Labor Party Government Research Articles

Case Study – Developing a National Research and Evidence Base for The Health and Wellbeing Chapter of The Welsh Government’s 2023 Innovation Strategy for Wales

This paper presents research informing the Welsh Government’s (WG) Health and Wellbeing chapter of the new Innovation Strategy for Wales (ISW). WG recognises the need for a cross portfolio Innovation Strategy to bring greater coherence and alignment to our existing Welsh health and social care innovation ecosystem, particularly in a post EU environment. This approach aims to support greater collaboration between healthcare, industry, academia and the third sector to deliver greater impact and value by developing, sharing and adopting innovative practice, leadership and skills development and supporting new technology development. As part of the development process, key stakeholders were identified as part of an innovation ‘push’ and innovation ‘pull’ nexus approach. Organisations were categorised into domains of health and social care providers, innovation infrastructure, technology platforms, innovation centres, and partnerships across Wales’s health and life sciences ecosystem. A qualitative, action research led approach was used to derive the key themes supporting development of the ISW health chapter. Multi-sector consultations were conducted with experts from various fields, including health, social, care, research, and technology. Our analysis of qualitative data collected through an extensive consultation process led to the emergence of areas of prioritisation for the ISW. Three areas of prioritisation were identified in the analysis: a) Creating coherency across the innovation ecosystem, where every partner understands their role; b) Focusing innovation activity on NHS Wales organisational needs/priorities, generating ‘Innovation Pull’; c) Creating an ‘adoption ready’ pipeline of innovation externally into health and social care at scale, creating an ‘Innovation Push’ offer. The ISW aims to create the optimal conditions for an innovation ecosystem underpinned by clear infrastructure and a robust policy framework, which has the full support from health and social care leadership, to create a culture of innovation at all levels of the health and social care system. The ISW was launched on 27th February 2023, with full political support from the Welsh Government Cabinet; a majority Labour party government supported by the Plaid Cymru party, as part of the Welsh Government’s 2021 election cooperation agreement.

Endorsing Annexation? The Whitlam Government's De Jure Recognition of the Soviet Baltic States

In August 1974, the Australian Labor Party Government under Prime Minister Gough Whitlam announced it had recognised the incorporation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union de jure. Historical writing around this diplomatic recognition is scarce and sheds little light on why the policy was enacted. Using previously unavailable archival evidence, as well as other sources including testimony from Government and public service workers, this article demonstrates that the recognition was induced primarily by Whitlam, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and Sir James Plimsoll, Australia's ambassador to the Soviet Union. These actors were motivated by varying considerations. These included an adherence to realist foreign policy principles, concerns regarding Australian–Soviet bi‐lateral relations, convictions around the legitimacy of Baltic self‐determination, and ethnic prejudice against Australians of Baltic descent.

Developing a National Research and Evidence Base for the Health and Wellbeing Chapter of the Welsh Government’s 2023 Innovation Strategy for Wales.

This paper presents research informing the Welsh Government’s (WG) Health and Wellbeing chapter of the new Innovation Strategy for Wales (ISW). WG recognises the need for a cross portfolio Innovation Strategy to bring greater coherence and alignment to our existing Welsh health and social care innovation ecosystem, particularly in a post EU environment. This approach aims to support greater collaboration between healthcare, industry, academia and the third sector to deliver greater impact and value (Davies et al, 2021) by developing, sharing and adopting innovative practice, leadership and skills development and supporting new technology development (WG, 2018). As part of the development process, key stakeholders were identified as part of an innovation ‘push’ and innovation ‘pull’ nexus (Chesbrough, 2003) approach. Organisations were categorised into domains of health and social care providers, innovation infrastructure, technology platforms, innovation centres, and partnerships across Wales’s health and life sciences ecosystem. A qualitative, action research led approach was used to derive the key themes supporting development of the ISW health chapter. Multi-sector consultations were conducted with experts from various fields, including health, social, care, research, and technology. Our analysis of qualitative data collected through an extensive consultation process led to the emergence of areas of prioritisation for the ISW. Three areas of prioritisation were identified in the analysis: Creating coherency across the innovation ecosystem, where every partner understands their role. Focusing innovation activity on NHS Wales organisational needs/priorities, generating ‘Innovation Pull’. Creating an ‘adoption ready’ pipeline of innovation externally into health and social care at scale, creating an ‘Innovation Push’ offer. The ISW aims to create the optimal conditions for an innovation ecosystem underpinned by clear infrastructure and a robust policy framework, which has the full support from health and social care leadership, to create a culture of innovation at all levels of the health and social care system. The ISW was launched on 27th February 2023, with full political support from the Welsh Government Cabinet; a majority Labour party government supported by the Plaid Cymru party, as part of the Welsh Government’s 2021 election cooperation agreement.

Does the Australian Labor Party care about climate change? A content analysis of ALP attitudes towards the environment from 2007 to 2013

ABSTRACT Australia is increasingly regarded as out of step in the global effort to combat climate change. Even the Australian Labor Party (ALP) Government, considered the climate-friendly alternative to the conservative Coalition, failed to deliver robust climate action from 2007 to 2013. This paper aims to validate the promising progressive rhetoric of the ALP Government from 2007 to 2013 to understand whether its commitment to climate action was genuine. It incorporates mixed methods to verify ALP attitudes to the environment and demonstrate the incidence of changing attitudes. This paper finds that the ALP deviated from ecocentrism in its framing of environment priorities towards a weak ecological modernisation approach to mitigation. This inconsistency suggests that climate change mitigation was an arbitrary priority for the ALP, rather than a cornerstone of its party platform.

Editors' Note

We are pleased to introduce the second issue of 2022. Several of the articles in this issue are marked by their policy relevance. The article by Arie Krampf, Uri Ansenberg, and Barak Zur examines the role played by the Labor Party government between 1992 and 1996 to guide Israel onto a neoliberal economic path. The authors coin the term “embedded neoliberalism” to explain the interaction between pro-market and anti-market influences, yielding a peculiar type of neoliberal order in Israel. Examining social work education of Palestinian female students in Israel, the article by Haneen Elias and Ronit Reuven Even-Zahav identifies the significance of context-informed education that integrates the intersectional position of Palestinian students. Finally, Erez Cohen’s article identifies incompatibilities between existing public policy pertaining to post-retirement employment and the real-life needs of elderly people, suggesting a need for reform.

Bringing Politics Back In

This article makes an empirical and historical contribution regarding the role of the Labor Party government between 1992 and 1996—Yitzhak Rabin’s government—in shaping the Israeli path to neoliberalism. The article argues that Rabin’s government developed a new neoliberal political-economic logic that differed from the political-economic logic of the Emergency Stabilization Plan as well as from the political-economic logic of Sharon’s government in the post-Intifada era. It argues that Rabin’s government’s political-economic logic conforms to the notion of ‘embedded neoliberalism’ (Bohle and Greskovits 2012). The article also argues that political parties had greater impact on the Israeli neoliberal path than is conventionally claimed. The historical analysis is based on qualitative and quantitative research in six policy areas: supply-side, demand-side, welfare and redistribution, development, depoliticization and democratization.

Australia–China Relations at 50

Australia–China relations are at a turning point 50 years after diplomatic recognition. While the past five decades have witnessed extensive growth in economic exchanges, in recent years, bilateral ties have experienced serious deterioration. Australia’s alliance with the United States, domestic politics—in particular the two major parties’ approaches to foreign policy—and economic interdependence are important variables in Canberra’s approach to China. There will be no exception for the incoming Australian Labor Party government to deal with these.

Kıbrıs Türk Federe Devleti’nin (1975) Kuruluş İlanına İngiliz Parlamentosunun Tepkisi

This study examines the approach of the British parliament to the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus (TFSC), announced on 13 February 1975. Britain together with Turkey and Greece became one of the three guarantor powers of the Republic of Cyprus founded in 1960. Britain also has two military bases on the island. Thus, Britain closely followed the developments in Cyprus. After the Cyprus Peace Operation in 1974, a new situation emerged on the island. Turkish Cypriots established the TFSC in the north of the island. In the statements made by the British government, there was a negative reaction to this new administration. British deputies brought the issue to the agenda of the British parliament. Both opposition and ruling party representatives reacted negatively to the announcement of the establishment of the TFSC. They also criticized the ruling Labour Party government for failing to prevent the announcement of the TFSC. In addition, the steps which Britain could take in the Cyprus problem were discussed in parliament. Within this context, the article analyses the debates in the British parliament after the announcement of the establishment of the TFSC and gives a general assessment of Britain’s approach to the Turkish Cypriot decisions. This study, which is the result of a detailed examination of minutes taken at meetings of the British parliament, contributes to the field by examining British policy towards the Cyprus issue and Turkish-British relations.

Crowning Moments: Transformative populist use of the media and the case of Carl I. Hagen

Abstract This article presents the concept of a “crowning moment” and proposes an explanation for the media-savviness of many populist leaders – an under-theorised ability often referred to in existing research. A crowning moment is an instance in which populist leaders take advantage of opportunities that arise in their surroundings to achieve a or multiple major policy, political and/or personal goals through skilful use of the media that earns them recognition as savvy politicians. The concept is exemplified through an analysis of Norwegian Progress Party leader Carl I. Hagen’s role in the 1987 no-confidence motion against the Labour Party government. Stoking up and exploiting media interest in dramatic fashion, Hagen managed to redefine himself as a national political leader and made his party appear responsible.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment policy and Welfare to Work: The Community Development Programme and the need for new narratives, new alliances and new institutions

AbstractThe way Australian federal governments have approached Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment and welfare policy over the last two decades has been a paradigmatic example of what not to do in policymaking. In the absence of effective engagement or consultation, a series of decisions under Coalition and Australian Labor Party governments have had a range of negative consequences for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. These changes – centred around the closure of the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme and implementation of the Community Development Programme (CDP) – have resulted in increased unemployment, inadequate support for job creation, a dramatic over‐application of income penalties to social security recipients and reduced capacity in many community organisations. This article argues that these outcomes constitute policy failure, especially given that genuine engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people could have prevented many of these consequences. It then turns to an exploration of three ways in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are responding to such policy failure: through promotion of new narratives, new alliances, and new institutions. The study concludes that while we should avoid “specious hope”, there is room for optimism in a renewed push for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty.

“BROKER OR BRAKEMAN?”: AN ANALYSIS OF PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES ON SCHUMAN PLAN BETWEEN BRITISH LABOUR AND CONSERVATIVE PARTIES

9 May 1950 was a milestone in the history of European Integration when the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed the pooling of French and West German supplies of coal and steel; and made an invitation to other European states willing to be involved in this plan. The invitation for the conference on Schuman Plan came to the agenda of British Parliament on 26 June as a motion by Conservative Party demanding Labour Party Government to accept the invitation which had already been declined at the end of May, 1950. Following the debate on 26- 27 June, The Economist published an article titled “Broker or Brakeman?” in which the Schuman Plan discussions on British Parliament were explored. The Journal was arguing that “it is the resemblances, not the differences, between the outlook of Government and Opposition that are most striking” on this issue of foreign policy. Although this argument makes sense to a certain extent; this study argues that it was the adversarial nature of British party politics that shaped the general structure of the above mentioned parliamentary debate. Moreover, this nature contributed the decision makers to apply exceptionalist discourses and policies when it came to European Integration, therefore to a British non-involvement in the Plan.

New life to a fairer Scotland: Exploring 25 years of Scottish regeneration policy mechanisms

In Scotland, the past 25 years has been a period of remarkable political and economic change. The 1992 closure of the Ravenscraig steelworks complex marked the end of a seminal industrial era. The 1999 opening of the Scottish Parliament was followed by the 2008 economic crash and the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. Under various Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Scottish National Party government administrations in Westminster and Holyrood, the period has also featured a considerable diversity of approaches aimed at supporting the regeneration of disadvantaged places. This year, to celebrate its 25th anniversary, SURF organised a series of special events to explore and debate the perceived impacts and value-for-money of the main regeneration policy mechanisms that have been applied during its lifetime. This paper features an overview of the context and purpose of selected mechanisms, and highlights the feedback provided by SURF network practitioners, policy-makers and academics through the anniversary programme discussions.

From Commonwealth Responsibility to the National Interest: Australia and Post-war Decolonisation in South-East Asia

ABSTRACTThis article re-examines the drivers of post-war Australian foreign policy in South-East Asia. The central argument is that the motive of Commonwealth responsibility has not been given sufficient explanatory weight in interpreting Australia's post-war engagement with South-East Asia under both Australian Labor Party and Liberal-Country Party (Coalition) governments. The responsibility expressed by Australian policy-makers for the decolonisation of the Straits Settlements, Malayan Peninsula and British Borneo Territories cannot be adequately understood within a cold war ideological framework of anti-communism. Nor can it be explained by the instrumental logic of forward defence. The concept of responsibility is theorised as a motivation in foreign policy analysis and applied to Australian involvement with British decolonisation in South-East Asia between 1944 and 1971. The article finds that in its approach to decolonisation, Australia was driven as much by normative sentiments of responsibility to the Commonwealth as it was by instrumental calculations of cold war strategic interest. This diminished with the end of Indonesia's ‘Confrontation’ of Malaysia in 1966 and subsequent British commitment to withdraw from East of Suez. Australia's policy discourse becomes more narrowly interest-based after this, especially evident in Australia's negotiations with Malaysia and Singapore over the Five Power Defence Arrangements from 1968 to 1971.

Understanding the dynamics of sustainability transitions: the Home Insulation Program

ABSTRACTThe Home Insulation Program (HIP) in Australia is an outstanding example of a contemporary attempt to intervene in a socio-technical regime. The program, implemented in 2009 under the then Australian Labor Party government led by Kevin Rudd, was targeted at stimulating the retrofit insulation industry. The objective was to both improve the energy efficiency of homes and thereby contribute to Australia’s emissions reduction targets by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to stimulate the Australian economy at the time of the global financial crisis. The program ended early following a number of economic issues and health and safety concerns. Despite previous investigation into the HIP reviewing its design and implementation, the focus has been on economic issues and health and safety concerns. To date there has been no investigation of the HIP as a sustainability transition. This article integrates socio-technical transition theory (STTT) and political ecology (PE) approaches to analyse the HIP and identify lessons for future sustainability transition initiatives. This is achieved by illustrating the effect of regime management (RM) on the orientation of niche governance (NG) which highlights the importance of considering the RM and NG aspects of STTT with a PE approach in symmetry, in order to adequately account for political and economic contest and power relations, which are ubiquitous in environmental management governance.

Labouring under neoliberalism: The Australian Labor government’s ideological constraint, 2007–2013

AbstractWhen viewed against its ostensibly successful management of the global economic crisis between 2008 and 2013, growing electoral disenchantment with the Australian Labor Party government during that time defied standard explanations and calls for further analysis. A major reason for the party’s electoral loss in 2013 was arguably popular disappointment with its eschewal of social democratic principles. Notwithstanding some progressive measures initiated between 2008 and 2013, successive Australian Labor Party governments were constrained by neoliberal strictures, even when they chose to implement progressive policies. Whatever other reasons exist for its decline in popularity between 2007 and 2013, the Australian Labor Party’s unwillingness or inability to mark out a clear alternative to neoliberalism was fundamental. In making this case, this article uses the conceptual framework of ‘depoliticisation’, defined as the displacement of policy decisions from the sphere of democratic accountability and public debate, making them matters for regulation by technocratic experts operating according to supposed edicts of the market.

Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island Lorenz Gonschor (bio) The year under review was a fateful one for Norfolk Island, and indeed for the entire Pacific Islands region, as it marked the unprecedented recolonization of an island territory by its administrative power without the territory’s consent, an anachronistic act going against the current of decolonization of the past six decades and comparable in modern history only to the reactionary French policies toward its Pacific possessions from the late 1950s to the mid-1980s. Australia’s recolonizing policies sparked an outburst of Norfolk Island nationalism and a well-organized resistance movement struggling both locally and globally for the restoration of democracy to the island community. A British colony settled in 1856 from Pitcairn Island by the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian partners (some of whom later returned to Pitcairn to become the ancestors of that island’s current inhabitants), Norfolk Island became a dependent territory of Australia in 1914, and six decades later Australia initiated steps toward the island’s decolonization by granting it a large degree of self-government in 1979, an arrangement similar to other autonomous dependent territories in the region. However, the 2008–2009 global financial crisis hit the island’s mainly tourism-based economy particularly hard (after earlier disruptions including miscalculated investments in a locally owned airline in 2006), and from 2010 onward, the local government’s budget operated at a deficit. This necessitated annual subsidies from the Australian federal government ranging from a$3.2 million in 2011 (us$2.4 million) up to a$7.5 million (us$5.6 million) in the 2014–2015 financial year. Under the 1979 statutes, Norfolk Island was not allowed to borrow money in order to cover deficits without Canberra’s permission, which was not forthcoming. In 2010, Australia first refused to provide the requested budgetary subsidy but then agreed to it on condition that Norfolk Island paid Australian federal taxes and accepted financial oversight by federal officials, which the local government agreed to under protest (C Nobbs 2016b). The 2007–2013 Australian Labor Party government under Prime Ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd had agreed to further negotiations with the Norfolk Island territorial government over the issue, and the two governments had signed a “Norfolk Island Road Map” for that purpose in 2011. But the Liberal Party government under Tony Abbott that came to power in Australia in 2013 repudiated this compromise and instead advocated a hard-line, reactionary [End Page 154] approach. A report commissioned by the federal government in 2014—originally intended to look into economic issues, not political institutions—recommended shutting down the Norfolk Island government altogether and replacing it with direct rule by Canberra, and the Abbot government followed the report, introducing corresponding legislation in Australia’s Parliament. The Norfolk Island Legislation Amendment Act 2015 was first tabled in the Australian House of Representatives on 26 March and in the Senate on 13 May. The Norfolk Island government reacted immediately to the impending threat to its existence. On 27 March 2015, while the bill was moving through the federal parliament, the island’s Legislative Assembly called for a referendum to be held on 8 May among the local voters on the question of whether the people of Norfolk Island should have the right of self-determination and should be consulted before any changes to their political institutions were made by the Australian Parliament (Norfolk Island Government Gazette, 27 March 2015). The result could not have been clearer, with an overwhelming majority of 624 out of 912 participants (68% out of a 92% turnout of registered voters) voting “Yes” to the question (rnz, 9 May 2015). However, the Australian Parliament ignored the referendum, and with strong bipartisan support from the ranks of both the Liberal government and the Labor opposition, the bill passed both houses on 14 May and was assented to by Australia’s governor-general, Peter Cosgrove, on 26 May 2015. In the debate leading to the bill’s passage, no parliamentarian acknowledged this obvious denial of democracy, and some even mocked the more than two-thirds majority vote in the referendum as merely representing “some” people on the island being “unhappy” or...

The nexus of the coal industry and the state in Australia: Historical dimensions and contemporary challenges

This article presents a historical account of the close relationship between the coal mining industry and the federal and various state governments, thus over time building a state/coal industry nexus in Australia. It examines (1) an early colonial stage extending from the late 18th century to around the time of Federation in 1902 when the nexus emerged; (2) an intermediate stage from the early 20th century to the late 1970s when the nexus became solidified; and (3) a late stage from the early 1980s to the present day when the corporate sector came to dominate the nexus. Both Coalition and Australian Labor Party governments have consistently supported the exploitation of Australia's coal and natural gas, including recently coal seam gas, and supported the expansion of coal ports. An opposition movement has called for leaving coal and coal seam gas in the ground and shifting Australia’s energy production to renewable sources, particularly solar and wind energy. The article highlights how the nexus between coal mining and the state inhibits action on climate change. It argues this can be transcended by energy policy directed at socializing coal mining, wedded to a program of transitioning it to renewable energy production.

Off the Shelf or Tailor-made? Sources of Ideas for the Creation of Greater Brisbane in 1924

The literature on city planning and city administration is replete with examples of the international and inter-urban transfer of ideas. The transfer can result from qualitative emulation of one city by another or from the more generalized international circulation of expertise. But insufficient attention is paid to both the possibility of indigenous creation of local solutions to what are seen as local problems, even if triggered by international examples, and to the question of why the same circulating ideas take root in one place but not in another. This paper uses the “greaterization” of the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia in 1924 by a reformist Labor Party government as a case study to explore the sources of the ideas. The paper also compares the successful “greaterization” in Brisbane with the unsuccessful efforts in other Australian capital cities.

The Use of Financial Services Law to Regulate Emissions Trading

This article examines the use of financial services law (securities regulation) to regulate and to reduce emissions trading to reduce the causes of climate change—with reference to Australia's use of financial services law from 2012. The Australian financialization model, introduced by the previous Australian (Australian Labor Party) government, is planned to be repealed in mid-2014 (depending on votes in the upper house of the Australian parliament) by the conservative (Liberal-National Party coalition) government as its ‘first order of business’. At the time of writing in April 2014, the carbon price is in full operation. The government won office in September 2013, partly in the wake of an electoral backlash against the ‘carbon tax’. Australia's climate change model was based on defining emission reduction units as financial products under the Corporations Act, which resulted in the regulation of the market for trading emissions reductions becoming the responsibility of the financial services regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. This article examines the financial services model which treats emissions as financial products, regulated by financial services laws which provide inter alia for trading on regulated markets, the licensing of advisers, the expectation of high standards for secondary trading, the recognition of consumer rights under consumer laws and the continuous disclosure of information to financial markets.

TRADE UNIONS AND ECONOMIC REFORM IN AUSTRALIA, 1983–2013

Many of the key reforms of the past three decades that helped to strengthen the Australian economy were implemented during the operation of the Accord that existed between Australian Labor Party governments and the union movement. In order to address structural economic problems, unions agreed to moderate wage outcomes and to facilitate the transition to workplace bargaining in return for social welfare gains for workers, which successive governments have maintained. These reforms helped to improve labor market efficiency and allowed firms to integrate successfully into international markets, without substantially compromising the interests of workers and their families, which thereby allowed economic dislocation and social unrest to be contained. In contrast to the assertions of certain Australian employer groups, research has consistently shown that union involvement in workplace bargaining has a benign impact on business productivity. However, declining membership presents a significant challenge to the capacity of Australian unions to influence economic outcomes at the national and workplace levels in the future.