Labour's Failure in Opposition

Four successive defeats at federal elections have left the Australian Labor Party struggling to come to terms with its unsuccesful election strategy. More serious, however, than its poor electioneering has been its failure adequately to discharge the functions of opposition. Its performance in opposition raises familiar but unresolved questions about 'Labor's role in modern society'. The discredited 'small target' option for electoral campaigns has been carried over into its conduct of opposition. Even Beazley's new-found determination no longer to give the government an 'easy ride' has uncovered a small target mentality among Labor MPs, who have undermined through public statements the Leader's attempt to make a tough stand on the Coalition's tax cuts policy. Ten years of indecisive opposition have left a legacy of indecision as a habit. This paper will explore areas in which the Government has failed in its execution of right, and Labor's equally flawed failure effectively to expose them. It will argue that, since one of the prime functions of opposition is to articulate community grievances, the Labor Party was derelict in its duty to represent at the centres of power many carefully argued, well informed and morally cogent criticisms of the Government expressed among the public.