Why we need a stronger, larger, energised Labor Party – ALP President Wayne Swan

Wayne Swan’s speech to the Nambour RSL Club

20 September 2025

Friends we must savour this moment. The last election was a stunning achievement. It gave us the strongest result in more than 80 years, and I might say, very encouraging results here on my home turf, the Sunshine Coast.

But if you look around the western world, and in particular the United States, social democratic parties aren’t in good shape. Authoritarians are on the march.

The last time I spoke here was in 2008. Our election victory was fresh, but internationally, storm clouds were gathering. Months later, Lehmann Brothers would collapse, sowing the seeds for the toxic political fruit we now see flourishing in the United States.

Today, in Australia, we are in the ascendancy now, but as we have seen time and time again, complacency is the handmaiden of decline. The same technology and the same actors fuelling violent discord and political extremism in the United States exist right here in Australia. The deep fakes, the AI, the unrestrained social media platforms and our local versions of Elon Musk.

The hard right has been brutal and unrelenting in weaponizing social media and harnessing anger and insecurity through monstrous scare campaigns centred around climate change, government deficit spending and tax.  Exhibit A is the money spent by Advance and the deployment of the Exclusive Bretheren the length and breadth of the country.

Now it seems the far right has a new spear carrier in Andrew Hastie. This individual is already signalling an intent to reshape conservative discourse in this country.

When conservatives abandon climate action, they’re not just abandoning our children’s future – they’re abandoning the working families whose jobs depend on the clean energy transition we’re leading. Yet he has the temerity to declare the centre left no longer believes in western values, and is driven by grievance, pronouns and violence. 

Yep. This is the favoured candidate to replace Mrs Ley.

It would be nice to just give this politics a wide berth. To presume its very toxicity rendered it ineligible.

But that’s not the world we are living in.

Like it or not (and I don’t like it one bit) we are living in a world where the Right’s success in demonising the whole political class depletes the reservoir of voter trust progressive parties rely on to shape and win a mandate for change.

But there is some cause for what I would call vigilant, constructive optimism. Because we in the Labor party don’t acknowledge often enough the significant structural political foundations which buttress Australia against the political degeneration we’ve seen elsewhere in the Western world.

It isn’t better technology that allows us to resist misinformation, election rigging and polarisation. It’s better institutions.

And we need to be really clear about why they matter. Why they must be passionately defended.

First and most importantly, our compulsory voting and independent electoral authorities do more than run elections – they civilise our politics. They force politicians to appeal to all Australians, not just the loudest voices on the extremes. And they safeguard against the blatant election rigging that pollutes the US electoral system.  

America’s rorted electoral rules are democracy killers, and it was a seminal moment in Australian political history in 1984 when Kim Beazley courageously legislated the compulsory one vote–one value independent electoral commission backed in by public funding.

This reform, probably more than any other in our history, gives us a better chance of avoiding the cash for votes boondoggle seen across other western political systems.

Nor should we ignore the fact that the Albanese Government’s re-election was underpinned by significant investments in Medicare, which removed health as a source of financial ruin.

Medicare doesn’t just save lives, it also saves democracy. Medicare gives people the space to live full lives, to worry less, to engage more constructively with their community, instead of falling prey to opportunistic populists who feed on anxiety.

And the same can be said of Superannuation. It delivers retirement with dignity. Knowing that you might afford that caravan or tinny, or those holidays with the grandkids, delivers security. These institutions are also Democracy’s best friend.

The Right’s campaign against big government and the taxation revenue required to deliver it can be superficially appealing to people who are struggling to make ends meet. Our answer to that is brutally simple: Medicare doesn’t entrench power, it redistributes it. It is a promise that in Australia, your bank account doesn’t determine whether you live or die.

That’s not big government, that’s Labor values in action

Similarly, when you have a decently funded national broadcaster at the centre of your information ecosystem, you create powerful, civilising norms around accuracy, fair mindedness and general civility. No broadcaster is perfect, but the ABC is a cherished institution because it is sober and reliable and serves the national interest in everything from elections to bushfires to children’s entertainment.

So what does this all mean for our political challenge?

We live in an era where public policy doesn’t always deliver the best political outcomes. Labor’s job is clear: keep nourishing and strengthening these institutions.

But to do that we have to keep winning elections and we have to honestly and openly examine our own strengths and weaknesses as a party, so as to avoid the fate of many of our sister parties.

This year at the federal level we achieved something remarkable: 94 parliamentary seats.

We have three years to demonstrate we deserve to keep them – three years to prove that Labor governments deliver to the people that elected us. But here’s what keeps me awake at night: the precise moment when you believe you’ve mastered politics is when it masters you.

History has sobering reminders. In March 1993 every commentator declared Paul Keating finished but he stunned the nation with an increased majority. Three years later complete devastation. Hero to zero in three years in a single electoral cycle. This pattern repeats across democracies and decades.

To continue to be successful we must build our movement and make our party much more vibrant, larger and more imaginative. Contemporary democracy requires more boots on the ground: activists, organisers and agitators who are active and more engaged with their local communities.

For too long we’ve been in denial about our low membership both in the party and unions. For some time now we’ve simply failed to secure strong support from lower income, less educated Australians and, in particular, we have failed to recruit membership in fast growing regional communities.  

It’s a sad day for the Labor party to admit, but even now our largest membership demographic remains those, like myself, who joined in the Whitlam era. We have a golden opportunity to build a stronger and more active party, one that is more diverse and reflective of the communities we want to support us.

When I look around this room, though, I see hope.

Every face here represents the potential to reach ten more, twenty more, a hundred more Australians hungry for the change only Labor can deliver.

We have to reach out to working class communities and understand that their concern, first and foremost, is their living standards and access to economic opportunity. Economic equality is what the Labor party was formed to deliver.

I’m a fan of Dr Martin Luther King. Many people aren’t aware that his ‘I have a Dream’ speech given in Washington Mall in 1963 was actually entitled Jobs and Freedom. He understood that a progressive movement has to be a broad movement.

Our victory this year was wide but shallow, and a small drop in our primary vote in a national election could see the loss of a large number of seats. It’s worth remembering in 2022 we recorded the lowest primary vote since 1934.

So the rebuilding of our volunteer base is urgent, as is the implementation of Labor policies to deliver the kitchen table agenda in housing, in health and in tax that delivered the election to us.

To conclude: whilst our election victory this year was a magnificent triumph, we spent a long period lagging in the polls last year. Truth is, for too long we’ve been in denial about our small membership, including membership across many federal and state Labor-held electorates.

Our trade union base has given us a core strength and I believe it has led us to underestimate the urgent need for party renewal.

I’m really encouraged to see so many young activists in the room tonight. I urge you to get more deeply involved in party affairs and, in particular, to reach out to all of those that are looking to be a part of building an even fairer, more vibrant and creative Australia.

Nowhere is that task more important then here in Fairfax, a seat that is waiting for us to claim it. Seats aren’t won in parliament: they’re won on doorsteps, in community halls, wherever Labor members dream bigger and fight harder.