Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven Am. Anthony
Speaker 1: Alberzi leads a party that no longer argues in public.
Speaker 1: Labor presents as unified, consistent and on message, but behind
Speaker 1: that unity is another story one. We're a party, once
Speaker 1: defined by its dissent and debate, has become scared of conflict,
Speaker 1: to the point where its identity is formed not by beliefs,
Speaker 1: but by a commitment to staying in power no matter what.
Speaker 1: Sean Kelly has worked up close with Anthony Alberanzi and
Speaker 1: with Labor prime ministers before him, and he's been interrogating
Speaker 1: what the government stands for and what its legacy will be.
Speaker 2: I've heard his very odd experience watching this government, which
Speaker 2: is that something about it has always puzzled me. And
Speaker 2: that's part of where this essay came from. I was
Speaker 2: trying to think, what does this government believe today?
Speaker 1: Author of the new Quarter of the essay, The Good
Speaker 1: Fight Kewey what happens when political identity is built on belonging,
Speaker 1: not belief. It's Monday, November seventy John, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for coming on the show. It's great to see you again.
Speaker 1: Anthony Abberaneze have recently stated that he's never seen the
Speaker 1: Labor Party more united, and he went on to say
Speaker 1: that that's a virtue.
Speaker 3: What I'm focused on is my united team that are
Speaker 3: focused on the needs of Australians.
Speaker 1: When you look at the Labor Party as a stands today,
Speaker 1: do you see unity?
Speaker 2: Okay? I do see unity In some ways. The party
Speaker 2: is as unified as it's ever been. But another way
Speaker 2: of putting that would be to say that the caucus
Speaker 2: is perhaps the quietest Labor caucus I can remember. And
Speaker 2: I think that does point to a couple of things
Speaker 2: which you can frame in different ways. If you're a politician,
Speaker 2: you might say, well, that's great, it's a unified party
Speaker 2: with very little leaking, with very little descent. Great, that
Speaker 2: allows us to go ahead with our political goals. But
Speaker 2: I think on the other side of things, it means
Speaker 2: that you don't necessarily have the type of debate you
Speaker 2: need to reach the best possible solutions. So I think
Speaker 2: this is really interesting if you look at it in
Speaker 2: terms of Labour's history, there has always been, right from
Speaker 2: its very beginnings, a struggle within Labor, and that struggle
Speaker 2: is between idealism and pragmatism between heading for the best
Speaker 2: possible society, which once upon a time many people in
Speaker 2: Labor would have called socialism, by which they didn't mean
Speaker 2: socialism exactly as we understand, but a form of equality
Speaker 2: and pragmatism, the desire to win elections. And I think
Speaker 2: one of the really strange things about Labor is that
Speaker 2: that struggle now seems to be inaudible. It's very hard
Speaker 2: to say whether that struggle still exists or whether the
Speaker 2: party has started to prioritize winning elections far more than
Speaker 2: anything else.
Speaker 1: What do you attribute this lack of internal debate and
Speaker 1: dissent to Shore, I mean, it's very Unlabor like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look at it is. I think you've got a
Speaker 2: few factors here. Firstly, you have the fact that it's
Speaker 2: become pretty much taboo to say I am a socialist.
Speaker 2: You know, once upon a time people could describe their
Speaker 2: beliefs with a single word, I'm a communist, I'm a socialist,
Speaker 2: I'm an anti communist. And with the fall of the
Speaker 2: Berlin Wall and the death of the Soviet Union, I
Speaker 2: think our landscape of belief kind of collapsed into a
Speaker 2: flat plane. And I think that means that the Labor
Speaker 2: Party doesn't have that very clear ideal towards which it's
Speaker 2: heading anymore. And the lack of a clear ideal is
Speaker 2: a problem because what an ideal does is provides a
Speaker 2: mechanism of accountability. You can always compare yourself to that
Speaker 2: ideal and say, well, look at the things we're doing,
Speaker 2: are they helping us get closer to that thing. I
Speaker 2: don't think Labor feels as though it has a clear
Speaker 2: ideal which it can articulate. The second thing that's happened
Speaker 2: is that that battle, that struggle used to go on
Speaker 2: within the Labor Party, but at some point the Greens
Speaker 2: came along and I think that has meant over time
Speaker 2: that that ideal, that pursuit of policy purity has migrated
Speaker 2: outside of the Labor Party into the Greens. And I
Speaker 2: think that that is part of why you don't see
Speaker 2: such debate within the Labor Party. And I think it's
Speaker 2: all something that the Labor Party has almost started to
Speaker 2: define itself in opposition to that idea of pursuing ideals.
Speaker 3: For the Greene Political Party, this isn't about the Australian people.
Speaker 1: This is about then.
Speaker 3: They want the issue, not the outcome. The ideal In protests,
Speaker 3: we focus on.
Speaker 2: Progress, and that has seen pragmatism come even further to
Speaker 2: the fore. And so I think this means that there
Speaker 2: is an overall difficulty in labor, which is that it's
Speaker 2: not entirely clear what labor is trying to do anymore.
Speaker 1: So what's been the cost of that sort of lack
Speaker 1: of friction within the caucus? I mean, how has it
Speaker 1: changed the way that the Labor Party is actually governing
Speaker 1: at the moment.
Speaker 2: I think you can see it in certain policy areas.
Speaker 2: The one that comes to mind most readily is gambling.
Speaker 2: When the Party has been willing to say we will
Speaker 2: do something about gambling, but we won't ban online ads,
Speaker 2: which is the thing that everybody, of course has been
Speaker 2: talking about. And I think you see the Party often
Speaker 2: stopping short of things. You know, they'll say, we will
Speaker 2: do something about supermarket pricing, but we will defend the
Speaker 2: existence of this, calls will work soligopoly, and again and
Speaker 2: again we see Labor Party just kind of step clear
Speaker 2: from the strongest possible answer to things. Now, that's not
Speaker 2: necessarily a bad thing in each individual instance, but as
Speaker 2: a whole, I think what it adds up to is
Speaker 2: a party that is incredibly conflict averse, and that is
Speaker 2: actually something the party has been talking about right from
Speaker 2: the start. They would boast about not frightening the horses,
Speaker 2: by which they meant not provoking huge debates, not provoking
Speaker 2: their opponents to come out and bash them, and that
Speaker 2: was in certain respects successful. But I think the question
Speaker 2: is whether over time that costs the Labor Party something else,
Speaker 2: and I think it does. I think again, you come
Speaker 2: back to this question. If it's not fighting these fights,
Speaker 2: if it's not willing to go into battle with entrenched interests,
Speaker 2: then what exactly is it that it cares about?
Speaker 1: Coming up Albanese's three great faiths, Labor, the Catholic Church,
Speaker 1: and the rabbit. As Sean Alberanze tells us that the
Speaker 1: party is unified under our labor hat. So to the
Speaker 1: question what does the party currently stand for? That's the
Speaker 1: heart of your essay.
Speaker 2: Look, I think that this labor hat thing is so interesting.
Speaker 2: Jim Chalmers described the Labor Party this year as centrist.
Speaker 4: Obviously, there are some things that governments, sensible, middle of
Speaker 4: the road centrist governments like ours don't consider, you know,
Speaker 4: we don't consider inheritance taxes, we don't consider changing the
Speaker 4: arrangements for the family home those And.
Speaker 2: As Richard Datis wrote this year, you know that difficultly
Speaker 2: with Centrists. It means you're not defining yourself in relation
Speaker 2: to particular beliefs. You're just defining yourself according to who's
Speaker 2: on the right of you and who's on the left
Speaker 2: of you. You're essentially a little tugboat being tossed by
Speaker 2: by great waves. Anthony Albanese, when I put that label
Speaker 2: centrist to him in twenty twenty three, said we're Labor
Speaker 2: and that to me sounds better, but I still think
Speaker 2: it doesn't leave us with a much clearer sense of
Speaker 2: what the party stands for. And I think this is
Speaker 2: related to a trend in Anthony Albanese's rhetoric, which is
Speaker 2: it's often to find him negative terms rather than in
Speaker 2: positive terms, by what labor wants not to do rather
Speaker 2: than what it wants to do. So you could see
Speaker 2: this when he was talking about the Australian way during
Speaker 2: the election campaign. It started with a determination not to
Speaker 2: be like America, not to be Donald Trump, and it
Speaker 2: would say we don't need to copy the ideologies of
Speaker 2: any other nation.
Speaker 3: Why on Earth would we try to mimic anywhere else.
Speaker 3: We don't want a wager system where people have to
Speaker 3: rely on tips to make ends meet. We don't want
Speaker 3: Australian students burdened by a lifetime of debt. And we
Speaker 3: never ever ever want an American style health system in
Speaker 3: this country.
Speaker 2: Which is fair enough, but it is saying Australia should
Speaker 2: be as it is now, not like something else. And
Speaker 2: he did a similar thing when he was asked earlier
Speaker 2: this year what he meant with his famous phrase, I
Speaker 2: like fid.
Speaker 1: I like fighting tories. That's what I do. That's what
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 2: And he said, well, what that means is not giving
Speaker 2: up the gains that have been made. And I think
Speaker 2: that's a fascinating way to describe it, because it's looking
Speaker 2: backwards as saying we don't want to give up what
Speaker 2: has already been done, not about fighting for new things,
Speaker 2: not about fighting for change, and that is a really
Speaker 2: conservative framing for the Australian Labor Party, it's a really
Speaker 2: conservative framing for any center left party, because he had
Speaker 2: left parties have traditionally been about change. And I think
Speaker 2: it's really interesting that Anthony Albanez he constantly defines himself
Speaker 2: by reference to the three great faiths he has the
Speaker 2: Labor Party, the Catholic Church and the South Sydney Rabbitos.
Speaker 3: Say that I was raised with three great faiths, the
Speaker 3: Labor Party, the Catholic Church and Chastity regul League Football
Speaker 3: Club by my mum.
Speaker 2: And that because what I think that really means is
Speaker 2: defining himself by tribes. You know, it's not a set
Speaker 2: of beliefs, it's institutions that he belongs to and supports.
Speaker 2: I think that's interesting because it is on some level
Speaker 2: de finding yourself in opposition rather than with reference to
Speaker 2: a particular belief, to a particular thing you were trying
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: Alban Eazy has said he didn't know why anyone would
Speaker 1: go into politics if they didn't want to leave a legacy.
Speaker 1: So what do you think he wants his legacy to be.
Speaker 2: I think he would point to two things. One he
Speaker 2: would say, I want to leave home a universal childcare,
Speaker 2: and that absolutely may still happen. But it is worth
Speaker 2: noting that the progress towards universal childcare has been much
Speaker 2: slower than the government foreshadowed early on, and the time
Speaker 2: frame has kept slipping a little bit. But that is
Speaker 2: certainly one aspect of what he would hope to be
Speaker 2: his legacy.
Speaker 3: Our labor government believes firmly that every child should have
Speaker 3: the right to quality, affordable early education.
Speaker 2: The other thing that he points to is the transition
Speaker 2: to renewable energy, and the government believes very strongly that
Speaker 2: this is a revolutionary thing, that this is the most
Speaker 2: significant thing that they are doing, that it is a
Speaker 2: huge wave of economic change, and also of course changed
Speaker 2: the way we approach the climate.
Speaker 3: Every assailing who knows that climate change is a challenge
Speaker 3: we must hate together to meet for their future.
Speaker 1: Of our environment, and.
Speaker 3: Knows the fact that renewable energy is an opportunity we
Speaker 3: must work together to seas.
Speaker 2: Trying to feature of our Again. There are really big
Speaker 2: questions about just how much Australia's emissions are falling, and
Speaker 2: you also have to factor in the fact which the
Speaker 2: Albanezy government basically likes to ignore, which is that Australia
Speaker 2: is in the top five exporters of fossil fuel emissions
Speaker 2: around the world. I mean, that is a staggering fact
Speaker 2: that really should shame us as a country, but we
Speaker 2: just don't talk about it.
Speaker 1: So how do you think he's going in terms of
Speaker 1: achieving the legacy that he's hoping to build, how would
Speaker 1: you assess that at this point?
Speaker 2: I think one of the great difficulties in assessing this government.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons I've really struggled with what to
Speaker 2: think of them all the way along and still do,
Speaker 2: is that the nature of incrementalism, the nature of approaching
Speaker 2: things gradually, is that the moment of judgment always seems
Speaker 2: to be somewhere down the track. If your argument to
Speaker 2: the Isralian people is we are going about things slowly,
Speaker 2: we are accumulating small changes over time into something that
Speaker 2: will be larger and more significant, then you can always say, well,
Speaker 2: that moment's coming. But I think it's important to remember
Speaker 2: that we are three and a half years in. One
Speaker 2: of the arguments that the government makes is that the
Speaker 2: reason you need to win several elections in you need
Speaker 2: to embed changes so that the following government, the following
Speaker 2: coalition government, can't tear them down. Now that sounds fair enough,
Speaker 2: except that when it's applied to previous governments, what you're
Speaker 2: really talking about is reforms that happened early. Because at
Speaker 2: this point, let's say the government loses after three terms.
Speaker 2: We're really only talking about a term and a half
Speaker 2: in which to embed those policies. So I think that
Speaker 2: incrementalism argument loses power the longer the government is there.
Speaker 2: And it loses power for another reason too, which is
Speaker 2: that you could actually look at the results and say, well,
Speaker 2: are these things being solved. I think there's something really
Speaker 2: interesting about this decision not to pick fights, this decision
Speaker 2: to avoid political trouble. It does work in a certain way.
Speaker 2: It means you don't get strips torn off you, it
Speaker 2: means you don't have the media piling on your head.
Speaker 2: These are political advantages. But I think that over time,
Speaker 2: every prime minister's strength ends up becoming their weakness. Every
Speaker 2: prime minister ends up having a quality which works for them,
Speaker 2: and because it works for them, they lean on it
Speaker 2: ever more heavily, and because they lean not too heavily,
Speaker 2: eventually it ends up hurting them. And you saw that
Speaker 2: with Gough Wicklam. You know his boldness, he meant that
Speaker 2: he eventually crashed. Similarly, but in the opposite way. Anthony
Speaker 2: Albanize's caution has worked for him. It may work for
Speaker 2: him for a longer period, and at some point if
Speaker 2: he doesn't learn to balance that caution with boldness in
Speaker 2: some other respects. Then I think that caution could end
Speaker 2: up hurting him in the same way that Whitlam's boldness
Speaker 2: ended up hurting him.
Speaker 1: Sean, it's a fascinating essay. Thanks so much for coming
Speaker 1: on the Showutte talking to us about it.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me on. It was lovely
Speaker 2: to see you again.
Speaker 1: Sean. Kelly's quarterly essay, The Good Fight What Does Labor
Speaker 1: Stand For? Is out today. Also in the news, a
Speaker 1: dead lockover who will host next year's cop Climate Summit
Speaker 1: is said to be broken this week as this year's
Speaker 1: conference in Brazil comes to an end. Australia is up
Speaker 1: against to a Kia for hosting rights, with the Albanesi
Speaker 1: government hoping to stage the global summit in Adelaide, but
Speaker 1: despite pursuing the right to host cop the government has
Speaker 1: not outlined the cost, with some reports suggesting it could
Speaker 1: be as high as two billion dollars, and Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Anthony Alberesi as endulgs Victorian Premier Jacinder Allen's new juvenile
Speaker 1: justice laws, which will allow children as young as fourteen
Speaker 1: to be jailed for life for violent crimes. The new
Speaker 1: measures have been widely criticized for breaching human rights obligations,
Speaker 1: but the PM described the move as consistent with the
Speaker 1: premier's commitment to keeping Victorian safe. We will bring you
Speaker 1: an episode on the new laws tomorrow. I'm Daniel James.
Speaker 1: This is seven a m. Thanks for listening.