With an ALP victory likely: How can progressive forces fight for change?

Lisbeth Latham

In the wake of Trump’s victory, there was a strong sense that a similar victory for the Liberal/National coalition was in the offing. Over the past months, this fear has dissipated, not primarily due to the strong performance of the Albanese government, but due to the absolute failure of the Dutton-led opposition to posit a vision for a new government other than a cheap knock-off of Trumpism. While this outcome of an outright ALP majority government, or a minority government reliant on support of the Greens, Teals, and other independents, there are lessons that the left needs to learn to build pressure on any future ALP government, to deliver for working people.

The 2022 election of the Albanese government gave hope for change in Australia, particularly after the long years of Coalition government were made worse by the strain of the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these hopes were likely misguided. Especially given that it is a social democratic government, but the ALP, along with the French Socialist Party, was one of the first social democratic parties to push and implement neo-liberalism. As such, it is unlikely that the Albanese government was going take the initiative to implement the broad social reforms, that had not been part of its platform, which forces to its left were calling for. Reforms such as raising social security payments or caps on rents. It also meant that it would be limited in its willingness to respond effectively, of its own accord, to the cost-of-living pressures that emerged, as capital took advantage of supply chain issues caused by restrictions of the early pandemic period, and other dislocations in the global economy, to justify massive price-gauging.

Despite this, the government has had a reform agenda, and while this agenda has been uneven, and internally contradictory, it has progressed on some of it. The government has been able to point to greater wage growth, albeit mostly at below inflation levels for much of its term, some of which is the consequence of amendments included in the Fair Work (Better Jobs Better Pay) Amendment Act (2022) and the Closing the Loophole Acts. The coalition has repeatedly promised to repeal these changes, particularly in relation to changes in the definition of casual employment, the right to disconnect, and the same job, same pay provisions that requires that labour hire workers to be paid at the same pay rates as the directly employed workers working on a project. At the tail end of the campaign, the coalition has walked back some of these threats, along with a range of other commitments.   

In other areas, such as the government’s failure to seriously raise opposition to Israel’s genocidal attacks on Palestinians, like the vast majority of Western imperialist governments. Along with its continued support for fossil fuels and erosion of environmental protections, it has alienated many in its own base and those to its left. 

In the wake of Trump’s victory, this alienation led to an assessment within sections of Australian progressive forces that the ALP government was making the same errors Biden and Harris had made in the US. As such, a Dutton victory was inevitable. However, since the election was called, the ALP has built and strengthened a lead in the two-party preferred polls. 

Source: Wikipedia

While this has come as a shock to some commentators, it reflects a continuation of the problem the coalition faced going into the 2022 election in orienting to far-right discourse, made worse by their promise to bring Trump-style politics to Australia. 

This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how Australian and US politics differ. 

A key factor is the impact of compulsory voting. In the US, the largest voting block in the November elections, where people who didn’t vote, leaving aside the millions of US citizens who the Republicans have actively sought to prevent from registering to vote. In Australia, abstentionism and informal voting is not nearly that high, at around 15%. This means that in general, although not always, to win, a party needs to build a two-party preferred vote of more than 50% of the electorate. Historically, the coalition parties have done this by having a broad electoral base and then appealing to undecided voters in the centre.   

As I pointed out in 2022, the Liberal Party, following the US Republicans, has sought to energise the party’s right wing. For decades, while that has caused discomfort and alienation within the Liberal party’s voting bloc, within what has been described as the wets or social liberal-fiscally conservative, it rarely caused a split. However, there was a glimpse of a split with Howard losing the “doctors’ wives’” vote in 2007. However, with the emergence of the Teal independents before the 2022 elections, it has opened up a division in the Liberal Party’s historic voting base, with a permission pathway to preferencing the ALP over the Liberals. The Liberals lost six seats to Teal independents. To win government, they not only need to pick up seats from the ALP, but need to rewin those Teal seats. The promise to intensify cultural wars is unlikely to appeal to this constituency, which could also put additional Liberal seats at risk. 

Moreover, Dutton and Liberal strategists have interpreted the results of the Voice referendum as demonstrating an opportunity to use cultural wars to expand the coalition’s electoral support. However, while the outcome clearly demonstrated the ongoing deep vein of racism in the Australian politics, the referendum outcome was a consequence of additional factors in the campaign, such as confusion around what the Voice would mean, the relationship between Voice, Sovereignty, and Treaty, and the simple decision pathway “if you don’t know, vote no”. These are factors that don’t apply in a general election. 

In addition, the promise of gaining electoral support by modelling the coalition’s policies on Trump has proved a significant miscalculation. This miscalculation is not just that Australian society and electoral system are fundamentally different from the US, which will always mean a direct transplant of framing and rhetoric is unlikely to gain the same traction. It also fundamentally misread how Trump’s policies, once unleashed, would play out and be received in the US, globally, and most importantly within Australia. In all of these places they have been deeply upopular, most notably Tariffs that pose a threat to economies, promoting and endorsing Trump, means endorsing those attacks, in Canada, where Trump’s rhetoric also includes discussion of annexation, it has created a clear division of those who will stand up for national interests and those who will grovel at Trump’s feet. While the Albanese government has not been as resolute as the Canadian Liberal Party in opposing Trump, in both countries contrast on the question of Trump has been a key in turning election fortunes. 

Given the ALP’s likely victory, in a context where that victory will be primarily based on a rejection of the coalition and its regressive vision, rather than a sharp reorientation of the Albanese government’s policy position, poses a question of how can progressive forces within Australia, move the ALP towards more progressive positions? Whether on housing, social security, climate action, or a position of pressuring, rather than enabling, Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza?

In the wake of the emergence of social media, the answer to that question has often been to post hot-takes about the failures and inadequacies of the ALP, and while they generate likes and reshares in our bubbles, it won’t move the ALP. What has worked, and will always work is the clear articulation of demands that set out how things should be different and how that can be achieved, then seeking to organise and mobilise around those demands-based purely around support for the demands, not on an agreed assessment of the world and its ills, or even assessment of the ALP. This approach is starting to articulate in the US with the increasingly regular nationwide anti-Trump rallies. Building ongoing, escalating actions around clearly defined demands will not only strengthen and build the confidence of the movement, but also it will shake the government's and its supporters' confidence, irrespective of how much they claim the actions are irrelevant, opening up divisions and making a shift in government policy possible. How sharp this shift will be depends entirely on the level of ongoing pressure that the movement can generate and build.

If the unthinkable happens and the coalition wins on May 3, this strategic approach will be even more vital.  

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