Australia's 'monoculture' might be at the Labor conference

If Australia indeed harbours a "monoculture" it might be the ideological version on display at this week's Labor Party National Conference.

For supporters it was orderly, unified and determined. A striking example of political resolve.

For critics? A wearisome parade of Bunyip Juche.

The party's supreme policy-making machine has been busy honing a platform that's as tight and shiny as a button.

Spiky bits like the base's angst over AUKUS, Palestine and greater taxation of resources mostly buffed away and potential troublemakers seemingly co-opted into acquiescence by the logic of power.

The mining industry has taken the whole thing as a big win. As have those who fret about Labor's commitment to the alliance.

On both scores, the party membership's official message has been to prioritise stability and incrementalism.

Loading...How the sausage is made

Potential threats like the push for a gas tax or an end to the diesel fuel tax credit for mining companies failed to see the light of day or became watered down to a state where they can't offend their targets.

In exchange, the left pushed for and won greater support for voluntary assisted suicide — the first issue to have been contested on the floor after nearly 100 amendments passed with barely a murmur.

There were a series of wins for unions, including the restoration of a Fair Work court to deliver simpler and faster workplace resolutions, support for sovereign power to industry, AI protections and a home-building agenda.

Like it or not, this is how the sausage is made.

For those who believe in the virtue of converting and wrangling political trade-offs into a unified, coherent set of messages, Labor's example is transcendent.

Collectivist movements seeking power require collectivist compromise. Alternatives would include becoming a letter-writing independent or sidelines bomb-tosser.

Labor's public triennial conferences are not only one of the party's defining characteristics — in contrast to the Liberal Party's ad-hoc and leader-driven policymaking structures or the opaque versions used by the Greens.

They might also be the reason why Labor is this era's dominant party of government. Its 50th conference is an expression of institutional stability in a world of turmoil.

Which is how the current crop of leaders view it.

'We will not go down the American road'

"No, I most certainly don't pine for losing elections or having conferences turn into ugly spectacles," says Wayne Swan in Friday's ABC Insiders podcast with David Speers.

"I don't pine for that at all because the Labor Party, if it is anything, has to be a party of government… we have to be absolutely at our best to represent the Australian people and give them what they expect.

"I know the media would like to see a lot of conflict but there isn't actually a lot."

Separately, in a speech last night to the conference dinner, Swan defended Labor's history in the following way.

"Scrub our years of power — our years of governing with social purpose — from the last 50 and you do not get a fairer, world leading economy.

"You get the United States. Forty years of wage suppression, a hollowed-out middle, and a politics that runs on scapegoating your neighbour.

"We will not go down the American road."

Swan has stepped down as president of the party this week and his primary warning has been for Labor to renew and brace for a new kind of political contest against Pauline Hanson's "charlatan" populism, which he warns is being funded by a wall of money that once backed the Coalition.

"The money has not gone anywhere," he said.

"It has only changed horses.

"Together with our mighty trade union movement we fought Fraser. We fought Howard. We fought Abbott. And now we watch the conservative mantle pass to One Nation, and a new battle awaits us."

This week has established yet again that this government's strategy for retaining political power is well-honed.

But there's also been a reminder, courtesy of a group of what one might call Labor's grumpy old guard.

In a series of interventions over the past few days, a counter-narrative has been spun that undermines the version of government backed by conference delegates.

Old guard serves a spray

It began with Bill Kelty, former ACTU leader and co-architect of many of the Hawke and Keating era economic reforms, who let spray in a senate committee submission.

"Our taxes are increasing, government expenditure is rising faster than prices. It does say something is wrong with this place," he said.

Kelty also lamented how governments are routinely wasting money.

"It is just part of a bucket where we pay for quarantine centres that are never used, Commonwealth Games that are not held in the country, infrastructure costs that are the highest in the world or at least approach those levels, where [the cost of] some tunnels are now the highest in the history of humanity.

"Where we simply cannot build enough houses because we did not train enough workers."

Separately, former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie told this column during the week that One Nation's rise in the polls is a sign that the major political parties — including Labor — are not delivering for households.

"I never thought I'd ever see One Nation at the level of support that they have now, but that's because the major political parties are not performing and dealing with the issues that ordinary Australians are concerned about," he said.

"When they start doing that, then One Nation's support will dissipate, and they will go through the normal self-destruct processes."

Whether the current generation of Labor leaders care or not, the old guard's grumpiness reflects a good slab of the community's dark mood.

This week's gathering is a precursor to Labor's coming federal election campaign for 2028, when it's program will be about offsetting those concerns with handouts to struggling voter groups.

Jacob Greber is political editor of ABC's 7.30 program.

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