National Left (Australia)
|
Labor Left
|
|
|---|---|
| National convenor | Anne Urquhart |
| Student wing | National Labor Students |
| Youth wing | Young Labor Left |
| Ideology |
Democratic socialism Social democracy |
| National affiliation | Australian Labor Party |
| Colours | Red |
| House of Representatives |
27 / 150
|
| Senate |
11 / 76
|
| Federal Caucus |
38 / 95
|
The Labor Left (also known as the Socialist Left and Progressive Left) is an organised democratic socialist faction of the Australian Labor Party. It competes with the Labor Right faction.
The Labor Left operates autonomously in each State and Territory, and organises as a broad alliance at the national level. Its policy positions include party democratisation, economic interventionism, progressive tax reform, and refugee rights.
Most political parties contain informal factions of members who work towards common goals. However the Australian Labor Party is noted for having highly structured and organised factions across the ideological spectrum.
The Labor Left is a membership-based organisation which has internal office bearers, publications, and policy positions. The faction coordinates political activity and policy development across different hierarchical levels and organisational components of the party, negotiates with other factions on political strategy and policy, and uses party processes to try and defeat other groups if consensus cannot be reached.
Many members of parliament and trade union leaders are formally aligned with the Left and Right factions, and party positions and ministerial allocations are negotiated and divided between the factions based on the proportion of Labor caucus aligned with that faction.
The modern Labor Left emerged from the Labor Party split of 1955, in which anti-Communist activists associated with B. A. Santamaria and the Industrial Groups formed the Democratic Labor Party while left-wing parliamentarians and unions loyal to H. V. Evatt and Arthur Calwell remained in the Australian Labor Party.
The split played out differently across the country, with anti-Communists leaving the party in Victoria and Queensland but remaining within in most other states. This created a power vacuum which allowed the Left to take control of the Federal Executive and Victorian state branch, while its opponents were preserved elsewhere.
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