The Australian Labor Party: A Legacy of Betrayal, Abandonment and Neglect

Founded in 1901 amidst the first sitting of the new Australian Federal Parliament, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) is the oldest-continuing political party in Australia. The ALP is is the nominally progressive wing of the two-party duopoly in Australian politics, generally considered the ‘lesser of two evils.’

Despite the popular belief that the ALP is a progressive panacea for the selfish, authoritarian and soulless Tory opposition, its history is replete with betrayals of the working class and corruption. From the first moment it became electorally viable, the ALP has been a magnet for careerists and opportunists who placed their own interests and ambition of the wellbeing of the Australian people.

This page works to document the sordid history of Laborite opportunism and betrayals. Check back periodically for updates.

AUKUS

Aukus: nuclear submarines deal will cost Australia up to $368bn
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/14/aukus-nuclear-submarines-australia-commits-substantial-funds-into-expanding-us-shipbuilding-capacity
  ‘Rotational forces’ of US and UK nuclear-powered submarines set to visit Australia from 2027 as part of landmark pact
How can Australia pay $368 billion for new submarines? Some of the money will be created from thin air
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-22/australia-aukus-submarines-368-billion-some-money-thin-air/102124540
  Australia’s decision to buy three nuclear-powered submarines and build another eight is so expensive that, for the $268 billion to $368 billion price tag, we could give a million dollars to every resident of Geelong, or Hobart, or Wollongong.

Book on Aukus ‘fiasco’ says decision to embrace pact will ‘haunt’ Labor for years
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/07/book-on-aukus-fiasco-says-decision-to-embrace-pact-will-haunt-labor-for-years
  Andrew Fowler’s book reveals one of Australia’s most important requirements for its submarines was the ability to work alongside the US in South China Sea.
Labor backbencher Josh Wilson breaks ranks on AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-21/aukus-nuclear-submarines-josh-wilson-anthony-albanese/102124862
  Labor backbencher Josh Wilson used a speech in the parliament to speak out against the AUKUS pact with the United Kingdom and the United States, fearing it might undermine Australia’s commitment to nuclear non-proliferation.
Finding the money for submarines is squeezing the Australian Defence Force
- https://strategicanalysis.org/finding-the-money-for-submarines-is-squeezing-the-australian-defence-force/
  Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles unleashed a blizzard of numbers yesterday when he launched the Albanese government’s first National Defence Strategy and the first public version of the Department of Defence’s acquisition plan in four years. Those numbers included some big statements in the speech about increased spending. Since we are talking about tens and hundreds of billions of public funds, it’s worth unpacking the claims to see what it all means.

Colluding with the class enemy: Neoliberalism and the Accord

Labor’s Accord: How Hawke and Keating began a neo-liberal revolution
- https://solidarity.net.au/mag/back/2012/50/labors-accord-how-hawke-and-keating-began-a-neo-liberal-revolution/
  Hawke and Keating’s Accord agreement was designed to hold back wages and conditions and weakened union power, argues Feiyi Zhang.
How Australia’s Labor Movement Helped Build Neoliberalism
- https://jacobin.com/2020/10/australia-labor-party-neoliberalism-accord
- https://brill.com/display/title/35076?language=en
  In the US and UK, conservative politicians like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher kick-started neoliberalism. In Australia, however, it began in the 1980s with a fateful Accord introduced by Labor prime minister Bob Hawke and supported by Australia’s trade union leadership.
Labor in power: the lessons of the Accord
- https://solidarity.net.au/mag/back/2010/27/labor-in-power-the-lessons-of-the-accord
  The Labor government of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating set out to cut wages and restore profits as part of a neo-liberal restructuring program, argues Jean Parker
Wages Policy and the Accord
- https://www.ppesydney.net/content/uploads/2020/05/Wages-policy-and-the-Accord.pdf
The Accord and working-class consciousness: the politics of workers under the Hawke and Keating governments, 1983-1996
- https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/29816/
  This thesis aims to develop the understanding of workers’ class political consciousness. In particular, the thesis addresses the ways and why workers unmade and remade the working class and, more specifically, their class political consciousness under the ALP federal governments from 1983 to 1996.
Ultra low wage growth isn’t accidental. It is the intended outcome of government policies
- https://theconversation.com/ultra-low-wage-growth-isnt-accidental-it-is-the-intended-outcome-of-government-policies-113357
  For more than forty years, both the architecture of labour market regulation and the discretionary choices of governments have been designed with the precise objective of holding wages down.
The Accord, the labour market and the economy
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022185613517475
  This article discusses the economic circumstances and effects of the Accord, noting always the difficulty of reaching firm conclusions because of counterfactual uncertainties.
Review: How labour introduced neoliberalism
- https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/review-how-labour-introduced-neoliberalism/
  Elizabeth Humphrys, How labour built neoliberalism. Australia’s Accord, the labour movement and the neoliberal project, Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2019.
The Australian Labor Party Needs to Ditch Neoliberalism Instead of Doubling Down
- https://jacobin.com/2021/02/australian-labor-party-alp-right-faction-neoliberalism
  The Write Stuff, a recent collection of essays from the ALP’s conservative wing, argues that Labor must shift even further to the right to become electorally successful. The book’s authors couldn’t be more wrong — to win, Labor must ditch the neoliberal policies they celebrate.
How the Labor Party Sold Australia’s Public Assets for a Song
- https://jacobin.com/2021/03/australian-labor-party-paul-keating-privatization-neoliberalism
  Many people think of privatization as a policy of conservative parties. In Australia, however, it was Paul Keating’s Labor that initiated a gigantic fire sale of public assets, setting in motion a process that made billions for private companies at the expense of everyone else.

Complicity in crimes against humanity

Pepper Spray for Palestine, Tears for Tehran: Australia’s Selective Sovereignty
- https://theaimn.net/pepper-spray-for-palestine-tears-for-tehran-australias-selective-sovereignty/
  From Sydney’s kettled streets to Canberra’s sanctions theatre, how the US military-industrial complex choreographs our protests, media, and middle-power obedience.

ALP Deflection From Complicity in Crimes Against Humanity
- https://seqldiww.org/on-alp-deflection-from-crimes-against-humanity/
  Deflection is as crucial to totalitarian social control as it is to domestic abuse, and this is telling. Not least, the illiberal authoritarianism of hegemonic ‘neoliberal’ ideology in Australia, alongside a national epidemic of domestic violence, suggests that mainstream political and cultural norms offer fertile soil for deflection and contempt for anything that looks like norms of consent.

Why Labor has always backed Israel
- https://redflag.org.au/article/why-labor-has-always-backed-israel
  Labor governments don’t serve the interests of the Australian working class; they serve the interests of big business. And Australian big business overwhelmingly favours a close relationship with the United States as a protector of its interests in the Asia Pacific. It should therefore be no surprise that Israel—Washington’s most important ally in the Middle East—gains favourable media coverage and red-carpet treatment from Australian politicians.
The Australian Labor Party Has Always Been Loyal to Israel
- https://jacobin.com/2024/01/australian-labor-party-israel-palestine
  In 1948, Australian Labor foreign minister Doc Evatt was instrumental in convincing the United Nations to recognize Israel. Today the ALP continues his legacy by ignoring Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.
Rebel with a Cause: inside the moment Fatima Payman quit the Labor Party
- https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jul/04/rebel-with-a-cause-inside-the-moment-fatima-payman-quit-the-labor-party
  Australia’s first hijab-wearing senator said her family did not flee from Afghanistan for her to remain silent in the face of atrocity.
Lockheed Martin hides Australia’s complicity in Gaza bombings
- https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/lockheed-martin-hides-australias-complicity-in-gaza-bombings,18666
  The world’s biggest weapons manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, has deleted from its website details about Australia’s key role in building F-35 fighter jets, which Israel is using to bomb Gaza.

@australiangreens
This is Prime Minister Albanese 20 years ago. Today, he leads a Labor Government that abstained from voting for a ceasefire at the UN General Assembly, whilst the majority of countries voted for one. Meanwhile, Israel collectively punishes over 2 million Palestinians civilians. Today, reports state that 9000 people have died in Gaza, as the State of Israel bombs residential buildings, health infrastructure and refugee camps. How many more people have to die before the guy in this video decides to show up? Ceasefire now. End the occupation. [Footage via @ripmarrickville]
♬ original sound – Australian Greens

Details of defence deal with Israel kept under wraps to protect Australia’s ‘reputation’
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-09/australia-israel-defence-deal-secret-to-protect-reputation/103683308
  Australia’s Defence department has refused to publicly release a copy of the deal struck with Israel on defence industry cooperation because it “could harm Australia’s international standing and reputation”.
Australia only granted defence export permits to Israel for repair of equipment since conflict, estimates told
- https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/05/australia-only-granted-defence-export-permits-to-israel-for-repair-of-equipment-since-conflict-estimates-told
  Eight permits have been approved since 7 October, officials say, but only for items that have to be repaired in Israel and returned to Australia
AUSTRALIA’S COLLABORATION WITH ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE
- https://declassifiedaus.org/2024/09/03/australias-collaboration-with-israels-genocide/
  FOI document releases show that behind the press releases and statements of concern, lie the facts of the Australian government’s knowing support for some of the gravest human rights crimes of the century.
The potential blind spot in Australia’s military exports to Israel
- https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/does-australia-send-weapons-to-israel-heres-what-you-need-to-know/1ibaxf74e
  United Nations experts have also called on countries including Australia to “immediately” halt arms transfers to Israel, including export licences and military aid, saying any transfer of weapons or ammunition that would be used in Gaza was likely to violate international humanitarian law.

Australia challenged on ‘moral failure’ of weapons trade with Israel
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/28/australia-challenged-on-moral-failure-of-weapons-trade-with-israel
  Regular protests have been taking place outside Australian firms making crucial components for the F-35 fighter jet.

Disciplining Unions and Workers for Capital

The Accord: a class collaboration project that weakened unions
- https://www.greenleft.org.au/2020/1291/analysis/accord-class-collaboration-project-weakened-unions
  In the 1980s and 1990s, “consensus” politics and tripartite discussions supported Bob Hawke and Paul Keating Labor governments’ Accord with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).
Bob Hawke: The PM who tamed the labour movement
- https://www.greenleft.org.au/2019/1222/analysis/bob-hawke-pm-who-tamed-labour-movement
  Bob Hawke played a critical role, along with Paul Keating, in the launching of the international neoliberal offensive in Australia during the 1980s, which has now reached its peak under the current Coalition regime. But perhaps his most damaging legacy is the taming of the trade union movement, which has had long-term serious consequences right up to this day.
Anti-Communism in the Unions: The Case of the Federated Clerks’ Union in South Australia, 1944–60
- Labour historians remain fascinated by the struggle against communism in Australian trade unions during the Cold War’s early years, typically examining major unions at the national level. This article, by contrast, uses detailed archival research to explore the anti-communists’ bitter, decade-and-a-half-long attempt to displace secretary Harry Krantz and his supporters in the South Australian branch of the Federated Clerks’ Union (FCU). While the aims of the right-wing activists were dubious, the incumbents’ methods were even more questionable. By 1952 the FCU in South Australia had distinguished itself by being the only major state branch to survive the anti-communist crusade. This article demonstrates reasons for the Left’s success. They were certainly aided by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) dissolving the anti-communist industrial groups in the state in 1951. But strategy, tactics and personal factors played a significant role. Krantz’s ability and political nous were not matched by the anti-communists, and he had won impressive gains for union members. A final factor was Krantz and his allies’ ruthlessness and forensic knowledge – and exploitation – of union rules.
Australian Unions Need to Stop Pinning Their Hopes on the Labor Party
- https://jacobin.com/2022/08/unions-actu-political-contributions-labor-party-albanese
  Since the 1980s, Australian unions have subordinated everything to getting Labor elected. It’s a failed strategy that has diminished union power, leading to declining wages and conditions for workers.
Labor’s connection to trade unions—for better or worse
- https://redflag.org.au/article/labors-connection-trade-unions-better-or-worse/
  Labor, rather than representing workers, is the party of Australia’s trade union officials. Unions are more than a lobby group imposing external influence upon the ALP. They are embedded in its internal operation at all levels of the party apparatus—from local branches to the highest parliamentary office—and impact its structure, financing, candidates, policies and campaigns.
Union membership in free fall as union leaders suck up to Labor
- https://redflag.org.au/article/union-membership-free-fall-union-leaders-suck-labor/
  Union coverage, in steady decline since the early 1980s, took another sharp turn for the worse in 2022. The latest figures, released by the Bureau of Statistics in mid-December, show that membership has fallen by 76,000 in two years, to 1.4 million, even as the workforce has grown. The outcome is that just one in eight workers in Australia are now union members, down from one in two 40 years ago.
The problem with the Fair Work Act
- https://redflag.org.au/article/node-6358/
  The Fair Work Act that is the target of the ACTU’s Change the Rules campaign undermines wages and conditions and hamstrings trade unions. Passed by the Rudd Labor government in 2009, it is a particularly ugly piece of legislation, with many obvious problems.
Claims Fair Work Commission is anti-business are ‘clearly wrong’, says expert
- https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jan/23/claims-fair-work-commission-is-anti-business-are-clearly-wrong-says-expert
  Vice-president of commission’s resignation used by Coalition figures to argue for industrial relations changes
Company that owes worker $17,000 may never have to pay
- https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/company-that-owes-worker-17000-may-never-have-to-pay/news-story/657ceac42547928b34673ccca62aab82
  WHEN a worker saw his boss had been underpaying him for years, his wage theft case was a slam dunk — but a legal loophole means he’ll probably never see a cent.
Neither Simple nor Fair – Restricting Legal Representation before Fair Work Australia
- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm
  Fair Work Australia is the Commonwealth Government’s proposed ‘one-stop shop’ for employment relations matters. An important feature of FWA is its unfair dismissal jurisdiction, which is supposedly designed to deliver a simpler, faster and less costly process by restricting legal representation of parties before FWA and instituting a mixed ‘inquisitorial-adversarial’ model of dispute resolution. This study examines whether restricting legal representation achieves the primary goal of Labor’s substantive workplace relations reforms – fairness by reference to three key elements: legal truth, cost and efficiency. Following this examination, the article finds that imposing further restrictions on legal representation undermines fairness because it creates an imbalance between costs, legal truth and efficiency. The article recommends that, subject to minor amendments aimed at improving the unfair dismissal process, the present statutory treatment of legal representation should remain.
From the Arbitration System to the Fair Work Act: The Changing Approach in Australia to Voice and Representation at Work
- https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AdelLawRw/2013/2.html
  This article explores mechanisms for employee voice and representation at work by reference to five processes for making rules about the employment relationship: statutory regulation, delegated regulation, collective agreement-making, individual contracting, and managerial unilateralism. We look in particular at five labour law regimes that have operated in Australia: the traditional conciliation and arbitration system; the enterprise bargaining regime introduced in 1993; the Workplace Relations Act as it operated after 1996; the ‘Work Choices’ amendments that took effect in 2006; and the Fair Work legislation from 2009 onwards. Our analysis of those regimes suggests three main findings. First, the support for union forms of collective voice has declined, but the laws have also changed dramatically in the types of support offered for trade unions. Secondly, the diminishing legislative support for unions has not been counterbalanced by the development of alternative collective forms of employee voice. Thirdly, the individualisation of rule-making processes and employee voice has been a consistent trend in Australian labour law.

Extractivists’ Wet Dream

The multi-billion-dollar rort no one is talking about
- https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/04/20/prrt-could-be-biggest-theft-in-history/
  In an election where we face massive deficits and a trillion-dollar debt, why aren’t we talking about taxing the windfall profits of offshore gas companies?

Increasing Aged Pension to 67

Increasing age pension to 67 was Labor policy – News Corp stories wrong
- https://formerministers.dss.gov.au/17360/increasing-age-pension-to-67-was-labor-policy-news-corp-stories-wrong/
  News Corp stories this morning claiming that it was a Coalition Government decision to increase the age at which people can access the age pension from 65 to 67 are wrong . . . It was Labor that announced the increase to 67 in the 2009 Budget: http://ministers.treasury.gov.au/DisplayDocs.aspx?doc=pressreleases/2009/056.htm&pageID=003&min=wms&Year=&DocType=0

Landlords’ Wet Dream

Federal Labor dumps negative gearing policy, backs tax cuts
- https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/labor-dumps-neg
  Federal Labor has dumped its signature housing policy of winding back negative gearing after two election losses while putting itself on a campaign footing by ending its long-time opposition to scheduled tax cuts for high-income earners.ative-gearing-backs-tax-cuts-20210726-p58cxs.html
Labor pledges not to touch negative gearing, capital gains as pressure mounts
- https://www.ifa.com.au/labor-pledges-not-to-touch-negative-gearing-capital-gains-as-pressure-mounts
  The Treasurer has provided assurance that there will be no alterations to either negative gearing or capital gains.
Australia’s ‘deeply unfair’ housing system is in crisis – and our politicians are failing us
- https://theconversation.com/australias-deeply-unfair-housing-system-is-in-crisis-and-our-politicians-are-failing-us-219001
  The fact that one of the least populated countries on Earth contains the world’s second most expensive housing is a national calamity, and a stunning failure of public policy,” writes Alan Kohler, in the latest Quarterly Essay . . . He doesn’t mince words. We are in a housing crisis – and it is a public policy failure of the biggest kind. This crisis is about more than housing: it is a social and economic crisis, creating a society defined by inherited wealth.

Victorian Labor party members to stage revolt over public housing tower redevelopment
- https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/09/victorian-labor-party-members-to-stage-revolt-over-public-housing-tower-redevelopment
  Rank and file group wants a doubling of social housing at the 44 tower sites and a guarantee all the land will stay in public hands
Inside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s $5 million property portfolio
- https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/buying/inside-prime-minister-anthony-albaneses-5-million-property-portfolio/news-story/440a28fe98bfb7ab2d3bf9afff38a02e
  He came from humble beginnings after growing up in public housing – but today, the PM boasts a multimillion-dollar property portfolio.
Anthony Albanese may have come from humble beginnings in a poverty-stricken council house but his $5MILLION property portfolio shows he’s no longer one of the Aussie battlers he’s promised to protect
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10666653/Anthony-Albaneses-net-worth-Labor-leader-secret-property-tycoon-Sydney-Canberra.html
  Anthony Albanese started life as the only child of a single mother in an inner city council house – but the Labor leader is now a multi-millionaire property tycoon.
Albanese’s $1.9m property listing is a far cry from the housing struggles of ordinary Australians
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/13/anthony-albanese-dulwhich-hill-propety-sale-tenant-eviction
  The chasm between those who can buy and sell real estate at will and those for whom housing is a source of constant anxiety has never been clearer
Anthony Albanese doubles his money on Sydney house
- https://www.afr.com/property/residential/anthony-albanese-doubles-his-money-on-sydney-house-20210728-p58dj6
  A day after Labor dumped its negative gearing policy, its leader scored his own property bonus as he sold his Marrickville investment home for $2.35 million.
Anthony Albanese faces criticism over six figure rental income amid housing crisis
- https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/anthony-albanese-faces-criticism-over-six-figure-rental-income-amid-housing-crisis/news-story/b23627895db968023327275fbdd27312
  Anthony Albanese is under scrutiny over property investments, as revelations surface about his $115,000-a-year rental income.
Albanese eviction: Prime Minister hits back after evicting tenant from his Dulwich Hill investment property
- https://thenightly.com.au/australia/albanese-eviction-tenant-evicted-from-dulwich-hill-rental-owned-by-the-pm-c-14685161
  Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has hit back at a tenant he is evicting from his investment property, stating he is “entitled to make decisions” and that the tenant has “refused” conversations.
The L in ALP stands for ‘Landlord’
- https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/05/17/anthony-albanese-the-l-in-alp-stands-for-landlord/
  When the prime minister evicted his pesky tenant, he finally showed he was one of us! A vilified, villainised and vasectomised landlord!
How many properties does your local politician own?
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-20/australian-politician-property-ownership-details/8453782

LGBTI rights

The Australian Labor Party Just Voted for the Right to Be a Bigot
- https://jacobin.com/2022/02/scott-morrisson-liberals-labor-lgbt-coalition-turnbull
  The Right in Australia has introduced a bill protecting anti-LGBT bigotry under the guise of defending religious freedom. The Labor Party dutifully voted it through.

NACC

How the NACC ‘betrayed its core obligation’
- https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/law-crime/2024/09/07/how-the-nacc-betrayed-its-core-obligation
  The National Anti-Corruption Commission has ignored referrals from a royal commission to investigate six public servants over the disastrous robodebt scheme.

NDIS

Greens and disability groups criticise federal government gag on NDIS talks
- https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/26/government-ndis-review-overhaul-criticism-greens-labor-ndas
  Disability organisations and advocacy groups are disturbed by a federal government gag on upcoming NDIS announcements, with the Greens warning “behind closed doors” negotiations were “serving politicians” and not the community.

NT Intervention

How do the parties stack up on ending the Intervention?
- https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/gas-and-fracking/this-election-vote-to-end-the-intervention/how-do-the-parties-stack-up-on-ending-the-intervention
  The Northern Territory Intervention is a racist policy and a breach of Aboriginal peoples’ human rights. Launched by John Howard in 2007, the Intervention saw hundreds of army personnel sent into remote communities and compulsory quarantining of welfare payments.
The Northern Territory Intervention and the liberal defence of racism
- https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/the-northern-territory-intervention-and-the-liberal-defence-of-racism/
  The moral panic they were central in creating to “justify” the Intervention resulted in the demonisation of Aboriginal people as paedophiles and child abusers. The middle-class liberals’ own pro-capitalist position, promoting individual solutions, seeing their own self-advancement as “proof” that those at the bottom of society are there because of their own incapacity, and looking to the state rather than struggles from below as the way to fix things, opened the door to support for the NT Intervention’s military invasion of Aboriginal communities – just as it did for similar social layers to support military interventions in “failed states” overseas. Underlying these attitudes was something more fundamental: the long-term hostility of pastoralists, mining companies, other capitalists and governments – the Australian ruling class, in other words – to Aboriginal rights. Again, the ruling class’s racism does not simply reflect mass racist attitudes. Instead it creates and reinforces them in an assertion of the capitalist class’s own interests.
The Intervention, Stronger Futures and Racial Discrimination: Placing the Australian Government under Scrutiny
- https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/publications/the-intervention-stronger-futures-and-racial-discrimination-placi/
  The Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER/Intervention), instigated in 2007 by Australia’s Federal Government, has led to prolonged human rights abuses for Australia’s First Peoples living in the Northern Territory. Indigenous peoples have frequently been denied three types of rights in Australia: citizenship rights, Indigenous rights such as self-determination and human rights. Although the Intervention infringes all three, the focal point of this publication will be human rights denied in the context of the Intervention, specifically, the right to protection from racial discrimination. The relationship between some Intervention measures and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is considered, with case studies on two problematic measures that continue under the Intervention’s successor framework of Stronger Futures: income management and criminalising possession and supply of alcohol.

NT Water Grabs

NT Government plan to let Big Business take our water
- https://territoryrivers.org.au/action/nt-government-plan-to-let-big-business-take-our-water/
  The Lawler Government will soon announce a series of plans which will allow huge amounts of extra water to be taken from our precious rivers and groundwater systems for thirsty industries like cotton and fracking. They will also lead to a rush of new dams on floodplains. This will see massive amounts of water taken from rivers such as the Daly, Roper, and Victoria and will threaten our fishing, tourism, local communities and our Top End lifestyle.
Act now to protect the Territory’s water: new evidence slams the government’s fracking science
- https://www.ecnt.org.au/evidence_slams_ntg_fracking_science
  For years, communities have been warning that fracking in the Beetaloo Basin could destroy iconic waterways like Mataranka Hot Springs, Bitter Springs, and the Roper River. Despite huge community opposition, in April the Northern Territory Government greenlit fracking, repeatedly saying the science backed them up.

Program: NT rejects criticism of fracking and cotton water planning
- https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/am/nt-rejects-criticism-of-fracking-and-cotton-water-planning-/101774154
  A new scientific report has concluded the Northern Territory Government’s plan to give out huge amounts of water from the aquifer under the Beetaloo Basin to new cotton and gas fracking industries could create an environmental catastrophe.
NT government defends cotton industry’s land and water use as calls grow for federal inquiry
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-21/nt-cotton-industry-government-land-water-laws/104247824
  The NT government has defended allowing pastoralists to change pastoral lease uses without a permit, saying it’s legal to grow crops to feed livestock.
The great Australian water grab
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-19/northern-territory-water-cotton-mataranka-springs-four-corners/104187666
  “We can’t afford to make the same mistakes that have been made in the Murray-Darling basin,” says Jenny Davis, a freshwater ecologist from Charles Darwin University. “I feel as though we are just going headlong down that path.”
Video: Water Grab
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-19/water-grab/104244320
  Four Corners exposes a system riven by conflicts of interest that threatens to destroy some of the NT’s most famous tourism destinations.

Oligarchy’s Wet Dream

Why is Anthony Albanese so fucking shit?
- https://redflag.org.au/article/why-is-anthony-albanese-so-fucking-shit/
  It’s not like anyone thought he’d be that good. But Anthony Albanese has turned out to be a really, really crap PM.

Albo’s Waterloo: The Clayton’s PM and the Farrellisation of Labor
- https://theaimn.net/albos-waterloo-the-claytons-pm-and-the-farrellisation-of-labor/
  Bernard Keane is half right. In today’s Crikey, he despairs of our PM as “a political manager, a risk-averse executive who always plays the percentages.” Dead right, as far as it goes. But Keane, for all his nous, undercooks the grill. This isn’t one man’s failure of nerve. It’s a captured party’s moral collapse; decades of corporate capture and right-faction strangulation producing, at the hour of maximum crisis, a Clayton’s Prime Minister with added charisma bypass: the PM you have when you’re not having ScoMo.

Persecuting whistleblowers

The jailing of David McBride is a dark day for democracy and press freedom in Australia
- https://www.hrlc.org.au/updates/jailing-of-mcbride-dark-day-for-democracy/
  What does it say about our democracy that the first person imprisoned in relation to war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan is not a war criminal, but a whistleblower?

Racism & Anti-Semitism

The Kingdom of Shylock (1917), by Francis George Anstey MP (ALP)
- https://bendebney.info/the-kingdom-of-shylock/
  “There was a time in the history of the British race when the jobber pursued his gambling in Change Alley or the Jews’ Walk, in the surreptitious manner of the accursed. He had one eye on the speculative customer and the other on the passing police. The Jew Medina came in the train of William the Dutchman. He gave Marlborough £6,000 a year for the first tips of victories in France or Flanders. All the tricks bound up in rising and falling prices, lying reports from the seat of war, the pretended arrival of couriers, the formation of financial cliques to work the market, cabals and connivings behind the scenes, the whole system of Mammon’s Wheels—Medina, the father, knew them well, and worked them to the full. His successors have amplified his methods . . . After Medina came the Jew, Manessah Lopez. He amassed a fortune in the panic which followed the false news that Queen Anne was dead. He “bought on the slump and sold on the rise.” Then came Samson Gideon and the Goldsmids—Abraham and Benjamin. These were succeeded by the Rothschilds.’
‘I Stand By White Australia’, Arthur Calwell, Australian Federal Minister for Immigration, 1949
- https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/1485019
  Calwell became the first Minister for Immigration in 1945 and was committed to a system which controlled immigration in accordance with the White Australia policy and enforced the deportation of prohibited immigrants. In October 1948 Calwell introduced the Aliens Deportation Bill and in 1949, the War-time Refugees Removal Bill. Also, in this period there were a number of court cases and personal stories of deportations being debated in the media. These debates in the public domain were the impetus for Professor Ball’s original article and Calwell’s response. Calwell’s argument in this pamphlet is that the introduction of a quota would be a form of appeasement to those prohibited migrants who wanted to stay, that a quota would be more discriminatory than the policy that was already in place and
- that Australia risked offending the Asian nations even more by introducing a quota.
One Nation surges as Labor paves the way for rise in racism
- https://solidarity.net.au/racism/one-nation-surges-as-labor-paves-the-way-for-rise-in-racism/
  But it is mainstream racism that is fuelling the racist surge. Albanese would not condemn the racist March for Australia rallies even after the open involvement of Nazis was revealed. Labor has boosted the idea that mass immigration is the cause of the housing crisis by cutting immigration numbers.

Raising the Retirement Age to 67

You will probably work longer than your parents did. Here’s why
- https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/why-you-will-probably-work-longer-than-your-parents-did/osfn7ccnp
  The age at which you can get the age pension in Australia will be raised to 67 in July, but that could increase further unless the government can meet the financial requirements of the growing cohort of retirees.

Reducing the parenting payment cutoff age to 8

How removing parenting payments when children turned 8 harmed rather than helped single mothers
- https://theconversation.com/how-removing-parenting-payments-when-children-turned-8-harmed-rather-than-helped-single-mothers-204927
  As the government weighs up whether to extend single parenting payments to parents of children older than the present cutoff age of eight in this week’s budget, new information has come to light about what happened when the rules were tightened in 2013.

Refugees

Labor’s refugee shame ten years on—End offshore detention
- https://solidarity.net.au/refugees/labors-refugee-shame-ten-years-on-end-offshore-detention/
  The last ten years of the Australian government’s punitive policies and abuse of refugee rights are bookended by Labor governments: 19 July 2023 marks the tenth year of offshore detention, introduced by the Rudd Labor government.
Parliament excises mainland from migration zone
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-16/parliament-excises-mainland-from-migration-zone/4693940
  The entire Australian mainland has been excised from the migration zone in a bid to deter the arrival of asylum seekers. Up until now, asylum seekers who reached the mainland by boat could not be sent offshore to Nauru or Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island for immigration processing. The change strips away any legal advantage for asylum seekers who reach the mainland.

Australian Labor government “excises” entire country to bar refugees
- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/10/refu-o31.html
  Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Labor government is today putting extraordinary legislation before parliament that will excise the entire territory of Australia from the country’s migration zone.

Labor’s latest attack on Migrants – removing natural justice rights
- https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/labors-latest-attack-migrants-removing-natural-justice-rights
  Labor today launched another cruel attack on refugees and migrants, tabling new legislation to strip people of the right to natural justice.
Back to the Future: Australian Border Policing Under Labor, 2007–2013
- https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/files/back_to_the_future_published_version.pdf
  This article analyses the border policies of australia’s federal Labor governments between 2007 and 2013. It argues that the policies of externalization pursued by Labor inevitably led to the restoration of the Pacific Solution introduced by the previous Liberal-National Party Coalition government and reproduced similar forms of state criminality and resistance
Labor Voters Overwhelmingly Support Royal Commission into Offshore Detention
- https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/labor-voters-overwhelmingly-support-royal-commission-into-offshore-detention/
  Australia Institute research shows a strong majority of Australians, including an overwhelming majority of Labor voters, support the establishment of a Royal Commission into offshore detention.

Reverse Robin Hood for Private Education

Labor’s reverse Robin Hood: Public schools bleeding money to private schools
- https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/labors-reverse-robin-hood-public-schools-bleeding-money-private-schools
  New analysis from the AEU shows that more than half of all Australian private schools receive more government funding per student than comparable public schools.
The Gonski ‘failure’: why did it happen and who is to blame for the ‘defrauding’ of public schools?
- https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/13/the-gonski-failure-why-did-it-happen-and-who-is-to-blame-for-the-defrauding-of-public-schools
  The 10-year anniversary of the plan has sparked criticism of the successive governments’ failure to implement the report’s recommendations
Australia: NSW Labor government budget further cuts health and education
- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/06/19/avcu-j19.html
  Yesterday, for the second year in a row, the Labor government in New South Wales (NSW), Australia’s most populous state, handed down a budget slashing social spending, particularly on public health and education.
Less than half Albanese’s cabinet went to state schools
- https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/education/2023/11/25/exclusive-less-than-half-albaneses-cabinet-went-state-schools
  As figures reveal public schools are underfunded by more than $6 billion a year, unpublished research shows politicians are twice as likely as the general public to be privately educated.
Labor rejects advice to ditch tax break for private school donors
- https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2024/07/20/labor-rejects-advice-ditch-tax-break-private-school-donors
  The Productivity Commission has recommended private school building funds lose their tax exemptions – but Labor has ruled out the reform, even before the report was released.

Revolving door between the ALP and big business

Revolving Doors – democracy at risk
- https://michaelwest.com.au/revolving-doors/
  Networks of influence and power – tracking the movements of politicians, people in senior positions, bureaucrats, lobby groups, and big business/industry.
Revolving Doors – Greg Combet
- https://michaelwest.com.au/greg-combet/
  Greg Combet is a former Australian politician and trade unionist. He was a member of Parliament for 6 years, and held ministerial positions under both the Rudd and The Gillard Government. Since leaving parliament, Combet has worked as a consultant to unions, been a company director as well as an appointment by the Morrison Government to provide policy advice during the Pandemic.
Revolving Doors – Anna Bligh AC
- https://michaelwest.com.au/anna-bligh/
  Anna Bligh’s position as the CEO of the Australian Banking Association makes her the chief advocate for banking interests in Australia.
Revolving Doors – Martin Ferguson
- https://michaelwest.com.au/martin-ferguson/
  APPEA, the Australian Petroleum Producers and Exploration Association, is the peak lobby group for the oil and gas industry in Australia. Ferguson took up a position as the chair of its advisory council only six months after he retired as minister. The lobbying code of conduct requires an 18-month cooling-off period for ex-ministers, which was clearly not enforced in Ferguson’s case. See Manning (2014).
Revolving Doors – Wayne Swan
- https://michaelwest.com.au/wayne-swan/
  Independent Non-executive Director, Stanwell Corporation, 12 December 2019 – Present. Stanwell Corporation is a Queensland government-owned corporation and is the state’s largest electricity generator. It runs coal-fired power stations.

Robodebt

Questions over NACC Robodebt “investigation”
- https://theklaxon.com.au/questions-over-nacc-robodebt-investigation/
  The sole person responsible for policing internal corruption at the National Anti-Corruption Commission is refusing to say whether an actual “investigation” has begun into the Robodebt referrals scandal.

Tax cuts for the moneyed aristocracy

The Stage 3 tax cuts are so geared towards the rich that most workers will pay more tax in 2025 than they did in 2022
- https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/the-stage-3-tax-cuts-are-so-geared-towards-the-rich-that-most-workers-will-pay-more-tax-in-2025-than-they-did-in-2022/
  Losing the low-middle income tax offset and getting the Stage 3 tax cuts will leave most workers worse off

Union busting: The CFMEU, with legislation supported by the ACTU and the Libs

A bill to kill a union: What is actually in the government’s CFMEU legislation
- https://www.redblacknotes.com/2024/08/19/a-bill-to-kill-a-union-what-is-actually-in-the-governments-cfmeu-legislation/
  The Albanese Labor government has done a deal with the Liberals to pass legislation aimed at destroying the CFMEU. Make no mistake, the government’s CFMEU Act is a plan to kill a union.

Anthony Albanese’s fingerprints all over Labor’s $15 billion CFMEU corruption cover-up attempt
- https://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2026/02/15/anthony-albaneses-fingerprints-all-over-labors-15-billion-cfmeu-corruption-cover-up-attempt/
  Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has his fingerprints all over the $15 billion CFMEU corruption scandal in Victoria that has already spread to Queensland and will likely spread to other states.

Australian union boss Sally McManus defends government attack on construction workers
- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/09/13/upax-s13.html
  In a video statement posted to social media on Monday, Sally McManus, secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), aggressively defended sweeping attacks on the basic rights of construction workers implemented last month by the federal Labor government.

Admin purge of CFMEU in Victoria targets militancy
- https://solidarity.net.au/unions/admin-purge-of-cfmeu-in-victoria-targets-militancy
  Administration’s control of the CFMEU ratcheted up further in November with Zach Smith, the Victorian Branch Executive Officer, putting all 30 Victorian organisers’ jobs on the line.
The CFMEU Setup: How Workers Get Mugged in an Election Year
- https://theaimn.net/the-cfmeu-setup-how-workers-get-mugged-in-an-election-year/
  On the other hand, The CFMEU built the hospitals Sarah staffs. Its pattern bargaining dragged EBA rates upward across the whole sector. Non-union sparkies like Sarah’s brother banked the lift without paying the dues. Raze the union and you don’t clean up the industry. You hand developers a gift-wrapped, defenceless workforce and call it accountability.

Union busting: The BLF

Deregistration—union busting the BLF
- https://solidarity.net.au/highlights/deregistration-union-busting-the-blf/
  Tom Orsag looks at how deregistration in 1986 virtually destroyed the Builders Labourers Federation, in a warning for unions facing the same thing today

Union busting: The 1990 Pilot’s Strike

1989: Australian pilots strike
- https://libcom.org/history/articles/australian-pilots-dispute-1989
  An account of the 1989 strike of the highly democratic and self-managed Australian Federation of Air Pilots union, which was the biggest industrial struggle of the period.
30 Years Since the 1989 Australian Pilots’ Dispute
- https://internationalsocialist.net/2019/09/australia-2/
  The airlines were backed to the hilt by the Hawke Labor government, the right-wing media, and unfortunately, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). Against all odds, the pilots put up a hard fight, but in the end, they were beaten by an unholy alliance that was hell bent on taking Australian capitalism in a new direction.

Spooks

Bob Hawke: union leader, Labor PM and CIA informant
- https://www.greenleft.org.au/2021/1317/analysis/bob-hawke-union-leader-labor-pm-and-cia-informan
  Recently-released former secret United States embassy cables reinforce the long-held view that Bob Hawke, the prominent union leader, Labor Prime Minister and all-round “Aussie larrikin”, was also an informant for the US government and the Central Intelligence Agency.
When US Labor Leaders Helped Repress the Global Left
- https://jacobin.com/2024/04/us-labor-leaders-global-anti-communism
  During the Cold War, much of labor officialdom collaborated with the US government to repress labor movements and left-wing forces abroad. The conservatism that enabled this sordid alliance still impacts much of the US labor movement today.

White Australia Policy

The Labor Party and “White Australia”
- https://www.wsws.org/en/special/library/foundations-aus/04.html
  In 1901, in the first major debate in the Commonwealth parliament, Deakin made clear the critical importance of White Australia in uniting the working class with its “own” bourgeoisie, while dividing it from the working class and oppressed masses of Asia.
Australian Labor and the “Color Line”
- https://jacobin.com/2020/03/australian-labor-party-alp-white-australia-policy-bill-shorten
  At the turn of the twentieth century, the Australian labor movement was considered the most successful in the world, but notions of “White Australia” have always haunted and undermined its internationalism.