Labor’s challenge is not simply to defeat One Nation or win the next election, but to move beyond a centrist settlement that has become skilled at gaining office while losing sight of transformative purpose.

The Australian’s recent profile of Don Farrell asks whether Labor’s most influential strategist can save the party from the rise of One Nation. It is an understandable question. Farrell has become one of the most powerful figures in Australian politics, a master organiser, factional leader, coalition builder and election strategist. For decades he has helped shape Labor’s direction, nurture its leaders and define its political instincts.

Yet the question itself may point in the wrong direction.

The deeper issue is not whether Don Farrell can save Labor from One Nation. It is whether the political settlement that Farrell represents has become part of the problem Labor now confronts.

This is not really a story about Don Farrell. Nor is it uniquely Australian. Farrell is the local expression of a much larger global phenomenon. Across the western world, labour and social democratic parties have produced their own versions of Farrell: figures who concluded that the path to power lay through the political centre, through moderation, discipline, pragmatism and reassurance. Britain had Peter Mandelson and New Labour. Germany had the managerial wing of the SPD. The United States had the Clinton Democrats. Similar traditions emerged in New Zealand, Canada and elsewhere.

The personalities differed. The logic was remarkably similar. The great challenge facing labour parties, they argued, was no longer confronting capital but adapting to globalisation, economic liberalisation and changing voter expectations. The task became winning elections........

© Pearls and Irritations