Editing Labor Left (section)

== History ==
{{expand section|sources on the modern history of the Left, and its history outside Victoria and New South Wales|date=January 2016}}

=== Labor left factions before the 1950s ===
Historian [[Frank Bongiorno]] has noted that there had been several organisations associated with the left wing of Labor before the 1950s, from the [[Australian Socialist League]] in the 1890s, the industrial left which emerged during [[World War I]], the early supporters of [[Jack Lang (Australian politician)|Jack Lang]], and the [[State Labor Party]] of the 1940s.<ref name=jacobin />

=== Labor Party split of 1955 ===
The modern Labor Left emerged from the [[Australian Labor Party split of 1955|Labor Party split of 1955]], in which anti-communist activists associated with [[B. A. Santamaria]] and the [[Industrial Groups]] formed the [[Democratic Labor Party (Australia, 1955)|Democratic Labor Party]] while left-wing parliamentarians and unions loyal to [[H. V. Evatt]] and [[Arthur Calwell]] remained in the Australian Labor Party.<ref name="VN">{{Cite web|title = The rise and fall of the ALP left in Victoria and NSW|url = http://marxistleftreview.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=80%253Athe-rise-and-fall-of-the-alp-left&catid=41%253Anumber-4-winter-2012&Itemid=80|website = Marxist Left Review|access-date = 23 January 2016|first = Corey|last = Oakley|date = Winter 2012}}</ref> The earliest formal factional organization was the NSW Combined Unions and Branches Steering Committee (later known as the NSW Socialist Left), which was formed in January 1955.<ref name=jacobin />

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.<ref name="VN"/> [[Tom Uren]] described the left of the [[Australian Labor Party Caucus|Labor Party Caucus]] upon his election to Parliament in the late 1950s as "a loosely knit grouping{{Spaces}}... consist[ing] mostly of anti-Catholics, although some members were militants or socialists".<ref name=jacobin />

From 1965, organised internal groups emerged to challenge the control of the Left, supported by figures such as [[John Button (Australian politician)|John Button]] and [[Gough Whitlam]]. After the Victorian branch lost the [[1970 Victorian state election|1970 state election]] in the midst of a public dispute with Whitlam over state aid for private schools, the South Australian Left, led by [[Clyde Cameron]], and New South Wales Left, led by [[Arthur Gietzelt]], agreed to support an intervention which saw the Victorian state branch abolished and subsequently reconstructed without Left control.<ref name="VN" /> Leftists in the Victorian party subsequently regrouped as the formally organized Socialist Left faction. In Queensland, the left coalesced around senator [[George Georges]]. Despite an increasing level of organisation in the grassroots party, this was not reflected within the Parliamentary caucus: [[Ken Fry]] noted that when he was elected to Parliament in 1974, meetings of left MPs were irregular and they responded to events in an ad hoc manner. The Labor Left suffered the loss of two of its key leaders in the mid-1970s with the downfall of [[Jim Cairns]] and the elevation of [[Lionel Murphy]] to the [[High Court of Australia]], yet it continued to make advances in terms of nationwide organisation: right-wing power broker [[Graham Richardson]] has acknowledged that "at the beginning of the 1980s the Left was the only national faction".<ref name=jacobin />

===Labor Left split in the 1980s===
Labor leftists continued to formalise their organisation into the 1980s. In New South Wales, the Steering Committee (which later became known as the Socialist Left in 1989) made advances in branches across the state in the late 1970s and early 1980s under the leadership of [[Peter Baldwin (politician)|Peter Baldwin]], initially in the suburbs of Sydney before spreading to the inner cities. This culminated in the deselection of the right-aligned MP for [[Division of Sydney|Sydney]], [[Les McMahon]], and the selection of Baldwin as Labor candidate for the seat. This was followed by other Labor Right MPs in Sydney's [[Inner West]] similarly being usurped by left candidates.<ref name=albo>{{cite web |url=https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/australian-labor-party-anthony-albanese-new-south-wales-right-wing-politics |title=Labor's Anthony Albanese Is Not a Friend of Australia's Left – And He Never Was |last=Daniel |first=Nicholas |date=13 November 2020 |website=[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]] |access-date=17 November 2020}}</ref>

In Tasmania, the Broad Left formalised itself in 1983, having taken control of the state party after reforms democratised it in 1976.<ref name=jacobin /><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Davis |first=Richard |editor-last=Alexander |editor-first=Alison |encyclopedia=[[The Companion to Tasmanian History]] |title=Labor Party |url=https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/L/Labor%20Party.htm |access-date=31 July 2020|year=2005 |publisher=[[University of Tasmania]] |isbn=1-86295-223-X}}</ref> In the Australian Capital Territory, the Left Caucus was founded after a left candidate was not [[Preselection|preselected]] in 1982. However, the Left was unable to translate their organisational advances into a presence in the [[Hawke government]]: although about a third of the Parliamentary caucus were aligned with the Left at the time, only one member was appointed to [[First Hawke Ministry|Hawke's first cabinet]], [[Stewart West]]: leading left-winger [[Brian Howe (politician)|Brian Howe]] placed high in the ministry ballot, but was relegated to a junior ministerial position. This came against the background of an increasing factionalising across the party and the emergence of a centre-left faction which joined with the Labor Right to dominate the Hawke government. Left influence was also restricted by the ALP's binding pledge committing legislators to accept caucus discipline, allowing members little freedom to dissent. Left influence also declined at the national conference, with the faction losing its conference majority in the early 1980s.<ref name=jacobin />

During the 1980s, prolonged disputes over tactical issues and personality conflicts resulted in a split occurring within the New South Wales Labor Left, creating two sub-factional groupings; the 'Hard Left' and the '[[Ferguson Left|Soft Left]]',<ref name="factions&fractions">{{cite journal |last1=Leigh |first1=Andrew |title=Factions and Fractions: A Case Study of Power Politics in the Australian Labor Party |journal=Australian Journal of Political Science |year=2000 |volume=35 |issue=3 |pages=427–448 |doi=10.1080/713649348 |s2cid=144601220 |url=http://andrewleigh.org/pdf/Factions(AJPS).pdf}}</ref> the latter of which was the successor of the Baldwinites.<ref name=albo /> A significant event which caused the split was the election of the Secretary Assistant of the New South Wales Labor Party, where the Hard Left faction supported [[Anthony Albanese]] while the Soft Left faction supported [[Jan Burnswoods]].<ref name="factions&fractions" /> The Hard Left faction was more closely aligned with left-wing groups external to the Labor Party, maintaining "closer links with broader left-wing groups, such as the [[Communist Party of Australia]], People for Nuclear Disarmament and the [[African National Congress]]" as well as trade union officials, political staffers, lobbyists and student politicians, while the Soft Left's main base of support was among rank-and-file party branch members.<ref name="factions&fractions" /><ref name=albo /> In terms of tactics, the Hard Left favoured a top-down approach of transactional negotiation with the Labor Right, whilst the Soft Left advocated a continuation of the Baldwinite bottom-up strategy of mobilising the grassroots membership to win party positions. This difference in approach led to struggles between the two factions over candidate selections, with the Hard Left using their control over the party apparatus in tandem with sections of the Right to deselect Soft Left MPs across the state, particularly in [[western Sydney]], [[Newcastle, New South Wales|Newcastle]] and [[Wollongong]]. For example, in Newcastle [[Bryce Gaudry]] was deselected in favour of the Right's [[Jodi McKay]], following which about 130 members resigned or were expelled from the city's ALP branches, previously the largest in the state.<ref name=albo /> The factions also had differing views on policy. While members of both the Soft and Hard Left opposed the Hawke/Keating government's privatisation of the [[Commonwealth Bank]] and [[Qantas]], the Hard Left was seen as being more staunchly resistant to these changes.<ref name="factions&fractions" />

=== Post 1990s ===
[[Lindsay Tanner]], writing in the early 1990s, argued that the principal "axis of division" with the ALP cut across the traditional left-right divide, namely the opposition of "[[Economic rationalism|rationalists]]" and "traditionalists", with the former supporting the [[Prices and Incomes Accord]] and union mergers, and abandoning or watering down their commitment to traditional Labor objectives such as public ownership, [[non-interventionism]] in foreign policy, and maintenance of working-class living standards, whilst the latter were negative towards the Accord, opposed to union mergers, sympathetic toward economic [[autarky]], and attached to traditional Labor policy objectives.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Tanner |first1=Lindsay |author-link1=Lindsay Tanner|date=June 1991|title=Labourism's Last Days|url=https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2349&context=alr |magazine=[[Australian Left Review]] |issue=129  |pages=10–14|access-date=31 July 2020}}</ref> This divide can be seen through the career of [[Joan Kirner]], who served as Premier of Victoria between 1990 and 1992 and was the first member of the modern Labor Left to lead a government, who supported the ascent of [[Paul Keating]] to the post of Prime Minister and his decision to privatise [[Commonwealth Bank]] to finance a bailout for the ailing [[State Bank of Victoria]]. This resulted in the formation of a splinter group from the Socialist Left, the Pledge faction, which opposed privatisation: in 1996, Pledge allied with another left split, the Labour Renewal Alliance, and the right-wing Labor Unity faction to take control of the party away from the Socialist Left.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://theconversation.com/joan-kirner-a-pioneering-leader-for-the-left-as-well-as-women-42639 |title=Joan Kirner, a pioneering leader for the Left as well as women |last=Robinson |first=Geoffrey |date=2 June 2015 |website=[[The Conversation (website)|The Conversation]] |access-date=31 July 2020}}</ref><ref name=jacobin />

=== Labor Left factions from all jurisdictions ===
{|class="wikitable"
|-
!Jurisdiction
!Major Left grouping
!Conference floor percentage 2015
!Majority
|-
|New South Wales
|NSW Left
|40%<ref name="agitate, educate, opine">{{cite web |last=Chiu |first=Osmond |date=2 September 2014 |title=What is the factional breakdown at Labor Conferences? |url=https://agitateeducateopine.wordpress.com/2014/09/02/what-is-the-factional-breakdown-at-labor-conferences/ |access-date=22 January 2016 |website=Agitate, Educate, Opine}}{{Unreliable source?|date=November 2022}}</ref>
|No
|-
|Victoria
|Victorian Socialist Left
|49%<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kolovos |first=Benita |date=2023-06-16 |title=Factions, power and Daniel Andrews: Victorian Labor prepares for its first state conference in more than three years |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/16/victorian-labor-prepares-for-its-first-state-conference-in-three-years |access-date=2023-11-21 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>
|Stability pact with the TWU-SDA
|-
|Western Australia
|Broad Left
|84%<ref name="agitate, educate, opine"/>
|Yes
|-
|Queensland
|The Left
|49%<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-government/creche-for-party-hacks-cfmeu-quits-labor-left/news-story/0d79db3816f5cabebea2155403e22c89|work=[[The Courier-Mail]]|title='No dud politicians': Labor leaders on fiery union spray|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
|Yes 
|-
|ACT
|Left Caucus
|51%<ref name="agitate, educate, opine"/>
|Yes
|-
|South Australia
|Progressive Left Unions and Sub-Branches
|35%<ref name="agitate, educate, opine"/>
|No
|-
|Tasmania
|The Left
|70%<ref name="agitate, educate, opine"/>
|Yes
|-
|Northern Territory
|The Left
|60%<ref name="agitate, educate, opine"/>
|Yes
|-
|National
|National Left
|48%<ref name="agitate, educate, opine"/>
|No
|}