Australian Politics Today: Heading to a Three Way Contest?

The ALP’s consolidation as the party of capitalist management will only deepen disillusionment among its abandoned base. This opens avenues for socialist ideas but only if social struggle is rebuilt.

Introduction

The Australian political landscape remains trapped in a paradox. On one hand, the legitimacy of bourgeois politics is eroding, marked by escalating violence, injustice, and the bankruptcy of mainstream institutions. On the other, the absence of a resurgent social movement or left-wing political force means that Australian imperialism stumbles forward, unchallenged by any immediate threat to its stability.

This contradiction defines the current moment. While the system’s decay accelerates, the working class and progressive forces remain fragmented, unable to capitalise on the crisis. Yet beneath the surface, incremental shifts in the balance of forces are unfolding—shifts that could soon produce tipping points, opening new possibilities for socialist realignment.

The Stability of Australian Bourgeois Politics

Electoral politics in Australia reflect a stagnant equilibrium. The two-party preferred (TPP) vote has oscillated within a narrow 45-55% band for the past five elections. The Labor Party’s 2025 TPP result of 55% is only a marginal increase from its 2013 performance. Similarly, the combined vote of Labor, the Greens, and progressive independents has remained fixed at 45-50%, while the Liberal-National Coalition, flanked by One Nation and the Teals, clings to the same 45% range.

This electoral stasis mirrors the broader paralysis of social struggle. Outside of Palestine solidarity protests—which, while persistent, lack a unified national campaign—progressive movements are moribund. Industrial action has collapsed: strike activity in the 2000s pales in comparison to the militancy of the 1970s, with just 58,000 workers striking in 2024 out of a workforce of 15 million. Even the state’s brazen seizure of the CFMEU’s construction division provoked no significant resistance.

Economic stability underpins this political inertia. Average full-time earnings hover around $90,000, sufficient for basic subsistence, yet 45% of Australians cannot survive a month on savings, and 26.5% live pay check to pay check. The constant media drumbeat of economic fragility reinforces a survivalist individualism, further eroding collective consciousness. With union density at a historic low (13% overall, 7% in the private sector), the working class remains atomised and disorganised.

Realignments Within the Bourgeois Camp

While the broader terrain of political consciousness remains static, the vehicles representing it are shifting. The Liberal Party has narrowed into a hard-right formation, distinguishable from One Nation only by its residual loyalty to conservative decorum. The Teals, meanwhile, embody the defection of the socially liberal petty bourgeoisie from the Liberals.

Labor, once a broad church including a social-democratic left, has completed its transformation into a neoliberal centre-right party. Anthony Albanese’s post-election declaration of Labor as the "natural party of [capitalist] government" underscores this trajectory. If Labor consolidates this position, the electoral landscape may evolve into a three-way contest: an extreme-centre managerial party (Labor) flanked by a reactionary right (the Coalition, One Nation) and a social-democratic left (the Greens, socialist candidates).

The "Space" to Labor’s Left: Opportunity or Illusion?

For decades, sections of the far left have speculated about a "space" opening to Labor’s left. This space has materialised not due to a surge in radicalisation, but because Labor’s rightward drift has abandoned its traditional social-democratic base. The Greens and small socialist groups now vie for this constituency—evident in Victorian Socialists’ and Socialist Alliance’s modest electoral gains.

However, this electoral "space" is not synonymous with a revival of mass struggle. Socialist Alternative’s turn toward electoralism—embodied in its Victoria Socialists project and planned national "Socialist Party"—reflects a strategic adaptation to these conditions. Their approach prioritises visible protest interventions (e.g., Red Bloc mobilisations) and electoral door-knocking over sustained campaign-building. While this may yield short-term recruitment gains, it risks reinforcing passive politics in the absence of broader movements.

Socialist Alliance, by contrast, has pursued a localist strategy, focusing on council positions to build personal profiles (e.g., Sue Bolton in Melbourne). Neither approach, however, addresses the fundamental problem: the absence of large, militant trade union movement or other social struggles.

Despite these limitations, and while they remain the primary progressive options raising a socialist banner, it is logical for progressives to vote for them on election day.

Palestine, Imperialism, and the Limits of Moral Protest

The Palestine solidarity movement remains the sole significant protest current, yet it has failed to force substantive concessions from Labor. Polls show majority opposition to Israel’s occupation, but Labor’s rhetorical balancing act—criticising Israel while upholding its "right to defend itself"—has, for the moment anyway, considerably neutralised the issue as an electoral liability.

The movement’s weakness stems from its reliance on moral outrage rather than strategic organisation. Unlike the Vietnam War protests, which drew strength from Labor and trade union structures, today’s activism lacks institutional roots. Without a unified national campaign, Palestine solidarity remains reactive, dependent on Israel’s next atrocity to galvanise action.

The International Context: Chaos Without Crisis

Globally, imperialism’s crises multiply without yet rupturing its stability. The U.S.-China trade war, NATO-Russia tensions, and the genocide in Palestine all reflect the sharpening divide between the Global South and imperialist North. Yet bourgeois politics in the core capitalist states—including Australia—remain resilient.

In the U.S., Trump’s erratic policies have sown discord but not destabilised the economy or the two-party duopoly. The Bernie Sanders-AOC insurgency points to a radicalising left constituency, yet one still contained within the Democratic Party’s gravitational pull. The growth of the Party for Socialism and Liberation though is outside that framework and challenges it.

For progressives in Australia, there is an underlying fundamental challenge, This is to rebuild the institutions of social and political struggle — whether in unions, Palestine solidarity or other internationalist campaigns, or movements for women’s liberation or First Nations’ liberation.

The ALP’s consolidation as the party of capitalist management will only deepen disillusionment among its abandoned base. This opens avenues for socialist ideas but only if social struggle can be rebuilt. Intervention in the electoral arena must reflect or echo such rebuilding. The alternative is a left that mirrors the passivity of the system it claims to oppose.

The urgency is palpable. The potential for radicalisation is real.

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For an extended version of this essay go to red-spark.org