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Chapter 3: Our Current Party Structures Are Ineffective

Table of ContenTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 – MAKING THE BEST OF THE SYSTEM WE HAVE
CHAPTER 2 – THE CURRENT DYNAMIC IS ‘PROGRESSIVE VERSUS CONSERVATIVE’
CHAPTER 3 – OUR CURRENT PARTY STRUCTURES ARE INEFFECTIVE
CHAPTER 4 – INDEPENDENTS CAN’T FORM EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT
CHAPTER 5 – BREAKING INTO THE CARTEL
CHAPTER 6 – PATHWAYS TO SOMETHING NEW
CHAPTER 7 – A POTENT POLITICAL FORCE NEEDS PEOPLE
CHAPTER 8 – PRODUCING LEADERS
CHAPTER 9 – KEEPING IT SIMPLE
CHAPTER 10 – DRAFT ORGANISATIONAL MODEL
CHAPTER 11 – PEOPLE
APPENDIX 1 – HISTORICAL COMMENTARY ON THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM
APPENDIX 2 – AUSTRALIAN COMMENTARY

Australia has had a consistent structure in its options for government since 1946, the first year that the contemporary Liberal Party stood in an election. The Labor Party began its occupation of one of the two governing spots much earlier in the 20th century. These parties have held the two spots at the table, uninterrupted, since this time. Almost no one alive today in the 2020s would have voted for a choice of government that was not Labor or the Liberal–National Parties. It is unrealistic to expect that this arrangement will continue to be effective and functional for eternity.

Both the Labor and Liberal parties are institutions designed for the 20th century. Both are undergoing problems relating to 21st-century life. They are also firmly entrenched with all the advantages of incumbency. Both are becoming more disfigured as time goes on. They are being abandoned by the general population.

The parties use methods of interaction, membership and organisational design that found success in the 20th century, but no longer work. Meanwhile, our lives today are dominated by organisations, like the tech giants, that are only around 20 years old. Organisations work differently now. In any other field, organisations so outdated would no longer exist. When you look at the current state of our major political parties, they are clearly not particularly potent forces in comparison to previous eras of both parties, to other political parties outside of Australia, or to parties from any time in democratic history. Both are having deep issues with membership.

These organisations have become ‘hollowed out’. The party hierarchies and structures—the branches and committees—are still in place, but all the people are gone. The lack of membership is affecting their ability to function.[1] Being a member does not bring self-empowerment. You’re not going to affect the organisation. Unless you are part of a large number who join at the same time to influence decisions (e.g., branch stacking), your individual membership is not going to make a difference in these organisations. It’s a cost of money, time, and effort. Why bother? Even John Howard recognised there was a problem, observing—‘it is the notion of membership that is problematic…rather than support for the party and its policies’.[2] These parties are failing to engage with the reality of 21st-century life, and to function as effective social networks for people in the community with mainstream political ideals.

The rise of individualism in society has been another factor for this declining membership. There has been a lull of dutiful citizens—people who see elections, government and being formally involved with political organisations as an essential part of life in a democracy. The dutiful citizens of the 20th century had no problem with paying money to join the traditional party, nor with putting time into it. University of Sydney politics professor Anika Gauja notes:

One of the most prominent themes associated with contemporary social and political change is that of ‘individualisation’. As a form of behaviour, individualisation captures the notion that citizens seek to fulfil their own private desires rather than the common good. Driven by social changes such as increasing pressures on time, money and effort, a decline of working-class communities and trade union membership, it has been asserted that people are less willing to participate in collective forms of political activity. Rather than joining political parties, citizens have instead turned to other political organisations to channel their participation, or to direct forms of political action.[3]

In Gauja’s view, these changes signify a shift toward ‘expanding political repertoires that are no longer focused on the formal institutions of the state’. Politics is a pain to be a part of. The 2022 federal election saw the lowest voter turnout since the introduction of compulsory voting, with only 89.82% of eligible Australians casting a vote—and the 2019 election had the fourth-lowest turnout with 91.89%. Of that election, the biggest losses were in electorates with more under-30 voters. The seat of Melbourne, for example, had an under-30 voter percentage of 27% and saw a 5% loss in under-30 voter turnout. While there are many factors to this decline, one of them is the lack of vibrant and functional political parties.

The organisational structures currently in place are no longer resonating with younger generations as they did in previous decades, nor are those structures encouraging long-term political involvement. The authors of the Australian Election Study comment:

One of the greatest challenges to democracy in Australia and internationally is to understand the lack of political engagement among the young. Young people are less likely to vote, to join a political party, or to engage in interest groups than at any time since democratisation.[4]

The 2022 election showed that people do want to be involved with politics. The independents movement mobilised tens of thousands of people, but not within the traditional major parties.

The ‘Light on the Hill’ Has Gone Out

I try to think of the Labor movement, not as putting an extra sixpence into somebody’s pocket, or making somebody Prime Minister or Premier, but as a movement bringing something better to the people, better standards of living, greater happiness to the mass of the people. We have a great objective—the light on the hill—which we aim to reach by working the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand. If it were not for that, the Labor movement would not be worth fighting for.

— Ben Chifley, former prime minister, 1949 [i]

The Australian Labor Party has been a massively positive force in Australia. It has existed since before Federation, making it older than the country itself. It has acted as a vehicle for ordinary working people to demand a fair go. However, the world has changed a lot in the last 130 years—far more than during any other period in human history. It is understandable that the ALP has not kept up with the change that society has experienced.

The fact that the Labor Party has won government in 2022 does not negate any of its organisational weaknesses. Its narratives and organisational structure are not set up for the 21st century. The win should not gloss over and shut down attempts to critique the party’s organisational dysfunction.

It still has a good number of competent progressive politicians that are in the new executive government.

To judge the organisation is not to judge its people, the party faithful, or any of its leaders as individuals. The intent is to highlight the problems held by the organisation itself. Most of the ALP’s remaining members are older people—the True Believers. There are a limited number of people in younger generations who are genuinely interested in the labour movement. Some are genuine True Believers, and some pragmatically accept Labor’s deficiencies because it is positioned to gain power. It has an unnecessarily large number of rules and procedures. It also has overly complex hierarchies and interactions between different parts of the organisation. Modern organisations are set up and run quite differently with more streamlined structures and more fluid interactions.

Organisations have lifespans. They become stagnant over time. To many Australians, the ALP is a murky and outdated organisation with unnecessary complexity, factional wars and corruption scandals. It has lost the ability to make meaningful organisational reform. The last big review in 2010, and the lacklustre response, has been a demonstration. It displays all the signs of the crippling decay that affects anything at the end of its lifespan.

It is no longer realistic to cling onto memories of Labor’s glorious past and the unfounded hope that something will suddenly change. It is not useful to hold sentimental attachment to the past achievements and strengths of the ALP. It is ill-equipped to address the challenges of a rapidly evolving 21st century. Society has moved on, and the ALP’s traditional narratives are stale and ineffective. The two-party system is far older than the Labor Party and the system is in no way contingent on the Labor Party being one of its two options.

By far the greatest strength that the party has is its incumbency. This is likely to be the single biggest factor in achieving change. Its egalitarian values have been the major force for change and a real ‘fair go’ in Australian politics. It is one side of a coin. After all, it’s been around since before the birth of any living Australian. The idea of politics without Labor would be psychologically confusing for many. Who would stand up for the working people?

If you ask a 70-year-old, a ‘True Believer’ who has been involved in the ALP their entire life, how they see the world, it is likely to be as ‘Labor versus non-Labor’. There is a lifetime of memories. It is likely that many people within this group would be hostile to change. There are others, even within this group, however, who rationally recognise that it is not working.

A major source of Labor’s funding is automatic by-the-vote funding through elections from the government. It receives a certain amount of money per eligible vote from the Australian Electoral Commission in any given election. In the 2019 federal election, the ALP received a total of $24,684,039 in election funding.[6] It also gets corporate donations and a chunk of money from unions. It does not receive much money from individual people.

A Dated Concept

The idea of a political party comprised of an alliance of unions is a dated concept. Society has moved on. The key issues that unions fought for in the 19th and 20th centuries have been resolved, and a system of worker’s rights is in place. While unions represent their members, their intrinsic involvement in one of Australia’s two major political parties is no longer necessary.

Unions themselves no longer represent the majority of working-class Australians. As of 2016, only around 14% of employed individuals held union memberships—only 1.5 million Australians are union members, a decrease of 38% since the 1970s.[7] This means that only about 6% of Australian people are actually in unions. Over the years, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has published a survey of what percentage of workers are unionised. In 2016, the industry with the highest union density was ‘education and training’ with 32.5%—a large percentage of which would work for the government, rather than a capitalist employer.[8] The industry with the lowest density was ‘agriculture, forestry and fishing’ with 1.9%. Twenty years earlier, a handful of industries had union densities of above 50%. Furthermore, the union leaders that hold sway in the Labor Party only represent a small fraction of all Australian union members. Union membership has declined over the years, but the power held by some union leaders within the ALP has not shifted. A handful of union leaders from several key sectors wield a significant amount of influence within the party, but they are not properly representative of the union movement as a whole and are certainly not representative of working-class Australia.

Organisational Arthritis

In 1909 the Labor Party looked like a modern party. It had an external organisation with an extensive branch structure that formulated policy, selected candidates and organised elections.[9]

— Judith Brett, Australian political scientist

Labor is stuck in the organisational structures of the early 20th century. It has failed to update itself for the 21st century and is eroding away amid a rapidly evolving technological and political environment. It has lost the ability to renew itself.

This is not new information. Such problems were already made clear when, in 2010, party elders John Faulkner, Steve Bracks and Bob Carr conducted an extensive review of the Labor Party and produced 31 public recommendations for reform.[10] Among those recommendations, the review called for:

  1. a system of semi-democratic primaries to allow branch members, affiliated unions, and registered Labor supporters (who are not necessarily party members) to select candidates in an open public process
  2. the local branch members to get 60% of the votes in the primaries, with 20% going to affiliated unions and 20% to registered Labor supporters in the community
  3. a dedicated budget for new party-building activities, on both national and state and territory levels
  4. an explicit community model to better equip members for local campaign work and recruitment
  5. a National Director of Organising to better grow membership and improve the state of party branches
  6. an academy to educate members about recruitment, party-building and campaign organisation
  7. national grants to be made available to local and state branches
  8. representatives and branches to respond promptly to communications from members and a system to deal with correspondence that is ignored for too long
  9. a better party structure to enable greater participation by rank-and-file members
  10. half of the votes at state and federal party conferences to be reserved for affiliated trade unions and half for members, with no delegates from committees, groups like Young Labor or the parliamentary party allowed in the members’ contingent
  11. affiliated unions to be represented at party conferences by financial members only
  12. greater participation from affiliated unions and their members in party processes
  13. a national outreach organisation so progressive Australians can better engage with progressive ideas and policies online, organise progressive campaigns in dedicated spaces, and engage better with the ALP
  14. the expansion of Labor Connect as a better membership tool for organising and campaigning
  15. amendments to the party’s official principles to allow affiliation of like-minded organisations other than unions.

The review made it crystal clear that the party had significant organisational flaws that needed to be resolved. However, less than half of the recommendations were implemented.[11] Most of what was implemented involved ‘improved communications’ rather than any organisational reform; Labor passed several resolutions that attempted to improve communications between different branches and parliamentary representation. The largest reform—the creation of semi-democratic primaries—failed. Branch stacking was not addressed, as the review focused mainly on how to grow the party, rather than ethical practices.

This review, in tandem with the later 2019 review after the federal election, exposed the shortcomings of the party, and its inability to make significant reform.

Lack of Transparency (aka ‘How the **** Does the ALP Actually Work?’)

There are plenty of power bases contained within the party which are concealed from the public. This makes it difficult to decipher who actually has power within the party, and why. There is little ability for the public to understand the power dynamics.

This lack of transparency can also lead to a loss of confidence in representatives and other officials within the party; the public can’t see into the organisation and witness what’s going on. This allows for covert practices such as branch stacking: the idea of an official, paying membership fees for a large number of people who are uninterested in joining a party, in order to use their votes to seize control at the branch level. Two of Australia’s most notorious political operatives in recent years have both emerged from the Labor Party: Eddie Obeid in New South Wales, and Adam Somyurek in Victoria. Both manipulated the party’s decayed internal structures to build their own personal power bases.[12]

A Shrinking Membership

The ALP has become hollowed out with fewer people involved. The structures are there, but the people have gone.

The ALP does not disclose its exact membership numbers on its website or in any other public forum. In 2020, National Secretary Paul Erickson stated that the ALP had a total of 60,085 members nationwide, compared to 400,000 members in the 1940s.[13] Over the decades, their membership has sharply decreased while the population has rapidly grown. Further analysis is unclear—the actual number could be far less. Labor consistently inhibits the public’s ability to examine its membership. This raises many questions:

  1. Who is regarded as a member?
  2. Are union representatives counted as members?
  3. How many members are found in Young Labor?
  4. What is the membership churn rate—the number of people who join and then leave?
  5. What is the age split between younger (e.g., 18–30) and older (60+) active members?

It would be interesting to know the number of members under 50 that have not been signed up by another person or connected via their union. It is reasonable to hypothesise that there are pockets in the country where the party still has significant membership, and pockets where it has wasted away.

There is an inverse incentive for the party machine to not have members—the same way that a hospital runs better without patients. The incentive exists because major sources of funding—public funding and union money—come from elsewhere. These revenue streams exist whether the party has many or fewer members.

Factions are advantaged by having fewer general, non-aligned members. The average age of membership has increased over time, as younger generations become less likely to join.

Young People

Many progress-minded young people recognise the Labor side as the side that is better for a fairer and more socially minded community. However, it is not appealing, and few want to be part of it. Traditional Labor narratives mean less to them. In a generation that is very used to branding, the ALP’s brand is stale. The idea of the ‘labour movement’ has little meaning.

Young people do care about politics, but there are just not enough interested in the ALP. There are plenty of other forms of progressive activism nationwide which are highly populated by young people. These people are not going to become empowered by the ALP’s political process with age, nor are they going to suddenly become attracted to Labor’s history and stories. Labor may have spoken to their parents—or, more likely, their grandparents or great-grandparents—but it is not speaking to them.

Leaders

The ALP has been drawing leaders from a narrow sliver of Australian society. It is a small pool. Many of the people in leadership positions have been in the party since youth politics, or through working with unions. This is a miniscule proportion of the adult population.

There are no effective, open and transparent processes to bring people in and develop them. While there are star players, there is rarely the depth and breadth essential to successful teams. When a competent leader emerges, the situation is more akin to a local footy team being carried by their star player and less like the third-string All Blacks still winning the Rugby World Cup with the depth and breadth of talent that is the mark of an excellent team. The larger the supply of talent in executive government, the better.

The Involvement of Unions in Politics

The unions are strong enough as institutions to stand on their own. They have made significant impacts on Australia’s workplace landscape and made life better for millions of people over the decades. Unions are critical, and there are still plenty of organisations today where workers are not properly empowered. However, in the 21st century, many of the major concepts for which unions and the ALP fought have been implemented and are in law.

Protecting what is already in place, and pushing for marginal improvements, are not compelling reasons to occupy such a central place in our democracy. A respectful alliance with unions, rather than a legal affiliation, is more appropriate for the 21st century.

The influence held within the party by a select few unions and their leaders is an impediment to change. It is no longer necessary for union leaders to play such a direct role in the political process via organisational links to a political party. Only 14% of employees in Australia are also union members, and no single industry has more than 35% union members. Unions are no longer representative of a large portion of the population. Less than 1% of the members of ALP-affiliated unions actually belong to the party. Can we really say that the political decisions made in those members’ names truly represents their values? Do they really have a choice in those decisions, or care about them in the first place? If union members are invested in politics, then it seems as though the sensible thing would be for them to become party members.

The division between labour and capital has blurred. Society is full of people whose parents and grandparents were in unions, but now own businesses and employ people. Having one small group hold power like this over the whole side of progressive politics does not make any rational sense. This shift has also coincided with a decline in union membership. More and more people are entering the workforce in areas that do not have stable unions or are simply declining to join. More small businesses are cropping up each year, representative of people having a go for themselves and working independently from the union system.

The relevance of unions within the Labor Party has been in steady decline over the years, but the relationship has barely changed. The 2010s have shown that meaningful reform is no longer possible. The connection to the unions and the power they wield is in the core of the ALP’s DNA.

The Liberals Are Now the Conservatives

… what we must look for, and it is a matter of desperate importance to our society, is a true revival of liberal thought which will work for social justice and security, for national power and national progress, and for the full development of the individual citizen, though not through the dull and deadening process of socialism.

— Robert Menzies, Liberal Party founder and former prime minister, 1944

The Liberal Party as we know it today was formed in 1944, a process spearheaded by Robert Menzies, who went on to become its most significant figure. It was created as a response to severe party issues within the United Australia Party, its most immediate predecessor. Menzies held meetings with other conservative figures and party leaders, as they recognised the existing UAP was no longer functional; they decided to make a more modern and functional organisation for their times. Since then, the Liberal Party has entrenched itself as the non-Labor force in Australia’s politics rejecting the ‘socialist panacea’. It has been the party backed by business interests and capitalist ideas and its founding description as a ‘progressive party’ is still regularly quoted, as in this 2019 newspaper article:

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull … highlighted the words of Liberal Party founder Sir Robert Menzies, who in 1944 said: ‘We took the name ‘Liberal’ because we were determined to be a progressive party, willing to make experiments, in no sense reactionary but believing in the individual, his right and his enterprise, and rejecting the socialist panacea’.[14]

It has also embraced the liberal ideals of freedom of the individual, and the conservative ideals of maintaining tradition. It is only really in Australia that the terms ‘liberalism’ and ‘conservativism’ merged into a single, anti-socialist force. The word ‘liberal’ has had different terminological journeys in different parts of the world. In modern North America, where neither of the two major parties is a labour party, it refers to the progressive side.

The Liberal organisation is not as old as Labor. Its organisational DNA is from the mid-20th century—not the late 19th. It is a ‘more modern’ organisation, but it still shares many organisational similarities. Just like Labor, this party is no longer representative of what we can achieve as a country. It has the same organisational disfigurement. The party is also hollowed out, like Labor, with longstanding structures populated by few members.

Just as Labor had a branch-stacking scandal in 2020, so too did the Liberals, specifically their Victoria branch. The branch’s former vice-president, Marcus Bastiaan, was found to have colluded with two MPs (Michael Sukkar and Kevin Andrews) to remove other members from their seats, and found to have bought a small number of votes.

The Conservative Takeover and Vested Interests

… We should never as members of the Liberal Party of Australia lose sight of the fact that we are the trustees of two great political traditions. We are … the custodian of the classical liberal tradition within our society … We are also the custodians of the conservative tradition in our community. And if you look at the history of the Liberal Party it is at its best when it balances and blends those two traditions.

— John Howard, former prime minister, 2005

The Liberal Party of the 2020s is a conservative force. The more conservative parts of the organisation have essentially taken over. In recent years there has been a massive influx of Pentecostal Christians and other deeply conservative groups. They have come into the organisation and increasingly become more powerful and vocal. The current leaders of the organisation are conservatives like Peter Dutton. The next generation of leaders are also deeply conservative. In the 2022 federal election, a number of potential future moderate Liberal leaders lost to the teal independents. The Liberal Party has always been the party representative of, and funded by, business and corporate interests—but in the 2020s, it is infested with the worst of them. Vested commercial interests have become increasingly powerful within the organisation and created a situation of paralysis, where when the party was in power it was difficult to make decisions in the national interest, like reducing our carbon emissions, because someone, somewhere will lose money.

The industries with the most to lose in decarbonisation have invested their money and effort in a way that works—by putting it into the Liberal Party. There is no prism of good government through which this made sense. The 2022 election showed there are many people who have voted for the Liberals their whole lives and are disturbed and turned off by the party’s current situation.

The Greens Are Not the Solution

I believe the Greens as a party are in a similar position to what the Labor Party was 100 years ago … We represent a widespread view of the community and our support is geographically widespread … I think that within 50 years we will supplant one of the major parties in Australia.[15]

— Bob Brown, former Greens federal parliamentary leader, 2011

Many of the issues about the Greens can be attributed to the implications of this statement. Brown’s vision of the Greens replacing the ALP as Australia’s leading progressive party over the next half-century is a dystopian nightmare. It implies the progressive side will take until 2062 to get our act together.

This vision inherently suggests a 50-year-long period of progressive instability, in which the progressive vote would be split and there would be no truly effective progressive force. Brown’s vision depicts the broad umbrella organisation, with the broad community support that progressives need right now, not in the 2060s. We cannot afford to wait for the Greens to slowly transform into a party of government.

The idea that we would have two main parties on the progressive side—both with severe flaws—is dysfunctional. While the Greens have fulfilled a very important role in representing environmental concerns within contemporary Australian politics, they do not in any way, shape or form offer the option of a governing party capable of consistently winning majority government in the House of Representatives.

The party is founded on radical politics—it is woven into the Greens’ DNA. It was formed out of a dissatisfaction with the then-current state of Australian politics and a merging of multiple environmental movements from across the country. An organisational journey to becoming a party of government is impossible. An organisation borne out of an environmental protest movement is not going to make the changes and evolutions required to become a broad umbrella organisation that fits into our two-party system. There are multiple instances of green parties being in power in other countries, but one thing that all of these have in common is their country’s use of a fully proportional voting system.

Even if the Greens were to form a coalition with the ALP, it would only manage to put each party’s weaknesses clearly on display. Just like Labor, the Greens are not equipped to be the driving force behind progressive 21st-century Australian politics. Within our system it would be easier, and more effective, to bring a strong sustainability faction into a modern, progressive umbrella organisation with the ability to afford a degree of proportional representation within it.

[i] The phrase ‘light on the hill’ is similar to the ‘city upon a hill’ mentioned within Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:14). Speaking broadly, the phrase is used in politics to refer to a ‘beacon of hope’.

[1] Gauja, Anika. 2017. “Party Reform: Where are Australia’s Political Parties Headed in the Future?”, in Papers on Parliament 67, Parliamentary Library, 19-41, p. 25. https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/pops/Papers_on_Parliament_67/Party_Reform.

[2] Gauja, “Party Reform: Where are Australia’s Political Parties Headed in the Future?”, p. 26.

[3] Gauja, “Party Reform: Where are Australia’s Political Parties Headed in the Future?”, p. 23.

[4] McAllister, Ian; Makkai, Toni; Bean, Clive; Gibson, Rachel K. 2017. “Australian Election Study, 2016”. https://australianelectionstudy.org/voter-studies/

[5] Farnsworth, Malcolm. “‘The Light on the Hill’ – Speech by Ben Chifley”. 1949. Transcribed via AustralianPolitics.com. https://australianpolitics.com/1949/06/12/chifley-light-on-the-hill-speech.html

[6] Australian Electoral Commission. “2019 federal election: election funding payments finalised”. 2019. Australian Electoral Commission. https://www.aec.gov.au/media/media-releases/2019/12-12.htm#polPart

[7] Gilfillan, Geoff & Chris McGann. 2018. “Trends in union membership in Australia”. Research Papers 2018-19, Parliamentary Library. https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1819/UnionMembership#_Toc527380727

[8] Gilfillan et al., “Trends in union membership in Australia”.

[9] Brett, Judith. 2009. “‘the fortunes of my own little band’: The Dilemma of Deakin and the Liberal Protectionists”, in Confusion: The Making of the Australian Two-Party System, ed. Paul Strangio & Nick Dyrenfurth (Melbourne, AU: Melbourne University Press, 2009), 23-45, p. 25.

[10] Bracks, Steve; Faulkner, John; Bob Carr. 2010. “2010 National Review”. Canberra, AU: Australian Labor Party, pp. 12-26. https://www.abc.net.au/cm/lb/4982542/data/alp-national-review-data.pdf.

[11] Westcott, Ben. “Whatever happened to the warts-and-all review of the ALP?” Crikey, 11 April 2013. https://www.crikey.com.au/2013/04/11/whatever-happened-to-the-warts-and-all-review-of-the-alp/.

[12] Carter, Lucy & Kathleen Calderwood. “Eddie Obeid sentenced to five years’ jail for misconduct in public office”. ABC News, 15 December 2016. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-15/eddie-obeid-sentenced-five-years-jail-misconduct-public-office/8122720

[13] Lelliott, Joff. “It’s time to value ALP member voices”. ABC News, 2 January 2013. 

[14] Taylor, Andrew. “Why Labor and Liberal both claim to be ‘progressive’ parties”. The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 January 2019, par. 5. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/why-labor-and-liberal-both-claim-to-be-progressive-parties-20190110-p50qkk.html.

[15] O’Callaghan, Liam. “The End of The Party? What Labor’s History Can Teach Us About the Rise of The Greens and The Future of Australian Progressive Politics”. NSW Centre Unity: Australian Labor Party NSW Branch, 01 July 2012, par. 3. https://www.centreunity.org.au/the_end_of_the_party_what_labor_s_history_can_teach_us_about_the_rise_of_the_greens_and_the_future_of_australian_progressive_politics