Sean Kelly’s Quarterly Essay The Good Fight: What Does Labor Stand For? is a passionate cri de couer from a Labor true believer. Kelly fears the Albanese government is missing a major opportunity to deliver meaningful change. His central question is not just what Labor stands for but what it actually believes, and whether it prepared to act on those beliefs.
Kelly is deeply concerned that Labor has lost sight of its key aims and values in a timid, risk-averse pursuit of the broadest possible range of voters. Consequently, he argues, the Albanese government’s policies often favour powerful vested interests while not doing enough for the vulnerable.
Nonetheless, Kelly’s is a nuanced, sympathetic account from a former Labor staffer. He understands the many factors spooking Labor, ranging from the painful experience of the Rudd–Gillard years and the 2019 election loss to the defeat of the Voice referendum. He has a more than grudging respect for Anthony Albanese, but wonders whether Albo has abandoned his earlier socialist beliefs or is just afraid to express them when a neoliberal ascendancy has silenced more leftist views. He worries that Labor is limiting its policy options to reflect what it thinks people want rather than trying to change their minds, as more visionary Labor leaders have sought to do. He argues that, perversely, Labor’s timidity could end up reinforcing voter disillusionment and even lead to the election of an authoritarian leader.
Yet Kelly sees some signs for hope, citing the government’s rejection of its predecessor’s regressive tax cuts (albeit while partly appeasing higher-income earners), its advocacy for the Voice, and its social media ban for children. In a later piece, published in the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, he seems further encouraged by Albanese’s support for reserving gas supplies for the domestic market.
Nonetheless, he argues that Labor has all too often “cast itself as a version of what the conservatives once were: the defender of the way things are. This may well appeal to large numbers of Australians, as it did in this last election.” Yet “Labor’s task, historically, has been to change things on behalf of those who desperately need them to change.”
Even Albanese’s leitmotif slogan, “no one held back, no one left behind,” comes in for criticism. “Not holding anyone back and not leaving anyone behind are worthy sentiments,” says Kelly. “But leaving society largely as it is means the second of those sentiments is treated as less important than the first.” Similarly: “Every time an ‘aspirational’ policy is supported with taxpayer money… those dollars cannot go elsewhere.” In short, trying to become the “natural party of government” has come at too high a cost.
Kelly is not alone in believing the government needs to do more to seize its opportunities for change. It is a view held by many Labor supporters as well as commentators. Nonetheless, while his analysis is a sophisticated one that deserves to be widely read, it would have benefited by being even more nuanced at times.
Albanese responded to Kelly’s previous critique of the government for being risk-averse and low-key, arguing that it was “wrong” and “romanticises a mythical land that he lived in once,” and there is some truth in what he said.
While Kelly is correct to note that more radical left-wing views have been constrained by decades of neoliberalism, Albanese’s government still shares many characteristics with previous Labor ones. For example, Albanese has indeed argued that his government wished to achieve “consensus” with business (not least because he believes Bill Shorten’s targeting of the “top end” of town helped cost Labor the 2019 election), but the party has a long history of seeking good relations with at least some sections of business, particularly the manufacturing industry that traditionally employed key Labor voters. Labor governments are always constrained by the need to manage a capitalist economy in which the private sector plays a major role.
Furthermore, the Albanese government’s consensus is very different from the Hawke and Keating governments’ rapprochement with business, which was based on providing a so-called “social wage” of government benefits that allowed business to pay less in wage rises. Indeed, the Hawke–Keating period eventually saw real wage cuts whereas, as Kelly acknowledges, the current government prides itself on its real increases. Indeed, business organisations have often been highly critical of Labor’s industrial relations agenda, including its reforms to the gig economy, enterprise bargaining, pattern bargaining and paid domestic violence leave.
Similarly, Kelly criticises Albanese for now describing himself as a “progressive” rather than (as he did in his first speech to parliament) a “democratic socialist.” But Albanese also described Labor policy as “progressive” three times in that long-ago speech. Kelly critiques the “dreadful blandness” of Albanese’s statement that he is “a social democrat who believes in markets, but believes that the state… can make a difference in peoples’ lives.” Yet, while Albanese made a robust case for greater state action in his first speech, he also acknowledged that “a substantial… social security system” helped maintain “the legitimacy of market economies”.
In other words, while Albanese was undoubtedly more left-wing in his youth, even then he seems to have seen a role for markets. While Kelly cites the dangers of Labor’s incrementalism, it has always been the social democratic strategy to slowly but steadily reform the existing society and economy in order to make capitalism more humane and equitable.
Arguably, as its efforts to end years of wage stagnation demonstrates, the Albanese government still stands for that basic belief in incrementally reducing inequality. Furthermore, while Kelly acknowledges Labor has raised wages, including those of many workers in female-dominated care industries, he says little otherwise about Labor’s gender equality policies. Looked at through a gender-equality lens, though, the government has introduced more reforms than it is often given credit for.
On gaining office, Labor pledged to make Australia once again a world leader in gender equality. Fifty-six percent of Labor parliamentarians, and the majority of cabinet, are now women. The government has appointed feminists to key positions, introduced gendered reforms to skills training, implemented paid parental leave, improved childcare access, introduced paid family and domestic violence leave, implemented additional Respect at Work recommendations, improved gender-responsive budgeting, established a women’s equality taskforce, publicised gender pay gaps in larger businesses, increased gender equity in overseas development goals, tackled women’s health and medical misogyny, and cemented gender equality in the Fair Work Act.
The government has also addressed some neoliberal-influenced features of previous Labor governments’ industrial relations policy — including enterprise bargaining provisions and the outlawing of pattern bargaining — that had contributed to reduced pay in female-dominated industries.
Women’s minister Katy Gallagher has reported that “Australia’s gender pay gap is at the lowest ever level since records began, at 11.5 per cent.” She has also declared that:
The World Economic Forum’s 2025 Global Gender Gap Report has seen Australia rise eleven places in the global rankings to thirteenth out of 148 countries for gender equality, the highest-ever ranking since the Index began in 2006… Australia’s ranking had fallen to an all-time low of fiftieth place under the former Liberal National government.
If the Voice referendum had passed, Labor would have introduced major reforms not just in terms of class (workers’ pay and conditions) and gender equality but also in the area of race relations.
Of course, there are also ongoing deficiencies or areas where the government could do much better, including in relation to gender equality. Australia still lags behind many other countries in providing childcare and paid parental leave, for example. Spending on domestic violence is still insufficient. Policy areas ranging from economic policy and productivity to technology and climate change don’t always measure up though a gender-equality lens.
As Kelly notes, welfare payments are still woefully inadequate, LGBTIQ people can still be discriminated against by religious organisations; the Morrison government’s university fee structures remain in place; environmental regulation, while updated, is still inadequate. Moreover, major problems exist in childcare, aged care, and disability and unemployment services. Private providers are still under-regulated and consultants over-used. Workers are still being exploited. Progress in Indigenous issues has slowed significantly since the Voice defeat. Asylum seekers are still treated appallingly. The list of areas where the government could bring in further reforms is long, with some reflecting the inherited legacies of decades of neoliberalism.
Kelly notes that Labor’s emphasis on reducing budget deficits while not increasing tax revenue poses major constraints. Labor not only fears the Coalition’s neoliberal-influenced critiques but the risk the Reserve Bank will use increased government spending as a justification for raising interest rates. Despite its criticisms, Labor has not yet fully rejected neoliberalism. It is still searching for a coherent alternative economic strategy, with the treasurer embracing wellbeing agendas, Mariana Mazzucato’s work and now the Abundance agenda.
Kelly has legitimate concerns regarding the latter, which claims to show a new pathway for the left but often ends up reinforcing what looks suspiciously like a neoliberal-influenced focus on deregulation. Meanwhile, the economy is not nearly as healthy as it seemed during the election, inflation is undermining workers’ living standards despite wage rises, and AI is threatening jobs. Highly uncertain times are ahead internationally.
Labor’s caution reflects the knowledge that its massive election victory was aided by Dutton’s unpopularity and the Trump factor, among other dynamics. Kelly is therefore correct to worry that this government may not do enough to satisfy Labor’s true believers. His fear of an authoritarian alternative if voters also become disillusioned more broadly may have some foundation too.
Overall, Kelly makes some valid criticisms of this government. But he sometimes underestimates the extent to which it has stood for the fairer and more equitable society championed in Albanese’s 2025 victory speech. •
The Good Fight: What Does Labor Stand For?
By Sean Kelly | Quarterly Essay | $29.99 | 128 pages
