Here’s my view of the Hawke-Keating Labor government as a whole. It’s taken from a comparative assessment of the Australian Labor government (a qualified success) with the Lange-Douglas government in NZ (an unmitigated disaster, at least as far as domestic policy is concerned. You can read the whole thing , entitled Social democracy and market reform in Australia and New Zealand, on my website.

Despite its abandonment of many traditional social democratic policies, the Australian Labor government continued to defend its claim to represent the values of the labour movement. Until the recession that commenced in 1989, the government’s claims were supported by strong employment growth and reductions in the rate of unemployment. A more durable claim is that, although total spending on social welfare was constrained, the government improved targeting through means tests and introduced other innovative welfare programs such as family allowance supplements for low-income earners. This increased the redistributive impact of welfare spending and offset the rise in inequality in market incomes associated with policies of deregulation and privatisation.

Arguably, the Australian Labor government may be seen as having done relatively well in an unfavourable environment. Given the breakdown of Keynesian macroeconomic policy, the increasing irrelevance of economic development strategies based on tariff protection, the rising influence of financial markets and the fiscal demands created by increases in the demand for age pensions, unemployment benefits and publicly provided services such as health and education, any social democratic government would have faced a difficult task.

However, Labor’s rhetoric did not convey this message. Rather than presenting itself as adapting to undeniable realities while doing its best to protect its core constituency against the worst impacts of globalisation and competition, these two themes were embraced as the way of the future. In policy terms, the Labor government celebrated its successes in ‘opening up’ the Australian economy, and derided the policies of the 1950s and 1960s, a period remembered by most Australians as one of full employment and prosperity. At a personal level, the identification of leading Labor ministers with the wealthy beneficiaries of globalisation was too obvious to be ignored. By both opponents and supporters, Hawke and Keating are remembered primarily for ‘opening up the economy’, and not for innovations in social policy.

If I get time, I’ll post my assessment of some of the key personalities later on. In the meantime, you can read the views of many commentators on the Monday message board.