The Contradictions of the Albanese Labor Government in Australia: The Promise and Limits of ‘Thin’ Labourism

In 2022, after nearly a decade in opposition, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) under the leadership of Anthony Albanese won office. During this term of office, the Albanese government is not without achievement, often resorting to a range of notable, if technocratic and incremental, responses to a wide range of structural problems. This is an instructive case in understanding how centre-left parties seek to renew and update their historic missions. Drawing upon the work of Michael Freeden, the argument set out here is that the Albanese Labor government is a striking case of ‘thin’ or ‘new’ labourism. The Australian case might well offer only limited pathways of reinvention for the centre-left.

A case of ‘thin’ labourism

Our starting point is to utilise Michael Freeden’s concept of ideological ‘morphology’ to map the concepts that cluster together to form the Albanese project. Historically, socialism and social democracy are defined as ‘thick’ ideologies, drawing concepts including class or a critique of capitalism. Our mapping suggests that this ideology is labourism, which Manning argues seeks a ‘Labor government charged with the duty of managing the economy for the benefit of wage earners’.

Indeed, we find that the Albanese government draws from fewer concepts than more traditional variants of socialism and social democracy. For example, in contrast to the ‘critique of capitalism’ inherent in socialism, part of the appeal of labourism is that it does not necessarily require significant reforms to capitalist structures; rather, its focus is on a material uplift for working people. In fact, Labor has made headway to protect certain categories of worker. Its landmark legislation to give new rights to gig workers is a good example, and the Albanese government moved to give a 15 per cent pay rise to those in the early childhood education sector. In short, the Albanese government seeks a labourism which makes clear material differences to key groups of workers.

‘Corrective’ social policy

In terms of welfare and social changes, Labor’s efforts are incremental, technocratic and corrective. This is evidenced in how the ALP has sought to address the housing crisis in Australia. It legislated a new funding model, the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF). The HAFF was set up to deliver 30,000 social and affordable homes over five years by the government borrowing $10 billion from its sovereign wealth fund and investing this in equity markets, which in turn was expected to generate a $500 million annual return. Housing supply in Australia is low by OECD standards and the ALP has also sought to stimulate housing construction by shifting away from direct social spending. Instead, it aims to direct market forces to increase the housing stock. This has the hallmarks of a third way approach, seeking to use private capital to fuel social investment, rather than direct government spending.

First Nations policy: the voice to Parliament

One of the most significant blows to Albanese’s agenda was the rejection of a referendum in October 2023 on the ‘Voice’, a federal advisory body comprising of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, intended to inform legal and policy decisions impacting First Nations people in Australia. With approximately 60 per cent of voters rejecting the Voice at the ballot box, the defeat of the referendum was a significant blow to the ALP. While Labor had run on a platform to unify the country, the months of campaigning leading to the referendum were marked by the politics of division. This reflects where Labor has been found most wanting, in its capacity to deliver a compelling narrative for its policy agenda that is genuinely collaborative and unifying.

New approaches to governance

When entering government, the ALP sought to reconstitute the economic architecture in Australia. At the centre of Labor’s vision for a ‘new economic model’ was a focus on economic growth that was inclusive and fiscally responsible. This economic agenda became articulated more clearly by Treasurer Jim Chalmers. For Chalmers, pursuing a values-based form of capitalism was a recognition of the failure of neoliberalism to address issues of productivity and inflation, which could be rectified through redesigning markets and recalibrating economic institutions to foster resilience, well-being and cooperation. Albanese’s Labor government has attempted some institutional redesign akin to Rachel Reeves, notably seeking to change the mandate of the Reserve Bank, introducing a new Economic Inclusion Committee and developing a ‘wellbeing framework’ to supplement its traditional economic indicators. Yet, despite the ambitious discursive attempts to present a ‘new economic model’, the impact of these reforms has been limited by working within neoliberal settings.

Governing by consensus

The second distinctive approach to the Albanese government is a ‘consensus’ approach to leadership and governance. In office, Albanese’s consensus approach sought to build cooperation and find common ground between business, labour and government. While this strategy initially aimed to build cooperation among business, labour and government, its long-term effectiveness is now in question. The withdrawal of some key business leaders from newly established consultative economic bodies and the absence of major institutional reforms suggest that this consensus approach might not be a meaningful shift in policy direction. If we combine the efforts to create a new economic model and a push to govern through consensus, there is evidence of a contemporary centre-left party trying to build a new political identity.

The promise and limits of labourism

The Albanese government thus represents an incrementalism rooted in a ‘thin’ variant of labourism. Its approach balances improved rights for insecure workers and wage increases for low-income sectors with a cautious attitude toward structural economic reform. The promise of labourism is that it can be coupled with competent policy responses and acknowledge deeper policy problems, but a key dilemma is the appetite to pursue structural reforms which run against entrenched neoliberalism. The Albanese government has not indicated any serious appetite for embracing postcapitalist politics, rather, aspiring to build a winning electoral formula based on delivering the practical achievements of thin labourism. In more fragmented and fluid political systems, the electoral support for such an approach might be short-lived.