Tony Burke was Labor’s best in 2023. Albo needs to emulate him in 2024

Sometimes it’s the ones you least expect.

Just as longtime centrist Joe Biden has surprisingly blossomed into an FDR-inspired “big government” president, an unlikely member of Anthony Albanese’s cabinet finishes 2023 as its most successful prosecutor of progressive causes: Tony Burke.

Like Biden, machine man Burke will never be an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-style firebrand, but standing beside colleagues timid and wavering, and activists righteous but lacking influence, his pragmatic wins are a modest silver lining to an underwhelming year.

When Burke was given the Industrial Relations (IR) portfolio, some on the left were sceptical. He began his career as an organiser for the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association — the most conservative of Australia’s unions, accused of “selling out” workers with cozy enterprise deals while pulling Labor to the right on social issues like marriage equality. Would he really have the mettle to confront obstinate employer groups and legislate to bolster workers’ rights?

As it turned out, he did. Last week, Burke secured the passage of his second major IR bill, containing “same job, same pay” rules for labour-hire workers, the criminalisation of wage theft, and other provisions.

It was no clean victory — he had to split his initial bill to advance passable elements while continuing to work with the crossbench on more contentious matters like converting casual workers to permanency and protecting gig workers. But reports suggest he’s close to a deal on these matters too. There’s still plenty to do in the IR space, but these are meaningful steps.

Fair bit of criticism of the Albanese government (some of it valid) for its policy achievements so far. Meanwhile Tony Burke has quietly been racking up significant pro-worker legislation in industrial relations … https://t.co/z9WwDS9mp0

— Ben Eltham (@beneltham) December 7, 2023

It was a badly needed win for Labor which otherwise ends the year poorly, with missteps piling up and polls starting to sour. But the IR bill’s passage was more than a relieving goal before half-time; it marked a fleeting gear shift. Labor’s IR achievements have been one of few areas where ministers didn’t simply “govern” but actually progressed real reform; steered through choppy waters rather than being buffeted by them; took ground rather than managing retreat.

The government’s moves elsewhere courted less controversy by being concertedly modest — often to the point of going unnoticed. But on IR, Burke backed himself and stared down a $24 million campaign by the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA), which is vowing to prosecute with a “mining-tax style campaign”. And he didn’t do so shyly, telling the MCA, “If you had a choice between spending money on ads or paying your workers properly, the message is pay your workers”.

The only area in which the government showed comparable courage was in backing the Voice, though with far less to show for it. Such progress is important internally, as ALP members tire of Albanese’s “small target” approach. They want to see brisker movement towards the light on the hill.

Director of the John Curtin Research Centre Nick Dyrenfurth, himself on the party’s right, recently surveyed a broad cross-section of Labor thinkers in search of “the Albanese doctrine”. “Tellingly, not a single person interviewed for this piece could identify a campaign narrative, let alone suite of policies, that Labor would take to the next election,” he wrote in The Saturday Paper. The piece ended with a quote from Labor-aligned business leader Sam Almaliki: “We can’t afford more of the same.”

Albanese might retort that party members are always over-ambitious, but parliamentary leaders mustn’t move too fast for the broader electorate. But the softly-softly approach is increasingly rankling swing voters too. Recent polling from Redbridge of “soft voters” in Queensland and South Australia revealed “concerns that [Albanese] lacks strength”, with some voters describing him as “weak” and “missing in action”.

Elsewhere, Burke has helped the party straddle a growing division between its members and parliamentary leaders: support for Gazan victims of Israel’s war. Albanese stood firmly with Israel after Hamas’ brutal October 7 attack, while Foreign Minister Penny Wong called on Israel to exercise restraint — but only occasionally implied Israel hadn’t done so.

Conversely, Burke, whose electorate has one of the highest proportions of Muslim voters in the country, intervened with more empathy, noting the toll of casualties on families and the daily discrimination Palestinians face. He also stood up for a local council and theatre company (in his capacity as arts minister) during conservative backlash over pro-Palestinian protests. Such moves are hardly revolutionary, but they acknowledge those condemning Israel’s actions with more than vague platitudes.

Leaders’ agency is bounded by community pressure and electoral maths. Burke’s makeover may not have occurred were he representing a less multicultural electorate, and were the union movement not demanding more from their kindred party than in previous decades.

And he hasn’t been entirely immune to his cabinet’s reflexive flaccidness. The employment services inquiry — chaired by MP Julian Hill, but camping on Burke’s turf — has outlined some positive steps away from the punitive and privatised status quo for job seekers, but stopped short of ditching “mutual obligations” and the private provider model entirely. Those left behind amid increased employment opportunities and enhanced workers’ rights — namely, those with reduced working capacity — remain a wilful blindspot.

Nonetheless, Burke deserves credit from workers, particularly insecure ones. And if his colleagues are jealous, perhaps they should embrace a Burkian approach in the new year. That means being prepared to take on vested interests. Sure, you might eventually need to horse trade to get things over the line. But you won’t get anywhere by chickening out from the get-go.

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