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The Labor Right is the organised faction of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) that tends to be more economically liberal and socially conservative. The faction's formal name at a national level is Labor Unity, although this name is rarely encountered outside of Party conferences.

Nationally, the Right is a broad alliance of the various Right state groupings (whose names vary from "Labor Forum" to "Centre Unity"). Its support base varies from state to state, but it usually relies on certain trade unions, such as the Australian Workers Union and the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association for support within the party.

The Right is currently the dominant faction in the Labor party, with leader Kevin Rudd coming from this faction. The faction also holds a majority on the party's National Executive. The faction has 41 of the 88 Federal Labor MP's. State Premiers such as Morris Iemma are also associated with the Right, with the recently arrived exception of Anna Bligh (Queensland) of the left, succeeding Peter Beattie.

Contents 1 Political views 2 Criticisms 3 Current members of the Labor Right 3.1 In the Australian Capital Territory 3.2 In New South Wales 3.3 In Queensland 3.4 In South Australia 3.5 In Tasmania 3.6 In Victoria 3.7 In Western Australia 4 Further reading

The Right views itself as the more mainstream and fiscally responsible faction within the ALP. The Right is most famous for its support of Third Way policies over Labor's traditional social democratic/democratic socialist policies, such as the economic rationalist policies of the Hawke and Keating governments, such as floating the Australian Dollar in 1983, reductions in trade tariffs, taxation reforms, changing from centralised wage-fixing to enterprise bargaining, the privatisation of Qantas and Commonwealth Bank, and deregulating the banking system.

While the Right has dominated the Federal level of the Party for over 50 years, the general trend of economic policy within the Labor party towards the right has led to the situation where past leaders of the Right, such as Ben Chifley, would now be considered radical socialists in comparison to more recent Right leaders such as Paul Keating and Kim Beazley.

A criticism of the dominance of the Right in the ALP is that it has led to a situation where the Liberal and Labor parties are virtually identical on some serious issues of policy, in particular economics and national security. In response, members of the Right emphasise the need of the Party to support economic practices that allow Australia to remain internationally competitive, and allay the fears of many voters that Labor is not a fiscally responsible party. In addition, they stress the need to maintain a broad constituent base that includes the "aspirational voters" of Middle Australia.

The Right's chief objective is to maximise its own influence at the expense of the Left - an aim which it accomplishes through various means. Internal ballots are often viciously contested between Right and Left candidates, and in the past, allegations of unscrupulous conduct in regard to balloting processes (eg. branch stacking) have been a feature of such contests for both sides.

Annette Ellis

Chris Bowen, Sharon Bird, Tony Burke, Justine Elliot, Joel Fitzgibbon, Michael Forshaw, Chris Hayes, Michael Hatton, Steve Hutchins, Julia Irwin, Rob McClelland, John Murphy, Roger Price, Ursula Stephens.

Arch Bevis, Craig Emerson, John Hogg, Joe Ludwig, Bernie Ripoll, Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan.

Annette Hurley, Kate Ellis, Dana Wortley, Linda Kirk, Nick Champion, Amanda Rishworth, Lindsay Simmons, Don Farrell, Jack Snelling, Michael O'Brien, Tom Koutsantonis, Tom Kenyon, Chloe Fox, Michael Wright, Carmel Zollo, Michael Atkinson, Vini Ciccarello, Robyn Geraghty, Lyn Breuer, Lea Stevens, John Rau, Kevin Foley, Trish White

Helen Polley.

Anna Burke, Anthony Byrne, Stephen Conroy, Simon Crean, Michael Danby, Robert Ray, Nicola Roxon, Bill Shorten, Kelvin Thomson.

Kim Beazley, Mark Bishop, Graham Edwards, Stephen Smith, Glenn Sterle.

• Cumming, Fia (1991) Mates : five champions of the Labor right. Sydney : Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1863730214. Library catalogue summary: Paul Keating, Graham Richardson, Laurie Brereton, Bob Carr and Leo McLeay recount events which shaped the Australian labour movement from the 1960’s to the 1980’s.