Next week, Labor will hold its 50th national conference in Adelaide. After the party’s record 94-seat win at last year’s federal election, its members should have plenty to celebrate. Yet since that election, both Labor and the Coalition have watched their support erode, largely in favour of One Nation.
Labor’s national president, Wayne Swan, saw the danger signs last year.
Swan was treasurer in the Rudd-Gillard government, including through the global financial crisis. He was also deputy prime minister, and previously led Wayne Goss’s 1989 Queensland election campaign, ending three decades of conservative reign in the state.
Soon after last year’s landslide, Swan issued a clear-eyed warning that Labor’s victory was “wide but shallow”. Despite its strong showing, he pointed out that Labor had “simply failed to secure strong support from lower-income, lower-educated Australians” – once a core part of its voter base.
At next week’s conference, after eight years in the job, Swan will pass on the party presidency to former federal minister Kate Ellis.
