Labor Right

The Labor Right is the organised moderate centrist and social democratic faction of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) at the national level that tends to be more economically liberal and socially conservative than the Labor Left faction. Labor Right is a broad alliance of various state right- and centre-leaning factions.

State branches

Factional power usually finds expression in the percentage vote of aligned delegates at party conferences. The power of the Labor Right varies from state to state, but it usually relies on certain trade unions, such as the Australian Workers' Union (AWU), Transport Workers Union (TWU), the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA), the National Union of Workers (NUW) and the Health Services Union (HSU). These unions send delegates to conference, with delegates usually coming from the membership, the administration of the union or local branches covered by their activists.

The Right is currently the dominant faction in the Labor party on a national level. The Labor Right faction also holds a majority on the party's National Executive. The usual arrangement is that the federal leader of the party is from the Right, while the deputy leader is from the Left, although former federal Labor leader and Prime Minister Julia Gillard was from the Left with support of the Right. Historically, most state Labor Premiers have been associated with the Right; there have been some exceptions, such as former Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, former New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees, former Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings, current Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and former South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill all coming from their respective state Left factions.

State-based factions (national sub-factions) which make up Labor Right include:

New South Wales

• Centre Unity

Queensland

• Labor Forum (dominated by the AWU)^[3]

Australian Capital Territory^[4]

• Centre Coalition
• Labor Unity

Victoria

• Labor Unity ('ShortCons', consisting of 'Shorts' (branch members and unions aligned with Shorten, in particular the AWU) and 'Cons' (supporters of former Senator Stephen Conroy); allegedly part of a grouping called 'Centre Unity')^[5]
• Moderate Labor (Mods: defectors from the Shoppies; aligned with Adem Somyurek; allegedly part of a grouping called 'Centre Unity')^[6]
• Shoppies (SDA: intermittently part of Labor Unity)
• Labor Action (NUW: formerly part of Labor Unity)^[7]

Western Australia

• Labor Unity (formerly split into the New Right and Old Right)^[8]

Northern Territory

• Labor Unity

South Australia

• Labor Unity

Tasmania

• Labor Unity

Political views

An overriding stated theme of Labor right wing governance is of balance between progressive social change and conservative economic management as the pathway to community development and growth.

Many Roman Catholics have been prominent and influential in the Labor Party, both inside and outside the auspices of the Labor Right faction. Labor socialists and Protestant conservatives alike have historically criticised the faction as beholden to papal authority. However, this has decreased since the 1970s with the gradual erosion of sectarianism in Australian politics.

The Labor Right views itself as the more mainstream and fiscally responsible faction within Labor. The faction is most famous for its support of Third Way economic policies over Labor's traditional early twentieth century social democratic policies, such as the economic rationalist policies of the Hawke and Keating governments, including floating the Australian Dollar in December 1983, reductions in trade tariffs, taxation reforms such as the introduction of dividend imputation to eliminate double-taxation of dividends and the lowering of the top marginal income tax rate from 60% in 1983 to 47% in 1996, changing from centralised wage-fixing to enterprise bargaining, the privatisation of Qantas and Commonwealth Bank, making the Reserve Bank of Australia independent, and deregulating the banking system.

Youth Wing

While the senior faction is broken into various state and union based groupings the Young Labor Right is organised around the various parliamentarian factional leaders and power brokers. The Victorian Young Labor Right is currently divided between the Conroy aligned (Young Labor Unity), the SDA (Victorian Labor Students), AWU and Moderate aligned grouping, and the NUW (Young Labor Action). The NSW Young Labor Right known as Young Centre Unity is the largest Labor Right youth faction.

Federal Members of the Labor Right

‡ Sterle was formerly a member of the now-defunct Centre Left.

See also

• Category:Labor Right politicians, current and former parliamentary members of the Labor Right
• New Democrats (faction in the Democratic Party of the United States)
• Blue Dogs (faction in the US Democratic Party)
• Progress (organisation associated with the Labour Party (UK))

References

Further reading

• Cumming, Fia (1991) Mates : five champions of the Labor right. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86373-021-4. Library catalogue summary: Paul Keating, Graham Richardson, Laurie Brereton, Bob Carr and Leo McLeay recount events which shaped the Australian labour movement from the 1960s to the 1980s.
• Richardson, G (1994) Whatever It Takes, Bantam Books, Moorebank, NSW. Library catalogue summary: Graham Richardson recounts his career and outlines the philosophy and operation of the NSW and National Labor Right during his time in the ALP.