A Little History of the Australian Labor Party

by Frank Bongiorno, Nick Dyrenfurth, Senator John Faulkner (foreword)

Celebrating the 120th anniversary of the Australian Labor Party (ALP)—one of the oldest labor parties in the world and the first to form a government—this short and lively book recounts ALP’s history from its origins during the late 19th century through present day. The book details the party’s numerous successes in winning government at all levels and its policymaking that has transformed lives, as well as demonstrating how the ALP has attracted an extraordinary range of members, parliamentary representatives, leaders, unionists, activists and, indeed, opponents. The ALP has been a central force in Australia throughout the 20th century, and this concise chronicle tells the story of their triumphs and crises, their colorful characters and famed members, and their evolving aspirations.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Australia

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Frank Bongiorno is a professor of history and former head of the School of History at the Australian National University. His most recent book is Dreamers and Schemers: A Political History of Australia.

Reviews

[Callum's Column · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) arose from the labour movement of the 1890s. They briefly formed government in Queensland in 1899--the first labour government in the world--and won federal government soon after in 1904. The ALP is currently in government and has adapted with the times to be a centre-left pillar of Australian democracy. They have fundamentally shaped modern Australia, implementing legislation that solidified workers' rights, Medicare, ended the White Australia policy, built a strong welfare state, created superannuation, enacted economic liberalisation, and established the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

This book provides a reasonable historical overview of the ALP. However, there is a significant bias towards recent history. For instance, the Whitlam government—arguably the most transformative in Australian history—barely got ten pages, whereas the Rudd-Gillard years received double the space. This was frustrating because I have lived through recent history. It would make more sense to provide greater elucidation on the party's machinations of bygone eras. Consequently, pivotal moments like abandoning the White Australia policy—once central to the labour movement—are glanced over without adequate explanation.

The ALP—a workers' party—has been astute in international relations. It was Curtin who shifted Australia towards America during World War II, and defied Churchill to bring Australian troops back to the Pacific Theatre. It was Whitlam who withdrew Australian troops from Vietnam. It was Crean who opposed the invasion of Iraq. It was the ALP who recognised the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1972, and it was the current Labor government that restored Australia's standing among Pacific Island nations and relations with the PRC following a decade of ineptitude by the Coalition government. In these turbulent times, may they win the upcoming election.

[S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Concise, fascinating, and a worthwhile read, but with more recent analysis from the updated chapter that feels like it almost verges into hagiography, and with some early chapters feeling like the recital of numbers without the colour and flare of personalities.

[Ryan Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Necessarily dry but insightful.

I decided to read this book after joining the Labor party and questioning why I felt aligned with their policy priorities and values as opposed to other parties.

It definitely helped clarify those ideas for me.

Wayne Swan’s foreword

I actually found the most persuasive part of this book the foreword by Wayne Swan.

He says the central mission of Labor is to make the world better for working people. The party aims to create equal opportunities for people to improve their lives regardless of where they started.

The society Labor strives to achieve, Swan says, is one with full employment, good wages, secure and safe working conditions, a strong social safety net, and good public services. This expresses itself in universal healthcare, education, social security, Aboriginal land rights, and equitable taxation, among other things.

Its political priorities and communication has to reflect what most people want which is to improve their lives through aspiration and hard work. The party also has to represent working people in suburban and regional areas to understand those aspirations and the challenges they face.

The party should not get bogged down in policy detail which does not interest people—Labor has to communicate its priorities and values with passion and common language to connect with people.

Realising Labor’s mission, as Swan sees it, requires ‘pragmatic idealism’—an ethos reflected in Gough Whitlam’s pithy expression that “only the impotent are pure.”

It is for that reason that he sees Labor’s most fundamental responsibility as achieving power. Without it, you get nothing.

The policy focus and achievements of Labor

The history of Labor reflects my understanding of what they tend to focus on and what they have achieved in government.

Generally speaking, Labor governments tend to produce public policy that is less influenced by business interests, supports more equal wealth distribution, and results in better public services. Skipping over a long, fractious and at-times racist history, it is from the 1970s onwards that those policies really speak to me.

Whitlam’s government was focused on improving quality of life for working Australians through expanded access to public goods: universal healthcare and free tertiary education, social security, urban development, environmental protection, consumer rights, the arts, gender equality, needs-based school funding, Aboriginal land rights, and childcare.

Hawke and Keating then transitioned the party to being highly effective economic managers. They found a way to balance government finances by supporting both free market enterprise through reforms and regulation and spending generously on health, education and welfare.

However, their pragmatism traded off on principles of universality, meaning social programs were generally targeted and tailored. The goal was to provide people with enough support that they could then achieve their own success in life through education and employment.

Life-changing social reforms have still remained part of Labor’s DNA, as seen through the Gillard governments roll-out of the NDIS, plain packaging for cigarettes, the NBN, and partial needs-based school funding.

While Labor is generally compassionate and engaged in social issues, they tend to frame solutions in terms of promoting good paying jobs. That’s why their approach to climate change, for example, is more of an economic policy than an environmental one.

Albanese’s government has so far been characterised as incremental and cautious. It has tried to reduce the cost of childcare, medicine and housing, while implementing modest institutional reforms but no major economic ones.

Labor’s safe pragmatism seems to have it between a rock and a hard place. Pursue more ambitious policy and lose referenda and get thrown out of government or pare things back and get criticised as not doing enough and fail to inspire progressive voters.

The constituencies of Labor

Labor’s political base has transitioned over time from the working class to middle class urban professionals. That started as early as the 1970s when the parliamentary party became increasingly comprised of lawyers, academics and teachers, rather than tradespeople.

While they maintain a balance between the two, there does seem to be a growing estrangement with working-class suburbia. Labor has struggled to address the economic and cultural insecurity of these communities, particularly where there are higher levels of unemployment and religious faith.

Australian politics is no longer a battle between the two major parties for a majority vote share. Labor won the 2022 election with only 32% of the primary vote. Minor parties and independents won a third.

The role of members and elected representatives

Membership allows ordinary people to practice politics by debating policy and engaging in community affairs.

The highly structured nature of the Labor organisation has allowed members to shape its policy but in turn they are bound by it. They collectively decide state and national platforms through committees and conferences, and then see elected MPs as delegates whose job it is to implement them.

However, members have had less say and numbers have declined since the 1990s as politics has become more professional and driven by polls, marketing and policy experts.

The authors rightly argue for the modernisation of the party’s structures which were designed in a radically different world. Labor needs a diverse membership to reflect and inspire the voters it aims to attract.

Differentiation with other political parties

In my view, Labor represents the politics of aspiration and security. Most people just want a good job and high-quality, fairly funded public services. The pragmatic way Labor tries to achieve this society is often measured, effective and compassionate, if at times slow.

More to the left, I perceive the Greens as representing the politics of injustice and perfectionism. They present to me as if they were person who has a deep sense of the world being an unfair place that is full of suffering and harms that must be alleviated through policies that resolve the issue completely and immediately. That focus on inequity may be justified but their seeming attitude of ‘it’s never good enough’, often expressed with intense anger, strikes me as ineffectual, unrealistic and at-times inappropriately blaming. If the Greens were a parent, their demanding tone, grievance and inflexible positions would likely cause a child severe anxiety and distress. It is a politics that lacks warmth and boundaries.

On the right, I perceive the conversative wing of the liberal and national parties as representing the politics of fear and exploitation. I do not see that they represent the best of conservativism which seeks to preserve and take pride in traditions, history and culture. It seems obsessed with immigration, law and order and national security—critical issues but ones I am satisfied are managed by professional experts administering reasonable processes and policies. The same applies to gender quality, sexuality, identity, class, and First Nations matters.

In the centre, I perceive the moderate wing of the liberal party as representing the politics of individual success and private enterprise. In many respects, I admire it. I believe well-regulated markets are a force for good in society and individuals with high levels of motivation, intelligence or nous should be encouraged to experiment, thrive and innovate. Liberalism also values freedoms and merit, thereby tending not to discriminate based on people’s background.

That is all well and good for high-performing individuals, but it can lead to an unequal society. It is unrealistic to expect everyone to look after themselves and succeed of their own accord, particularly where success relies on competition between winners and losers. It betrays the strengths and security that people find in trusting communities.

Taken to extremes, individualistic liberalism can also be profoundly cruel. The Abbott government’s 2014 proposal to prevent access to social security payments for 6 months and the Morrison government’s Robodebt scheme are egregious examples I will never forget.

What will I do with this insight?

I know my political values and priorities: healthcare, education (including for relationships), employment (including social security), cities and transport, and housing.

I also know that higher education and a well-paying job made the most significant difference to my life. Yes, it would have been nice if the personal injustices I faced were remedied the instant they happened—but in reality, it took many years of gradual improvements aided by opportunities, social programs and community support.

Labor speaks to my values and experiences, both through its words and actions. I want to improve the lives of working people—and especially young people—in the same way an Australian society shaped by Labor improved mine.

[Tom J · Rating 2 out of 5]

boooooo! a great idea let down by the infuriating pro-labor bias that makes this essentially useless for anyone who is looking to meaningfully educate themselves about this party

i'm not particularly well versed on early australian history, so when the book makes claims about early australian politics and labor's actions, i kind of just assumed it was mostly accurate. i do however know about recent australian politics, and the book is incredibly selective in how it presents information. take the campbell newman government (please!) and labor's admittedly historic obliteration of it; how did newman win government? what factors caused labor's loss? these are far less important than simply mentioning another labor win and as such are roundly ignored

the biggest and most obvious case is that of rudd and gillard. if you were to go by the picture painted by the book, they took over from beazley in a fairly benign and lovely fashion, and then gillard took over from rudd in a similarly quick and clean fashion. no mention of the brutal interpersonal politics or how it prefigured the coming decade of labor's collapse, no mention of rudd's entirely justified sense of betrayal or the equally justified sense of his megalomania. all we know is that rudd is now gone and gillard is in, presumably because she had some kind of whim that couldn't be ignored

these are not small exclusions! rudd's crusade to destroy gillard's government still ripples through the australian political landscape and the impact on what should have been a long term labor government shows itself in albo's self consciously professional style. while this is not necessarily a quick thing to discuss, it's hard to find a book where this kind of discussion would be better suited. instead we get this bizarre papering over of history to save the blushes of the party, because for some reason the authors don't consider the actual politics sufficiently relevant to the history of this political party

that's not to say that there's none of the usual labor apologia. early on in the book there's a mention that people often criticise labor for various reasons, not realising that they're repeating longstanding complaints about the party. and? the fact that the criticisms are longstanding and that labor remains unmoved by them doesn't change that there are many valid complaints to be made, but the book simply assumes that the reader has been sufficiently mollified by this hand wave and moves on

it's hard to know who this book is really for. it's certainly not for people looking for an unbiased view of the party. it comes across as more of a self-congratulatory pamphlet for those few labor die hards who truly live and breathe the party's self image, a group which these days would struggle to count enough members to fill a medium sized bus. if you aren't one of these people, don't read this book. read the far better "dreamers and schemers" which provides actual relevant context and doesn't feel the need to paper over the flaws of any of the major parties. if you are one of those people, then hello minister!

[Gursewak Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s all in the title: ‘A Little History of the Australian Labor Party’.

It’s very concise and gives a brief overview of how the party evolved through the country and through the states, it reads more like a checklist of names and bullet points than s biography of a century long political party. I attained a reasonable background of the ALP by reading this and understand its history more.

It could be better by providing a critical analyses of key moments in the party’s history so a discussion could be had in the book of why the party is the way it is today. It could’ve made the inner mechanisms of the party more clearer to understand too. But then we’d be looking at book that’s much larger and longer than 200 pages.

[Darcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dyrenfurth and Bongiorno provide a concise yet detailed account of the history of Australia's longest and largest political party, the Australian Labor Party. The book covers up until 2011 including both the Federal Party and the 8 state and territory branches of the party. It pays particular attention to the three party splits.

It rings true that the press has always been againt the Labor party and working people at large. Even in the formation of the party, the media distributed propaganda that Labor was waging a class war.

Moreover, conservative forces will always be steadfast in any attack even where concessions are made. Here Chifley shuts down the 1949 strike out of fear of communist infiltration but still faces the communist smear.

[Guy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Little History is an enjoyable read if you care about Australian politics, and even more so if you care for the ALP. It is however certainly not for everyone and is limited by its nature.

In its latest edition, the book manages to canvass Australia’s political history, from the origins of the ALP in the 1870s to date (the failure of the Voice referendum), through the lens of the Australian Labor Party.

It does so successfully, but given its breadth and short length, it does not explore much of anything in detail. Nonetheless, its concise pronouncements do deliver some lessons and may be of interest even to a casual reader. The authors’ commentary, focused on the extent of the ALP’s ambition, internal party reform, and coalition-building, provides further insight.

[Glen Cowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There have been longer books written on the ALP but this was a concise and up to date recounting of Labor history. If you are a political or history junkie, it probably won’t teach you a lot that is new. However, as an introductory primer or a recap for those already well versed, I’d recommend it.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A concise book on the ALP that is somewhat uncritical - a longer exploration may have been better but it was well researched and written.

[Seff · Rating 3 out of 5]

🔺

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good historian makes past ages as vivid as the current one. A bad historian never rises above the mere recitation of facts. In A Little History of the Australian Labor Party, authors Dyrenfurth and Bongiorno reveal themselves to be bad historians, not good.

The latter portions of the book, which are about the leaders who governed shortly before and while the book was written, are much more vivid than the earlier sections, which are about people long since dead. Dyrenfurth-Bongiorno wrote about this these earlier eras as though they wanted us to feel their lack of pulse.

When writing about the origins of the ALP and of Australian political democracy, the authors bounce from one name to another so quickly that I found it impossible to remember who anyone was. We’re assured that so-and-so was fiery, or cunning, or one million other adjectives, but not once are they ever described in a way that made me feel and know their cunning or their wrath. Politics is very much (although not only) a game of personalities, and a book of political history needs to do much more than just drop names and a descriptive epithet.

It needs to tell stories.

Which it didn’t do.

If I were their editor, I would advise the authors to spend less time discussing the outcome of what seemed like every State election, and to focus instead on the broader evolution of the movement as a whole. Focus on Labor policies. Focus on what it won.

Focus on the fact that the ALP is the oldest political party in Australia; that it was the world’s first Labor government; that the ALP introduced paid parental leave, workers’ compensation, a minimum wage, the aged pension, compulsory superannuation, and virtually the entire modern welfare state; that Labor dismantled the White Australia Policy and welcomed immigration from non-Britons; that Labor leaders steered the nation through World Wars I and II, the Great Depression, the opening up of China to the world, and the Global Financial Crisis; and so on.

I do not recommend this book. It’s a dry read, with too little detail to be edifying, and too little story to be memorable. Frankly, it's a waste of time.

ADDENDUM: one good thing this book did was introduce me to the idea of a social wage. Since its inception, the Labor party has been joined at the hip to unions and their representatives. One of the most interesting subplots of the story of the ALP is its changing relationship with unions and manual workers. The ALP started life as a workers' party but evolved into a party of savvy technocrats whose message is aimed at service professionals and the ever-diversifying middle class. This evolution has led to many identity crises, not least of which was the battle over whether, and to what degree, they should honour or move beyond their union history.

This is timely because the legacy of the current Minns Labor government in NSW will be its pay rise negotiations with a wide variety of unions representing teachers, nurses and midwives, police, train drivers, psychiatrists, and more. Many have won historic and frankly exorbitant pay increases. However, not once have I heard of any of those unions arguing for what this book calls a "social wage", which means unions trading and forgoing their pay rise in exchange for increased investment in social goods such as transport, education, and healthcare. Considering that wages comprise well over 50% of the total State budget, reductions in these wages could be a massive source of public funding. But I don't see this talked about anymore. Unions look out for their members, but do they look out for the wider world?

DOUBLE ADDENDUM: Prior to reading this book, I was on the fence about the benefits of unions. After reading this book, and after learning just how much influence unionism had on the creation of the modern Australian nation, with its worker protections, award wages, leave provisions, and so on, I am now firmly convinced that collective bargaining and unionism have been a net positive for Australian society. I remain aware of their downsides (e.g., grift, corruption, their effects on productivity, etc.) but because of this book I am now a firm, if heavily caveated, supporter of the union movement.

EDIT 04/08/25: This book was referenced in Andrew Leigh's talk about factionalism in the Labor party. Leigh is arguably our greatest active politician, and in this excellent talk he makes the case for less factionalism in the Labor Party. He notes that over the course of his political career, he has comprised between 33% to 100% of the non-factional, independent Labor politicians. He cites this book as helping him understand the emergence of Labor factionalism. History doesn't need to be riveting, although we love it when it is. More important than history being riveting is it being accurate. I've given this book an extra star for that reason, as I suspect I used my focus on this one criterion to mark it far too harshly. On account of Leigh's endorsement, I'll give this book a reread.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This aptly-named book is a really good overview of the history of the Australia Labor Party. Easy to read. Covers all the details without getting bogged down.

[Jason McCracken]

I bought it for my (labor member) father but decided to read it myself before handing it over. It's about as fair and balanced as Fox news but I'm sure he'll love it. Me? A little more criticism would've been nice but if you hover around the center-left and all you want is a very simple overview you could do a lot worse.