Even if Labor can increase its primary vote at the next federal election (and this is not necessarily a given) it will likely only gain a share similar to 2010 – hardly a paragon of achievement. A projection of the current trend gives us a date when Labor can no longer claim to be the major party in any progressive coalition-forming government, let alone attempt to govern in its own right. That date is 2032.

There is a well-established tradition of accusatory writing in this country in which a writer currently or previously associated with the Australian Labor Party explains to her or his readers what is wrong with that institution. Given the Party’s strong history of lapsed and lapsing Catholic involvement, curiously less developed has been a tradition of apostatic writing – in which a similarly qualified writer explains why he or she has felt compelled to repudiate the ALP.

Who owns Australia’s minerals?

Since Gillard’s political demise, I’ve been left speechless as many of my friends have said things like, ‘the government should have spent more on advertising’, ‘the government passed over five hundred pieces of legislation’ (as if somehow it’s quantity rather than quality that counts) and ‘Australia has low unemployment’.

On the weekend, the Age’s editorial calling for Julia Gillard to stand down for Kevin Rudd spurred outrage all over social media. Certainly, the leader writer’s suggestion that a Gillard resignation would foster ‘vigorous, policy-driven democratic debate’ stuck in the throat. ‘The Age is […] despairing of the vacuum in policy debate,’ explained the piece, as if the editor of a major newspaper played no role whatsoever determining what was debated and how.

Not so very long ago, I wrote that Abbott’s ascension to the Liberal leadership rendered the Coalition unelectable for the foreseeable future. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. In my defense, the shift in mainstream politics over the last few years has been quite extraordinary, especially considering how shattered the Liberals were after their defeat.

Last week’s federal budget is pointing in the same direction as the Overland online debate over the campaign for same sex marriage. They both betray a remarkably broad willingness to assume that leftness has just about run out of uses for the parliamentary movement that labour made.

Another new year has brought another slough of op-eds about how the Australian Labor Party has lost its way in Canberra. Their consensus: soft on narrative, soft on the causes of narrative.

Not exactly great news to wake up to but it’s not as bad as it might be. Sure, it’s more likely than not that Tony Abbott will be the new prime minister, and the prospect of a conservative government propped up by sinister bumpkins like Bob Katter is pretty grim. Certainly, when Abbott became leader, […]