Labor Confronts the Future
Where is the Labor Party now and where is it going? How successful will it be in the next 100 years? 'The Machine' describes a party at risk. The Australian political context is changing; can Labor adapt?
This collection of essays provides a detailed overview of the Party at national, state and territory levels; analyses Labor's structure to reveal a Party struggling with varying success to come to terms with policy and electoral problems; and describes how the Party's factional nature determines how controversial policy areas are dealt with.
Labor was once the Party of "battlers". No longer? In the wake of defeat and the new constituencies outside Labor's present grasp, the contributors to 'The Machine' provide the only detailed account of the Party as it confronts the rebuilding it must undertake if it is to continue to play a major role in Australian politics.
Can Labor still boast a machine the envy of other parties, or is it yesterday's machine?
