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23 July 2012

Gillard takes on the Greens

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Ben Keneally

In the supercharged environment of the NSW ALP conference, much was read into the Prime Minister’s refusal to explicitly criticise the Greens.

However, instead of focussing on what Julia Gillard did not say, analysts and party members should have been paying attention to what she did say.

For in her speech she moved beyond a debate about electoral tactics and began staking out a compelling and clear sighted definition of the Labor “cause” that will empower the party to take on both the conservatives and the Greens.

The Prime Minister’s speech, “Labor: A cause not a brand”, was a passionate defence of Australian Labor and it’s achievements in the teeth of constant criticism and sometimes hysterical attacks on its legitimacy.

At the centre of her speech was an argument that, despite all the hand wringing about Labor having lost its sense of purpose, this Labor Government retains a clear and unifying goal:

Every step of the way we have been guided by our Labor values, by our essential belief that our nation can be both strong and fair.

This claim, that Labor’s fundamental goal is a nation and an economy both “strong and fair”, recurs throughout the speech. The Prime Minister points repeatedly to policy and results that align with this goal:

The vision we fought for … to lift the true drivers of productivity in the modern workplace and to support a modern balance between life and work…

…the economic reality is plain: strikes are still low, wages are up, we have created 800,000 new jobs and historic equal pay judgments are being delivered…

Our strong economy with our surplus, low interest rates, jobs. Our plans to spread the benefits of the strong economy and the boom to all…

…only Labor stands for a strong economy and stands and fights to spread the benefits to all.

This clear formulation of Labor’s cause provides a powerful foundation for Labor’s political renewal. It is squarely aimed at recapturing the political middle ground by reasserting the golden thread of ALP history: the party’s ongoing concern with raising the living standards of all people, but especially those who work for modest wages and those who have suffered misfortune.

In her speech, Julia Gillard showed how devastating this positioning can be when deployed against the conservatives. She skewered their obsession with driving down the wages and conditions of working people and their lack of interest in such great reforms as wage equity for female workers and disability insurance. At the same time, she made clear that these reforms have been and can be delivered alongside continuing economic and jobs growth despite the doomsayers.

The cause of a strong and fair nation can be equally powerfully deployed against the Greens. Their fundamentalist opposition to extractive industries and to development, their coddling of NIMBY activists and their unwillingness to compromise in the cause of responsible progress mark them out as a party lacking a serious commitment to economic growth and responsible government.

They are a party of insiders and special pleaders dedicated to using government fiat to protect or entrench their own privilege at the cost of others.

“Strong and Fair” also speaks to the core of optimism and egalitarianism in the Australian character. We Australians disdain the old world fatalism that regards these outcomes as fundamentally in conflict. We believe we can and should have both. This positive alignment with the middle ground of Australian politics is linked to the Prime Minister’s designation of Labor in the speech as the “party of progress”. This phrase has dropped out of use, but is worth reclaiming; for Labor is the only party that can claim to be the party of both economic and social progress.

The cause of “a strong and fair economy” can unite the party internally, and thereby harden its defences against wedge attacks. This cause provides the clarity of purpose and the positive agenda that Labor needs to be able to fight on both fronts.

It is inherently materialist; allowing Labor to focus on core community concerns such as wages and conditions, the cost of living and government services and infrastructure; but it also provides a frame that can be applied to both developing and communicating responses to more difficult issues such as carbon pricing and refugee policy.

Given the clarity and the strength of this formulation, there is every chance that the Prime Minister’s speech to the 2012 NSW ALP conference will be marked as a turning point in this government. A relentless commitment to the unifying, middle Australian aspiration for a strong and fair nation can deliver a political and policy dividend for Labor.

It is a cause that unites Labor, that resonates with the community, and that defines the Conservatives and Greens as out of touch with Australian values.

This is not to argue that the way forward will be easy, or that the Party does not face great challenges, but as the Prime Minister acknowledged:

The politics of progress – the cause for change – the work of Labor – never passes through a wide gate or an easy way. … But we endure … a party for the ages and … not done yet.

Ben Keneally was a management consultant before working as a senior public servant in the Department of Premier and Cabinet and Department of Housing in the NSW government, then as premier Morris Iemma’s deputy chief of staff. He currently works in the private sector. View his full profile here.