A Little History Of The Australian Labor Party

Though stonemasons walked off the job one hundred and fifty years ago, the eight-hour day is now honoured more often in the breach than in the observance. Full-time workers in Australia labour for long hours (higher than fifty per week) with greater frequency than those in any other advanced industrial country. Moreover, too many workplaces are still unsafe and leave their employees sickened, injured or killed. The rewards offered to nearly all employees are grossly inadequate. While executive salaries have shot up, those on median incomes now find it harder to buy a house than ever before. Nearly all the jobs dominated by women are scandalously underpaid, and younger workers are also trained at inadequate rates of reward. Most parents struggle through the joy of child-rearing without paid parental leave or adequate childcare. In short, Australia is a highly unequal society and the power of unions is necessary to make it less so.

This is the first published history of the ACT branch of the Australian Labor Party. Charting the life of the branch from the first ALP meeting held in Canberra in 1929 through the separation of the branch from NSW in the 1970s to the election of its first Chief Minister in 1989 and the triumphs and disappointments that followed, the author argues that ACT Labor owes much of its success to being in touch with the expectations of the Canberra community. Written amidst overwhelmingly negative commentary about Australia's oldest political party, this book offers a different view - a story of Labor success.