in Queensland: from the 1800s
to 1988”, University of Queensland Press.
[iii]
Murphy, D. (1990), “T.J. Ryan: a political biography”, University of Queensland
Press.
[iv]
McMullin, R. (1991), “The Light on the Hill”, Oxford University Press
Australia.
[v]
Fitzgerald, R. & Thornton, H. (1989), “Labor in Queensland: from the 1800s
to 1988”, University of Queensland Press.
[vi]
McMullin, R. (1991), “The Light on the Hill”, Oxford University Press
Australia.
[vii]
McMullin, R. (1991), “The Light on the Hill”, Oxford University Press
Australia.
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