By Denis Bright
At a time when overseas right-wing parties are still in the ascendency in most developed countries, the landslide victory of the Albanese Government now has the capacity to revitalise Australian social democracy. This is not just a local challenge. Globally, the centre-left is having a difficult time electorally. The landslide victory for the Albanese Government is a rare exception.
In Britain, the problems facing the centre-left in government under Keir Starmer have generated this free forum which can be attended in person or online through bookings on the Queen Mary University of London website:
Coming Clean: The Rise of Critical Theory and the Future of the Left
When: Friday, May 23, 2025, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Where: Online or in-person at Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London W2 1QJ
Professor Heinze will discuss this question with Edmundo Bracho-Polanco, Senior Lecturer and Programme Coordinator, School of Media and Communication, University of Westminster.
The discussion will be moderated by Paul Henley, a BBC radio presenter specialising in international affairs.
The audience is very welcome to take part in the discussion.
In Italy, the centre-right coalition of Giorgia Meloni has a majority in both houses of parliament after the 2022 national elections. This popularity co-exists with a stagnant local economy that makes the Australian economy a showpiece in comparative terms as measured by the varied indicators from Trading Economics. Italy’s RAI News gave very little attention to the re-election of Anthony Albanese. Carlo Albanese (1936-2002) hailed from Barletta in Apulia in Southern Italy.
This Italian connection prior to Albo’s birth in Sydney on 2 March 1963 received only passing mentions on RAI News. Local concerns about the distribution of a fake AI pic of Donald Trump in papal garb on the White House site generated far more interest with 161,743 hits on the RAI site to 3 May 2025.
Here in Australia, the LNP was also stuck in parochial mode. The Albanese Government was blamed for every negative in the Australian economy and the wider society in a fear campaign about dire prospects for a strong Australian economy (Nine News 8 April 2025):
Peter Dutton has used Donald Trump’s stock market bloodbath to claim Australia will sink into a recession if Labor stays in government this federal election.
The opposition leader warned Australians that a recession is “coming for our economy” while comparing his cost-of-living measures against those offered by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during a press conference in Sydney.
Dutton warned Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ comments highlighting that financial markets are pricing in a chance of a 50 per cent interest rate cut next month was a dire sign of things to come.
Grafting social democratic values onto a market economy under such circumstances is an almost overwhelming challenge. On most indicators Treasurer Jim Chalmers has performed economic miracles which other centre-left governments have difficulty in matching.
British Labour with its massive parliamentary majority under Keir Starmer after the last national elections on 4 July 2024 faces real challenges in turning around the ship of state after years of harsh neoliberalism and militarism under Thatcherism and Blairite revisionism. The current hegemony of British Labour is being challenged by the rise of the Reform UK Party with the Conservative Party in third position in the latest polling.
BBC News editors (3-4 May 2025) were understandably curious about the current tide of opinion in Australia in posing the question: Who is Ali France, Labor’s candidate who unseated Peter Dutton?
Hopefully, Ali France’s victory will become a symbol of generational change in Australian politics away from the shrill conservative politics of much of the post-1996 era when the LNP often controlled outer metropolitan and regional centres with the support of preferences from far-right minor parties. This battle continues as the count proceeds in Brisbane’s outer northside electorate of Longman (ABC News 4 May 2025).
Readers are invited to share their experiences of life in the shadows of prevailing neoliberalism and a renewed focus of global militarism. The LNP naively expected to sweep to victory on myths about excessive government spending and the value of returning to the neoliberal policy realities which brought The March of the Patriots to Australian suburban streets for most of the post-1996 era.
In domestic policies, stories of market failure have emerged from the excesses of the Refundable Accommodation Deposits (RADs) required in nursing homes, the waiting lists for home care packages for the elderly, the abuses of child-care services relying on the market model and the limitations of private partnerships in outer suburban hospital facilities (ABC News 27 February 2025 relating to the Northern Beaches Hospital in Sydney operated by Healthscope).
In our defence sectors, Australia is part of global corporate networks which specialise in the marketing of the latest products from military industrial complexes. Parliamentary committees should strive to make these networks more accountable for their pricings for Australian taxpayers with cross-checking by AI resources available in the civilian departments of Treasury and Finance.
The defence sectors impose a combined level of spending of well over one trillion each year in the combined strategic expenditures both Britain and the US (CNN News 30 April 2025):
The world is arming itself at the fastest rate since near the end of the Cold War, according to a new report, as major wars rage in Ukraine and Gaza and military tensions spike from Europe to Asia.
The 9.4% year-on-year rise to $2.718 trillion in global military spending in 2024 is the highest figure ever recorded by the authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its annual report – which warned there’s no end in sight to the spiralling global arms race. That is the highest rise since 1988, the year before the Berlin Wall fell.
The new generation of Labor MPs may have a more open mindset on the conventions embedded in prevailing spending priorities and the systematic problems of tax avoidance by more than 1,200 major Australian corporations. More political risk taking in the interests of social democratic revitalisation is worth taking on disadvantaged sections of society who can easily drift towards the LNP in preference flows from populist far-right parties awash with funds to spend on full page advertisements and sensational mail outs.
Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building in these difficult times. Your feedback from readers advances the cause of citizens’ journalism. Full names are not required when making comments. However, a valid email must be submitted if you decide to hit the Replies Button.
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A thoughtful and timely article. Revitalising Australian social democracy is urgent if we are to move beyond neoliberalism’s grip and restore policies that serve all Australians, not just the privileged few. With Australia’s dollar sovereignty, Labor has the power to fund public goods—housing, education, healthcare—without austerity. It’s time new Labor leaders embrace this and truly govern for the people.