Talk:Labor Right

What?

What the feck is with "Labor Forum" being a Right faction? It's Marn's Left.

Do you live in Queensland? Labor Forum here is the AWU. Slac speak up! 07:06, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

A Labor Leftie myself, although i agree with much of the account of this faction it seems very biased and unacademic, if more historical and bibliographical info could be included that'd be better. User:Leftie

Is the section, "Current members of the Labor Right", only for current members of federal parliament? The heading with "current members" doesnt make that very clear. What about state politicians and political figures associated with Labor Unity?58.168.180.223 02:22, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem with that is that 'Labor Unity' isn't a national thing - the different states have different right factions, and not even necessarily only one per state - WA has the new and old right. Some people are not even necessarily in a 'Right' faction in their states but vote with the Right nationally. Federal is easier to write about here because there's more written about it *out there*, but assuming alignment is clear, there's no reason why State people who are aligned nationally can't be included.

Incidentally, the count of Right people in Federal Caucus and the number of Caucus members was wrong, and Labor Unity isn't heard at student conferences (that's Centre Unity, so as not to scare off AUJS etc), but at Party conferences. Dibo ^{T | C} 03:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Sources

Exactly where is the information found to identify that all these Labor MPs come from the Right faction? If no sources are provided I am considering wiping the list of names completely. Timeshift 17:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

It's all pretty well-known, and there are numerous newspaper articles outlying these articles. One source which may be of use is an article called "The Fractions" by Tony Wright in The Bulletin of March 22, 2006. I bookmarked it for future reference last time people started being difficult about the Labor factions. Really, a Google search should be easily able to verify this for most, if not all of these people - I doubt a Factiva search would even be necessary. Rebecca 00:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

To me it's not so much about if its "pretty well-known" but anything that is controversial, such as labelling an MP from the Labor left or right, should be backed up with a citation. Not to say they are from the left or right, but my biggest queries out of the list (in SA anyway) are: Kate Ellis, Lindsay Simmons (saw Labor Right on pollbludger but nowhere else and makes me wonder where they read this), Chloe Fox, Robyn Geraghty. Timeshift 01:12, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Ellis is certainly in the Right, but I don't know about the SA State people. Dibo ^{T | C} 03:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd be fine with us going through and referencing these individually. The entire federal caucus could be cited to the article I mentioned above, and I very much doubt sources for the state MPs would be hard to find. With this in mind, I don't think it's necessary to wipe the existing list, though if any are particularly disputed, I would not object to their removal. Rebecca 05:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that sounds about right - where there's an argument, ditch it. Though under WP:BLP it might be slanderous or defamatory to label someone as being in the Right in the absence of refs (... well I'd be offended). :D Dibo ^{T | C} 06:01, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Names keep getting added to the non-referenced abyss. Something needs to change. "Everyone already knows/It is common knowledge" is not valid on wikipedia to address no-ref concerns. It is however controversial to label where an MP is regardless of "common knowledge". Refs are needed. Timeshift (talk) 04:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Yep. Times and policies change, and this should have a source for each individual inclusion. The article I provided above a couple years back should still be a decent source for many of these, but if this list is going to stay, it needs to be done properly. Rebecca (talk) 07:20, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Latest edit re social democracy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy - they embrace the market economy whilst "removing perceived injustices". How were Keating and Hawke moving away from this? Timeshift 00:46, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Similarity to the Libs

I changed a line that said 'A criticism of the dominance of the Right in the ALP is that it has led to a situation where the Liberal and Labor parties are virtually identical on some serious issues of policy, in particular economics, gay rights and abortion.' to 'A criticism of the dominance of the Right in the ALP is that it has led to a situation where the Liberal and Labor parties are virtually identical on some serious issues of policy, in particular economics and national security.'

This change is partly because gay rights and abortion issues are to more or lesser extent dealt with by conscience votes, so neither the ALP nor the Libs party positions to be similar to one another, partly because many members of the Right take quite progressive views on these issues and partly because these issues are ones that are mainly raised by groups in the non-Labor left - it's not something that regularly pops up in media commentary. Contrast this with national security, where Labor has just recently been panned over the Haneef affair from all corners of media. Dibo ^{T | C} 03:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Need to update due to election outcome

This page needs an update because of the outcome of the November 2007 Federal Election. There are now different people in different places. 202.155.163.221 (talk) 11:07, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Image

Does the image really relate to the article? Timeshift (talk) 06:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Image discussion

The image is a Liberal Party attack add focusing on the phenomenon of the career path of Unionist to Party Worker to Parliamentarian which is not uncommon in the ALP and is a path dominated by the controlling factions. If you read the adjacent paragraph this pathway is documented and referenced and although it is by no means unique to the Labor Right it is very much part of factional political culture and patronage as I can personally attest to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Titus Vespasian (talk • contribs) 08:31, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

That in no way connects the ad to Labor Right. Timeshift (talk) 09:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, it does connect it to Labor Factions, and there are realy two major Labor Factions one of which is the Labor Right. Titus —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.4.164.2 (talk) 06:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

You miss the point completely. The ad is attacking the industrial wing of the union movement. Labor Right is the political wing of the labour movement. I await to hear how the image and article connect. Timeshift (talk) 06:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

No need to get angry Mr Timeshift, If I miss the point its because I'm a bit of a doofuss. The point of the paragraph "Factional Control", made by left faction leader Martin Ferguson but talking about Labor factions in general, is that each faction controls Unions which in turn control votes at ALP governing bodies and in selecting candidates for office and party portions. This means there is a line of political patronage which promotes Union leaders or activists to ALP parliamentary seats. The liberals criticize this a nepotism, perhaps rightly in some instances. But don't worry too much, the conservatives are stacked with lawyers and thats lower than any job, union or otherwise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Titus Vespasian (talk • contribs) 08:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The image has absolutely nothing to do with the subject. Nowhere in the image does it say "Labor Right". 2007 election or Labor, possibly, but the ad was a criticism of Labor generally in the context of a single election campaign. Orderinchaos 09:48, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

2007 election, if anything. But wikipedia shouldn't be in the business of displaying political propaganda for the point of it. The closest and only example I could think of that exists apart from it is the keep interest rates at record lows screenshot, which has the specific point of showing that the Liberals were infact unable to keep interest rates at record lows. There is no point to this article's image propadanda. Timeshift (talk) 10:04, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Structure and Function

By it nature its difficult to find sourced material on a political faction but I would love to see a list of Right wing unions in this article and perhaps a break down of the leaders within each state/territory entity and their derived union backers. This would give us slightly more clarity into the murky world of factional politics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Titus Vespasian (talk • contribs) 01:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Merge with Socialist Left?

Should this article be merged with Socialist Left to form a new page, perhaps something like Australian Labor Party factions? Regards, Ben Aveling 10:56, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Disagree. Timeshift (talk) 11:00, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Numbers in Right Faction

The article asserts that there are 41 current Federal M.P's in the Right faction, yet I counted 44 names. --Mrodowicz (talk) 16:57, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess we can only resurch and find out if particular members are in the faction and if that adds up to more than 41 then we need to check if there are any double names or incorrect names on the list. Obvious I know but in the abcence of access to the Labor Unity membership list its the best we can do.--Godianus the Finder (talk) 09:12, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

It is also possiable that the 41 figure is out of date. --Godianus the Finder (talk) 12:49, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Actualy, the numbers in Federal Parliament include House and Senate and I think the 41 may be just house numbers. --Godianus the Finder (talk) 13:07, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Members of the Right Faction in Federal Parliament

There should be a list of members of the Right faction. The article on the Labor Left has such a list. I notice from the page history that there used to be a list of members in this article, but it was deleted by User:Timeshift9 and User:Lear's_Fool. Given the (alleged) importance of the factions in choosing the prime minister and makeup of cabinet, surely it's informative to have a list of members in the article.Cowrider (talk) 22:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Articfle need fixinig?

Might want to do some checking as it may be a misguided edit rather than vandalism. Timeshift (talk) 00:22, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Evidence of Labor left as "traditionally" Democratic Socialists?

Under Political Views the Labor Right economic policy is described in contrast:

"the faction is most famous for its support of Third Way policies over Labor's traditional social democratic/democratic socialist policies"

I removed the reference to democratic socialism. If anyone has any decent references to historical Labor policy that actually back up this statement then feel free to add it back in and cite it, but as it stands it seems as if someone has just misunderstood the distinction between social democracy and democratic socialism. There were certainly historical communist elements in the ALP, but no "tradition" of social ownership and the ALP-AC split was largely red-baiting along Catholic sectarian lines. AFAIK - MVHVTMV (talk) 04:12, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

There is such a thing as tradition. It's time for people to stop putting it in scare quotes. 2001:BB6:7ABE:4F58:DDE2:E398:87CE:E3A3 (talk) 18:11, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Centre-left, not centre-right

Labor Right is plainly centre-left, not centre-right. It is only right in the context of the ALP. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:49, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Given that the Labor Left (Socialist Left) is the other organised faction where almost all opposition ministers in the ALP are members, I guess you'd say the Australian Labor Party is clearly left-wing? And have you got quality reliable sources to back up what you personally think? Merphee (talk) 08:26, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

This is simply regarding my removal of the suggestion that Labor Right is centre-right. Of course Labor is a clearly centre-left to left wing political party. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:30, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes I agree of course the ALP has always been a left wing (even socialist) political party but have you got any reliable sources please to base your revert today on this article? Merphee (talk) 08:47, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

@Merphee: As the person adding the material, you need sources to add the material, other people do not need sources to remove it. This is obvious to anybody with let's say even a markedly below average capacity to reason. PeterTheFourth (talk) 12:15, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

@PeterTheFourth:...Oh dear oh dear...not too bright Peter. The text was already in the article. Sooo that means I was not adding the material. And besides we sorted this 5 days ago. Back in your box now. Merphee (talk) 12:36, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

@Merphee: I'll repeat this to help you understand: The person in favour of the content being added needs sources for its inclusion, the person removing it does not need sources for its removal. PeterTheFourth (talk) 20:33, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Citations needed- policy examples

Examples of policies held by the faction are given without citation or support. It is not clear which organisation comprising the faction advocates for these policy positions or whether they are held consistently across th3 faction. The examples give ln are: "such as the economic rationalist policies of the Bob Hawke and Paul Keating governments, including floating the Australian dollar in December 1983, reductions in trade tariffs, taxation reforms such as the introduction of dividend imputation to eliminate double-taxation of dividends and the lowering of the top marginal income tax rate from 60% in 1983 to 47% in 1996, changing from centralised wage-fixing to enterprise bargaining, the privatisation of Qantas and Commonwealth Bank, making the Reserve Bank of Australia independent, and deregulating the banking system." Ping99 (talk) 23:16, 11 February 2023 (UTC)