Labor Right


The Labor Right, also known as Labor Unity, is a political faction of the Australian Labor Party at the national level that tends to be more socially conservative and economically liberal. The Labor Right is a broad alliance of various state factions and competes with the socialist left Labor Left faction.

State branches

Factional power usually finds expression in the percentage vote of aligned delegates at party conferences. The power of the Labor Right varies from state to state, but it usually relies on certain trade unions, such as the Australian Workers' Union, Transport Workers Union, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association and the Health Services Union. These unions send delegates to the conference, with delegates usually coming from the membership, the administration of the union or local branches covered by their activists.
State-based factions which make up Labor Right include:
; New South Wales
; Queensland
; Australian Capital Territory
; Victoria
; Western Australia
; Northern Territory
; South Australia
; Tasmania
An overriding stated theme of the more moderate wing of Labor governance is balance between progressive social change and conservative economic management as the pathway to community development and growth.
Many Roman Catholics have been prominent and influential in the Labor Party, both inside and outside the auspices of the Labor Right faction. Their influence had been criticised by many older Labor socialists and Protestant conservatives for being beholden to religious authority. However, this sentiment has decreased since the 1970s with the erosion of religious sectarianism in Australian politics.
The Labor Right views itself as the more mainstream and fiscally responsible faction within Labor. The faction is most famous for its support of Third Way economic policies over Labor's traditional early twentieth century social democratic policies, 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.

Youth Wing

While the senior faction is broken into various state- and union-based groupings the Young Labor Right is organised around the various parliamentarian factional leaders and power brokers. The Victorian Young Labor Right is currently divided between the Conroy aligned, the SDA, AWU and Moderate aligned grouping, and the NUW. The NSW Young Labor Right known as Young Centre Unity is the largest Labor Right youth faction.

Federal Members of the Labor Right

‡ Sterle was formerly a member of the now-defunct Centre Left.