Abstract
In this chapter, I analyse the Australian Labor Party’s (ALP) embrace of neoliberal policies under the governments of Bob Hawke (1983–91) and Paul Keating (1991–96). The ALP of the 1980s had come to have a leadership committed to pro-market reform, much like the 1980s Labour government in New Zealand and the 1990s Labour government in Britain. However, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) maintained an influence within its historic party, which the unions of New Zealand and Britain both lost within theirs. I analyse how this influence affected policy outcomes, particularly within the realm of industrial relations. Through the relationship with Labor governments known as the Accord, the ACTU obtained a temporary ‘breathing space’ from the results of financial deregulation which New Zealand unions did not obtain during the 1980s and which British unions did not obtain under Tony Blair.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Dean Jaensch, The Politics of Australia ( South Melbourne: MacMillan Education, 1992 ), p. 227.
John Langmore, ‘The Labor Government in a De-Regulatory Era’, Brian Galligan and Gwynneth Singleton, eds., Business and Government Under Labor ( Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1991 ), p. 75.
Russell Mathews and Bhajan Grewal, Fiscal Federalism in Australia: From Whitlam to Keating ( Melbourne: Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University, 1995 ), p. 23.
Andrew Scott, Running on Empty: ‘Modernising’ the British and Australian Labour Parties (Sydney: Pluto Press, 2000), pp. 218–219; Patmore and Coates, ‘Labour Parties’: 132.
Bob Bennett and Kathryn Cole, ‘Industrial Relations’, Brian W. Head and Allan Patience, eds., From Fraser to Hawke ( Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1989 ), pp. 178–179.
Rick Kuhn, ‘The Accord and Business’, Brian Galligan and Gwynneth Singleton, eds., Business and Government Under Labor ( Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1991 ), p. 69.
Ian Hampson and David E. Morgan, ‘Post-Fordism, Union Strategy, and the Rhetoric of Restructuring: The Case of Australia, 1980–1996’, Theory and Society Vol. 28 No. 5 (October 1999): 772.
John Rickard, Class and Politics: New South Wales, Victoria and the Early Commonwealth, 1890–1910 (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1976), p. 279; Hampson and Morgan’: 760.
Clare Curran and Chris Lloyd, ‘Accord in Discord’, Australian Left Review (July 1990), pp. 12–13.
Peter Fairbrother, ‘The Ascendancy of Neo-Liberalism in Australia’, Capital & Class Vol. 63 (Autumn 1997): 6.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 Jason Schulman
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Schulman, J. (2015). The Australian Labor Party. In: Neoliberal Labour Governments and the Union Response. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137303172_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137303172_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-67159-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-30317-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political Science CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)