What Is “Labor” About Labor State Governments In Australia?

Abstract

This article examines the phenomena of Australian Labor Party state governments in Australia. Studies of Labor governments tend to focus on the national, rather than state level. The article offers a systematic analysis of the ideological and policy profile of four cases of recent state Labor governments. The key contribution is to better understand what is “Labor” about state Labor. Using a framework adopted from Armando Barrientos and Martin Powell, the articles examines the discourse, values, policy goals and policy mechanisms of four state Labor governments. The four cases are the McGowan Government in Western Australia, the Weatherill government in South Australia, the Andrews government in Victoria, and Palaszczuk government in Queensland. To date, there has been no systematic and comparative analysis of these cases. We find that, generally speaking, these governments tend not to invoke the rhetoric or common labels associated with social democracy or Labour politics. To better understand these governments, we employ Michael Freeden's notion of morphology to examine how they seek to (re)interpret core concepts in the social democratic tradition. Overall, we find clear continuities with more “traditional” aspects of social democracy, modern state Labor downplays other values, but also seeks to innovate in other policy domains. How do we best understand the phenomena of Labor at the state level in Australia? This article is part of a wider special section examining the phenomena and performance of state Labor governments in Australia. The key contribution here is to offer a systematic analysis of the ideological and policy profile of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) at the state level. As we outline, this is an important, but much neglected, part of understanding a key dynamic in the Australian political system. Despite the recent resurgence of Labor at the state level in Australia, state Labor remains an understudied phenomenon. The over-arching question we address is what makes state Labor “Labor”? Our core argument is that the discourse that state Labor uses to describe its agenda tells us surprisingly little about its ideological and policy positions. Overall, we see state Labor as a distinctive hybrid comprising long-standing political traditions in the centre-left in Australia, but operating in a very specific institutional framework at the sub-national level. We offer the most up-to-date and systematic mapping and analysis of the ideological and policy agenda of state Labor. In this section, we set out our rationale and the framework for our research. The rationale for this research is twofold. Firstly, while there is a long-standing and well-established literature on the ALP, this tends to focus on national, not state, Labor.11 For example, Carol Johnson, Social Democracy and the Crisis of Equality (Singapore, 2019). At the high watermark of the Hawke-Keating era, there was a heady debate as to whether Labor had betrayed its tradition and abandoned its core principles.22 For example, Carol Johnson, “Gillard, Rudd and Labor Tradition”, Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 57, 4 (2011), pp.562-579; Dean Jaensch, The Hawke-Keating Hijack: The ALP in Transition (Sydney, 1989); Peter Beilharz, Transforming Labor: Labour Tradition and the Labor Decade in Australia (Cambridge, 1994); Ashley Lavelle, The Death of Social Democracy: Political Consequences in the 21st Century (London, 2008); Nick Dyrenfurth and Frank Bongiorno, A Little History of the Australian Labor Party (Sydney, 2011); Troy Bramston, Looking for the Light on the Hill: Modern Labor's Challenges (Sydney, 2011); Tim Battin, “Labouring under Neoliberalism: The Australian Labor Government's Ideological Constraint, 2007-2013”, The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Vol. 28, 1 (2017), pp.146-163; Andrew Scott, Running on Empty: “Modernising” the British and Australian Labour Parties (London, 2000). It is striking how this debate focused almost exclusively on the national level and it remains far from clear how state Labor fits into these wider debates about the evolving identity of social democratic politics. While this is not the primary focus of our article, we seek to broaden the understanding of the ALP with our focus on the state level. Secondly, while there are studies of state Labor, these have been episodic across the different states and territories.33 Rodney Cavalier, Power Crisis: The Self-destruction of a State Labor Party (Cambridge, 2010); Joel Deane, Catch and Kill: The Politics of Power (St Lucia, 2015); Geoff Gallop, “Strategic Planning: Is it the New Model?”, Public Administration Today, Vol. 10 (2007), pp.28-33; Rob Manwaring, “The Renewal of Social Democracy? The Rann Labor Government (2002–11)”, Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 62, 2 (2016), pp.236-250; David Clune and Rodney Smith, eds, From Carr to Keneally: Labor in Office in NSW 1995-2011 (Sydney, 2012); Geoff Robinson, “From Labourism to Social Democracy: Labor Governments and Fiscal Policy in the Australian States, 1911-40”, Labour History, 96 (2009), pp.57-78; John Spoehr, ed., State of South Australia (Adelaide, 2005). Moreover, these studies tend to “speak past each other” in that while they offer key insights into specific cases of state Labor, they do not directly address the broader phenomena of the changing dynamics of “Labor” politics at the sub-national level. In essence, we do not have a clear comparative picture of modern state-level social democracy in Australia. Where there have been comparative studies, they have viewed Labor through one main critical lens (in the case of the example in the footnote, leadership).44 For example, John Wanna and Paul Williams, eds, Yes, Premier: Labor Leadership in Australia's States and Territories (Sydney, 2005). Further, many of these studies are historic and provide limited insight into the new wave of state Labor governments. Indeed, a core contribution of this article is that it gives detailed empirical mapping on four recent cases of state Labor, not examined in the existing literature. Overall, the scholarship on state Labor governments tends to be episodic, and, to some extent, marginalised from the mainstream Australian political science literature. As we explore below, there are other strong reasons why we struggle to understand what makes state Labor characteristically “Labor”. Our contribution, then, is to directly address these core gaps in the literature. The approach taken here is a comparative case study approach.55 Robert Yin, Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods (London, 2017); Sheila Stark and Harry Torrance, “Case Study”, in B. Somekh and C. Lewin, eds, Research Methods in the Social Sciences (London, 2005), pp.33-40. In this approach, we examine cases within the most similar systems model – in that we can identify and compare the cases because the overall number of variables is more limited. Our four cases all operate with the same system, and indeed, we focus on four state, not territory, governments to make the comparisons as meaningful as possible. The aim of the comparative method is to produce rich, “thick” qualitative descriptions to enable a better understanding of a political phenomenon. It is a tried and tested approach in Australian political science, and yields useful insights. As Alan Fenna notes in his contribution to this special section, this a valid approach, albeit with some potential limitations.66 For example, John Warhurst and Andrew Parkin, eds, Machine Politics in the Australian Labor Party (Sydney, 1983). We focus here on four recent Labor governments: in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. During the 2000s, Labor was in office at the state level in every state and territory.77 Wanna and Williams, eds, Yes, Premier. More recently, and following the demise of the Rudd-Gillard governments, Labor's fortunes at the state level have been reinvigorated. Our cases are the Andrews government in Victoria, which took office in 2014 and won the subsequent state election in 2018; the Palaszczuk government in Queensland, which won office in 2015 (as a minority government) and was re-elected in the 2017 election; the Weatherill government in South Australia, in office from 2011 to 2018 after Weatherill assumed the leadership from Mike Rann and unexpectedly won the 2014 state election, before losing at the 2018 election; and the more recent McGowan government in Western Australia, which took office in 2017, after eight years in opposition. We focus on these cases since our primary concern is to examine how Labor operates in power, rather than just in opposition. Secondly, the range of cases enables us to make broader observations about understanding the varieties of “Labor” at the state level. All the states considered here have significant population sizes and reflect the range and diversity of the states. For the sake of brevity, we make some exclusions from our case selection. New South Wales Labor was a strong and interesting case of state Labor, but has not been in office since 2011. Likewise, while there was a case to include the Barr government in the Australian Capital Territory (Labor has been in office there for five consecutive terms), our focus, for comparability, was on state Labor. We use this sample of four cases to generate insights and inferences about what constitutes “Labor” at the state level in Australia. How then to compare and understand the four cases of Labor in office at the state level? Here, we draw on the wider literature on understanding the so-called “third way” turn in social democracy. At the high-point of the 1990s and 2000s, there was much wider debate about the changing character of the family of the centre-left parties, and the emergence of the “third way” model.88 For example, Anthony Giddens, The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy (Cambridge, 1998); Martin Powell, ed., New Labour, New Welfare State? The “Third Way” in British Social Policy (Bristol, 1999). In a key contribution, Barrientos and Powell offer a useful heuristic to analyse and compare party families, focusing on four key elements: discourse, values, policy goals and policy mechanisms.99 Armando Barrientos and Martin Powell, “The Route Map of the Third Way”, in Sarah Hale, Will Leggett and Luke Martell, eds, The Third Way and Beyond: Criticisms, Futures, Alternatives (Manchester, 2003). We apply this analytic framework to our four cases to sketch out their key characteristics. In brief, discourse focuses on how the governments describe themselves. This is critical because, as we argue here, state Labor protagonists tend not to use clear labels or descriptors for their brand of social democratic politics. The focus on values examines the core concepts and themes that animate Labor's ideological approach. As we outline below, we integrate Freeden's framework of morphology in this section to better understand state Labor's ideological settings.1010 Michael Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford, 1996). Outlining the broad ideological contours helps us understand the specific policy goals, and also the types of policy mechanisms chosen. Here, the focus is not on the ideational framework that underpins state Labor's agenda, but rather, on the types of specific goals it sets itself, and the types and range of instruments it uses to achieve these. This approach facilitates meaningful comparison between the cases. Invariably, there is some overlap between these four categories but they remain a useful heuristic to understand this neglected political phenomenon. There are limits in our analytic approach; for example, we are not evaluating the policy performance or outcomes of state Labor (for example, whether they actually reduced unemployment or economic inequality).1111 See Alan Fenna and John Philimore's contribution in this special section for performance-based study of State Labor. However, by using this approach, we can make comparative observations about how state Labor talks about itself, articulates and prioritises key values, and outlines its policy agenda. To do this, we integrate the Barrientos and Powell framework with Freeden's concept of morphology to understand political ideology and values.1212 Barrientos and Powell, “The Route Map”; Freeden; Ideologies and Political Theory. Freeden's morphological approach is adopted here as it helps address two common patterns in the analysis of political ideologies. One is a normative approach that judges ideologies by the extent to which they meet certain criteria, and which tends to judge actually existing ideologies harshly. In the Australian context, this has been exemplified by applications of a Marxist approach to the understanding of Labor ideology.1313 For example, Terry Irving, “Labourism: A Political Genealogy”, Labour History, 66 (1994); Humphrey McQueen, A New Britannia: An Argument Concerning the Social Origins of Australian Radicalism and Nationalism (Melbourne, 1975); Robert Catley and Bruce McFarlane, From Tweedledum to Tweedledee: The New Labour Government in Australia, a Critique of Its Social Model (Sydney, 1974). Another tradition interprets ideology as a narrative in which political leaders are judged by their ability to develop programs that are congruent with historical developments.1414 Paul Kelly, Triumph and Demise: The Broken Promise of a Labor Generation (Melbourne, 2014). In contrast, a morphological approach recognises the “sematic and symbolic nature of political thinking”.1515 Michael Freeden, Liberalism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2015), p.115. It defines ideologies as structures of concepts related in predictable ways, but as structures that change over time. Freeden identifies core, peripheral and adjacent concepts jostling together; here, we apply these core concepts of socialism and social democracy to state Labor to better understand the morphology of this sub-national variant.1616 Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory. Finally, before proceeding, we define some key terms, not least social democracy, labourism and social liberalism.1717 Bramston, Looking for the Light. Labourism is a key concept, often applied to the Australian, UK and New Zealand variants of broader social democracy. Traditionally, labourism, as an ideology, represented a structure of concepts and associated practices directed towards the security of male manual wage earners and their families. These were the core of its constituency, and, in the Australian context, it also appealed to others who worked with their hands such as small farmers and white Australia's only significant cultural minority, Catholics. Labourism at the state level often focused on configuring arbitration systems to benefit workers, but state governments borrowed heavily to fund infrastructure projects and services that employed large numbers of manual workers, especially the less skilled.1818 Colin Forster, “The Economy, Wages and the Establishment of Arbitration”, in Stuart Macintyre and Richard Mitchell, eds, Foundations of Arbitration: The Origins and Effects of State Compulsory Arbitration 1890-1914 (Melbourne, 1989). In this model, a number of commentators argue that social policy, whether in the form of direct income support or the provision of decommodified services such as education and health, was downplayed.1919 Francis Geoffrey Castles, The Working Class and Welfare: Reflections on the Political Development of the Welfare State in Australia and New Zealand, 1890-1980 (Sydney, 1985); Robinson, “From Labourism to Social Democracy”. The quality of life is coming to depend less on the things which individuals obtain […] from personal income and more on the things which the community provides for all its members from their combined resources […] the wealthiest […] cannot achieve high education, good health and pleasant surroundings without society's help.2323 Edward Gough Whitlam, “Socialism Within the Australian Constitution (1957)”, in idem, On Australia's Constitution (Melbourne, 1977), p.59. By the 1980s, facing the emergence of neoliberalism, many social democratic and labour parties transitioned to a “new” variant of social democracy.2424 Bailey, The Political Economy, pp.92-94; Giddens, The Third Way. In Australia, this was closely linked with the Hawke-Keating era. In essence, in rather stylised terms we might suggest that if labourism sought to regulate and manage capitalism, classical social democracy took capitalism largely for granted, and the third way defined support for capitalism as central. At the state level, a number of key actors voiced this “new reality” via a shift to supporting a globalised and dynamic market economy.2525 John Brumby, The Long Haul: Lessons from Public Life (Melbourne, 2015), p.6. This did not rule out some role for the state in the market: one was to assist businesses to respond to emerging economic trends, another was to correct for market imperfections.2626 Ibid., p.116. Paul Keating defined social justice as “cushioning change and supporting the weak”.2727 Paul Keating, “The Labor Government, 1983-96 (1999)”, in idem, Afterwords: The Post-Prime Ministerial Speeches (Sydney, 2012), p.195. We can also note the ongoing influence of social liberalism on Labor.2828 Bramston, Looking for the Light. Broadly speaking, social liberalism is often linked with the ideas of Leonard Hobhouse and R.H. Tawney; while placing emphasis on individual liberty and freedom as key political values, it also places a focus on state intervention to support positive forms of liberty. As we argue below, we can detect particular influences of all these traditions on state Labor. With the Barrientos and Powell comparative framework,2929 Barrientos and Powell, “The Route Map”. and core concepts defined and set out, we use documentary analysis and a considered examination of the key speeches, policy documents, party platforms and related documents to systematically understand the ideological and policy profile of our four cases. In Table 1, we highlight the key signature policy approaches of the four cases. Given the constraints of brevity, we offer schematic overviews of the cases, and there is scope to deepen the case detail. However, by focusing on the key signature policy agendas of the Labor governments, we produce a reasonably sound overview of the core characteristics that make them “Labor”. We now focus on each of the core dimensions in turn, and then offer a comparative discussion about state Labor. Discourse • ‘Discuss and Decide’ • Future Prosperity and Jobs • ‘Strategic Government Intervention’ • Progressivism • Dynamic leadership – ‘getting things done’ • Progressivism • Democracy/consultation • Growth, Prosperity • Sound management • Focussed & targeted intervention Values • Prosperity and Equity’ • Equality • Communities – • Strategic Privatisation and State Ownership • Democracy • Individual freedom • Communitarian pluralism (social liberalism) • Fairness • Equality • Labourism • Human rights • Fairness • Equality • Labourism • Defence of public ownership • Economic growth • Equality • Communities • Defence of public ownership/investment • fairness Policy Goals • Jobs-first investment • Skills and Training focus • ‘Transforming’ Health agenda • Attempted tax reform – bank levy • Carbon neutral Adelaide; Increase renewable energy sources to 75% • Voluntary assisted dying • Vocational skill development • Employment in good/green jobs • Indigenous reconciliation • Community safety • Employment in good jobs • Vocational skill development • Abortion law reform • Budget repair – responsible borrowing • Local Job Creation • Public transport/Planning • Sustainable Health Review • Indigenous, and Regional Wellbeing Policy Mechanism • ‘relaxed’ approach to debt for jobs investments • 10-point economic plan/7 Strategic priorities • Infrastructure • Public-owned and -built energy plant • Strategic privatisation (Land Titles Office) • Apologies: LGBTI communities/forced adoptions • Treaty/ Services Agreement with indigenous peoples • Citizens Juries; E-Consultation • Public borrowing (subject to ratings agencies approval) • Low visibility leasing & privatisation • Infrastructure • Renewable energy support • Generous wage settlements • Treaty • Prison construction • Public borrowing (subject to ratings agencies approval) • Public employment • Infrastructure • Human rights legislation • Generous wage settlements • Renewable energy support • One-off increase in payroll tax for top 100 firms • Metronet • Reduce Public sector • 20:20:20 PS KPIs • 12 Strategic Targets ‘Our Priorities Program’ • Anti-Domestic Violence Strategy • Anti-Meth use; tackle youth offending rates We're one of the world's great social democratic organisations – formed to advance the interests and prosperity of the broad mass of Australians. We're a party of idealism and practicality; we believe in progress and the hope of a better future.3131 Mark McGowan, “Speech to State Convention”, Perth, 6 July 2014, <https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wa/wa-opposition-leader-mark-mcgowans-full-speech-to-alp-state-conference-in-perth-ng-57dff9edf6776f59aca76765c9fa8a99>. Across our cases, state Labor does evoke concepts such as “fairness” and “equality”; for example, Victorian Labor has frequently evoked fairness as a key goal, along with the more consensual issues of better jobs and education.3636 Dessau, “Opening of Victoria's 59th Parliament”. The translation of “fairness” into policy goals has also taken on a more “labourist” style, with a greater emphasis on workers’ rights, although the policy tools available to state governments in this area are limited. The most coherent statements of Labor's ideological agenda are found in the state party platforms. These 100-odd page documents, whilst rarely read, do offer a comprehensive view of the state party's policy agenda and positions. At the outset of the platforms, the parties present a section on their values and core beliefs. In Figure 1, we compare the four most-recent party platforms of our cases, and identity the number of key terms used across the platforms.3737 Australian Labor Party Victorian Branch, Platform 2018 (Melbourne, 2018), p.12, <https://www.viclabor.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Platform-2018-Web.pdf>; Queensland Labor, Putting Queenslanders First. State Platform 2017 (West End, 2017), pp.5-6, <https://www.queenslandlabor.org/media/20088/alp_state_platform_2017_02.pdf>; South Australia Labor Party, South Australian Labor Platform 2013 (Adelaide, 2013); Western Australia Labor, 2017 WA Labor Platform (Perth, 2017). Generally speaking, the platforms contain very few mentions of a range of clearly ideological terms; for example, in the South Australian platform (96 pages in total), the terms “equality” (8) and “fairness” (2) are only mentioned a handful of times. While generic, catch-all terms such as “community” appear throughout, the main cluster of related words that appear regularly are “trade union”, “worker” and “protection”. The salience of these words provides some clues as to the “pragmatic” focus of state Labor, with a clear signalling of its key subject — “working people” — and the importance of trade unions within the party. We can also note that the parties have long dispensed with more loaded terms from their past, such as “capitalism” (0 mentions in the South Australian platform), preferring the more neutral “economy” (68 mentions in the South Australian platform). In sum, while we find some clues as to Labor's ideology in its discourse, generally speaking, it tends to shy away from defining itself publicly. This presents difficulties in how we can then understand what is “Labor” about state Labor. In turn, this means that we must pay greater heed to Labor's underpinning values, its policy goals and its policy means. In this section we seek to map out the morphology of state Labor's ideology.3838 Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory. Freeden identifies a number of core and adjacent concepts in the morphology of social democracy, and here we focus on the following: equality; communities; work, welfare; critique of capitalism; and social liberalism. We value fairness and equality and believe in a fair go for all – we believe that a nation should be governed in the broader interests of all, not in the sectional interests of a few.4141 Western Australian Labor 2014. What binds all segments of the Labor Party together is a shared critical attitude and two positive commitments – first to a fairer, more equitable and more just society; and second to the achieving of this society through democratic means.4242 South Australia Labor Party, General Rules: As Amended February 2016 (Adelaide, 2016). For state Labor, in line with a more “third way” approach, we see a focus on the value of community (rather than say, a more class-based focus on collectivism). Freeden associates this with the most current form of liberalism.4444 Freeden, Liberalism, p.13. The identification of communities with particular needs for whom specific channels of representation are required has been a characteristic of Labor's ideological and policy agenda since the 1980s;4545 Johnson, Social Democracy. for example, state Labor has shown strong support for LGBTQI and multicultural forms of identity.4646 Graham Willett, Living Out Loud: A History of Gay and Lesbian Activism in Australia (Sydney, 2001). Labor favours rhetoric such as “we believe in building a society, not just an economy”.4747 Palaszczuk, “Message from Annastacia Palaszczuk”, p.6. This is a thin concept of community, reflected in the ubiquity of the use of the term across the various platforms, and is not given definitional clarity by Labor. In our view, state Labor's evocation and fusion of identity with community aims to challenge the utilitarian individualism and social conservatism of the right. As Carol Johnson notes, the ALP has long been on a journey that has sought to expand its conception of equality.4848 Johnson, Social Democracy, pp.12-13. One of the effects of this change is evident at the state level, though little documented. State Labor seeks to address the needs of an ever-widening series of identity communities; for example, sections in the platforms target people with disabilities, young/old people, sexual minorities, gender, race and ethnicity, Indigenous Australians and people with mental ill-health. One effect has been to displace or marginalise discussions of “economic” or class-infused evocations of community. One partial exception to this is apparent in the pursuit of a treaty with Indigenous populations by the Victorian and South Australian governments. These initiatives seem to reflect a deeper understanding of patterns of inequality and disadvantage. Work, and the valorisation of “workers”, remains the dominant core theme of state Labor.4949 Dessau, “Opening of Victoria's 59th Parliament”; Palaszczuk, “Message from Annastacia Palaszczuk”, p.2; Australian Labor Party Victorian Branch, Platform 2018; Alex Chernov, “Address at the Opening of the First Session of the Fifty-Eighth Parliament” (Parliament of Victoria, 24 December 2014), p.3, <https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/documents/news/Governor_s_Speech_at_the_Opening_of_the_Parliament.pdf>; Paul de Jersey, “Governor's Speech: The Opening of the First Session of the Fifty-Fifth Parliament” (Parliament of Queensland, 2015), p.4, <https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/TableOffice/TabledPapers/2015/5515T28.pdf>. In the four cases we examine, we identify a third-way discourse that is linked to concerns about the dangers of welfare dependence.5050 For example, Giddens, The Third Way; Tony Fitzpatrick, After the New Social Democracy: Social Welfare for the Twenty-first Century (Oxford, 2003). In Australia, this links with Noel Pearson's highly influential critique of “passive welfare”; notably, Pearson was a favoured interlocutor of the Beattie Queensland Labor government.5151 Noel Pearson, “The Light on the Hill: Ben Chifley Memorial Lecture” (Bathurst, 12 August 2000), <http://gooriweb.org/pearson/chifley12aug00.pdf>. Perhaps in response to recent concerns about casualisation and wage stagnation, state Labor has qualified this “work first” focus; now, Labor values emphasise that work must be of such a nature to provide “security and dignity”, be safe, secure, “meaningful and rewarding”. At times, this meaning is linked to particular types of work(ers); those engaged in risky and life-saving occupations such as paramedics and firefighters.5252 Dessau, “Opening of Victoria's 59th Parliament”; Australian Labor Party Victorian Branch, Platform 2018, p.85. These values link to a social movement, unionism, that emphasises the defence of community, delivered by a largely female and increasingly educated workforce.5353 Ben Spies-Butcher, “Political Unionism in the 21st Century: Women, Care and Social Democracy”, Power to Persuade, 16 October 2016, <http://www.powertopersuade.org.au/blog/are-women-and-care-professions-signs-of-a-new-type-of-union-politics-that-is-far-from-fading/16/10/2016>. In Queensland, especially in regional areas, the security of public sector employment is attractive to voters. In South Australia, in straitened economic circumstances, the Weatherill government specifically chose not to reduce the number of public servants, in the face of Liberal calls to reduce the role of the state.5454 Sheradyn Holderhead, “Premier Jay Weatherill and Opposition Leader Steven Marshall Clash Over Carpark Tax at Business SA Luncheon”, Adelaide Advertiser, 7 February 2014. As we outline below, this focus on work is one of the main drivers of state Labor's policy agenda, which is dominated by a “jobs first” credo. Social liberalism and social democracy have often intersected