Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. TOTOTO Anthony Albanese arrived in Adelaide to celebrate Labor’s dominance. He left having demonstrated something almost as valuable: the dominance of his own party. The only significant challenge to the carefully choreographed unity of Labour’s 50th
Anthony Albanese arrived in Adelaide to celebrate Labor’s dominance. He left having demonstrated something almost as valuable: the dominance of his own party.
The only significant challenge to the carefully choreographed unity of Labour’s 50th national conference never arrived on stage.
As former cabinet minister turned rebel MP Ed Husic attempted to force a debate on Israel and Palestine, faction leaders moved quickly to prevent the resolution from reaching the floor. A Maritime Union official who had hoped to support the motion withdrew, while supporting delegates were urged not to back it.
It was a familiar display of factional discipline, deployed in the service of a modern ALP objective: eliminating dissent before it becomes tomorrow’s headline.
For the prime minister, it represented another demonstration of the authority he has amassed since his resounding election victory last year. But Husic’s intervention clearly bothered him.
Albanese worked with the media daily during the event, but avoided a formal press conference and relied on two carefully crafted speeches.
On the final day, he showed up unannounced in the press room and complained to about 30 reporters that the press package would make the conference “all about Ed.”
“I think I know the Labor Party better than anyone I’ve been talking to, and I don’t even know who they are,” he snapped, determined to present Husic as a loner without any institutional backing. “Four hundred delegates and he couldn’t find anyone to support him.”
Under Albanese, the Labor Party has entered its second term with a stability that previously seemed impossible for a party known for its internal conflicts. Having seen previous leaders consumed by internal warfare, the prime minister has no desire to repeat those mistakes. This week that strategy worked.
The ideological battles, faction wars and confusing amendments that once defined Labor meetings were largely absent. The potentially explosive debates were negotiated before the delegates entered the room. The ministers spoke with one voice. The platform passed with minimal drama.
Outside the Adelaide Convention Centre, protesters raised AUKUS and Palestine concerns about damage to gambling and nuclear proliferation. Fringe events included complaints about the lack of deeper debate on issues such as the American alliance and an Australian republic.
Albanese’s discipline has not been manufactured; has been earned. But dominant leaders can also become isolated leaders.
The handling of Husic’s intervention exposed a tension at the heart of Albanese’s Labor Party: whether unity is strengthening the party’s argument with voters or simply avoiding arguments within the party itself.
That question is important as the Labor Party faces the rise of One Nation and a broader global wave of populism.
Husic suggested his actions went beyond the Middle East. It was about the challenge facing major political parties in an era when voters feel increasingly disconnected from institutions.
“We have a competitor that a lot of people are talking about now and who is full of energy,” Husic told reporters. “It has attracted a lot of members. They feel that their party listens to them and they are attracted to the idea that this is a party that will stand up for what they believe is right for the country.”
His broader warning was aimed squarely at the political future of the Labor Party.
“I think the big test for us, as one of the big parties, is to be able to show that we are willing to take stances on the issues and also to bring people with us and not shove the lines of the day into people’s ears, but convince people.”
Husic’s argument raised the larger question of how a ruling party can maintain discipline without losing the ability to listen, debate and persuade.
It is an issue that the Labor Party has been grappling with when taking on One Nation. Throughout the conference, Pauline Hanson and her party were repeatedly invoked as the next big political challenger.
Albanese argued in his opening speech that the Coalition and One Nation were increasingly aligned.
“Beyond One Nation’s personality clashes, political confusion, conspiracy theories and candidate chaos,” he told delegates, “and regardless of who leads the Liberals into the next election, in every important way the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation are already a coalition.”
Former treasurer Wayne Swan framed the contest in traditional Labor Party fighting language.
“Together with our powerful union movement we fought Fraser. We fought Howard. We fought Abbott. And now we see the Conservative mantle passing to One Nation, and a new battle awaits us,” he said.
But seasoned union leaders cautioned on the sidelines that populist movements do not emerge in a vacuum. They thrive when voters believe that established political institutions no longer represent their concerns or address their economic circumstances.
Several wise leaders privately observed that the conference spent far more time discussing the political challenge posed by Hanson than the economic frustrations that help fuel it. It was Adelaide’s surprising omission.
For three days, the Labor Party debated fairness, redistribution, protecting the workplace and expanding government services. Much less attention was paid to the more difficult question underlying those ambitions: how Australia creates the wealth needed to sustain them.
The most significant economic warning from a Labor figure this week came not from the conference, but outside of it.
Former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty, one of the architects of the Hawke-Keating economic reforms, gave a stark assessment of Australia’s economic situation.
He said the OECD’s conclusion that Australia had suffered one of the biggest falls in real wages since 2021 was “difficult to understand” and a “sad reflection on this nation”. Kelty warned that Australia’s productivity had fallen, investment was too low and per capita growth was “non-existent”.
He echoed economists’ concerns about Australia’s long-term trajectory. But inside the conference room, productivity remained an uncomfortable topic.
The economic debate passed without serious discussion. There was little debate about how to encourage private investment, raise productivity, or restore the growth rates that historically allowed governments to improve living standards.
That tension lies at the heart of Labour’s current political project, as history has repeatedly shown that governments cannot indefinitely redistribute prosperity that is no longer being created.
Swan warned Labor against what he called “antiseptic centrism” and “incrementalism”, arguing that voters wanted conviction rather than caution. Albanese proudly boasted this week that his government occupies the “radical center.”
“Our first task is not to speak, but to listen,” says Swan. “Right now, people are pessimistic. They have an unprecedented cost of living and are despairing about the behavior of their leaders throughout the Western world.
“We will only get your support if you believe we are true local advocates who understand what your community really wants.”
Labor figures say privately they understand the danger. His repeated focus on One Nation throughout the conference demonstrated this. But the more difficult question is whether the party has the courage and capacity to address the conditions that allow such movements to grow.
Albanese has succeeded where many Labor leaders before him struggled. He has united factions, disciplined the caucus and turned a once chaotic conference into a show of political force.
“In my opinion, this is the most determined and united national conference I have attended since joining the Labor Party,” he told delegates in his closing speech.
But conferences are easier to control than economies, and Labour’s challenge after Adelaide is not simply to defeat One Nation at the polls. It is convincing voters that the dominant political system can still offer them the future they want.
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Rob Harris is a national correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age based in Canberra. He is a former correspondent in Europe.Connect by email.From our partners
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