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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s record election win was underpinned by a shallow base of support, and the government’s huge majority could quickly vanish due to the fragile state of modern Labor, the party’s president has warned.
The frank admission by Wayne Swan has fuelled what the former treasurer labelled an urgent mission to increase the party’s membership from the low 50,000s – fewer than all but two AFL teams – to 65,000 over the next four years.
Party president Wayne Swan with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in 2023.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Labor’s powerful national executive quietly launched a new party reform agenda after the record 94-seat win at the May election. Labor won the election with a 34.5 per cent primary vote – just 2 points greater than its lowest vote in generations. The Coalition’s primary vote collapsed to 31.8 per cent.
“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,” Swan said in a speech to party supporters at the Nambour RSL on the Sunshine Coast on Saturday.
“It’s worth remembering in 2022 we recorded the lowest primary votes 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.
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“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 … [and] we’ve simply failed to secure strong support from lower-income, lower-educated Australians.
“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.”
The prime minister has been triumphant about Labor’s huge win, yet Swan’s cautionary tone helps explain Albanese’s reluctance to embrace calls to use his mandate to adopt a more progressive and zealous style.
Around the cabinet table, 2025 was viewed as a year that should be preoccupied with a focus on delivering election promises. Next year, senior ministers say privately, the government will shift focus to a new agenda that might include controversial tax changes.
Many centre-left and centre-right parties which have governed in Western democracies in recent decades have either been cannibalised or face challenges from populist parties.
The Liberal Party’s membership base is dwindling and right-wing politics in Australia is threatening to fracture. This masthead reported on July 28 that during the brief Coalition split, Liberal MPs were privately discussing the prospect of creating a new city-based party to avoid compromises with the Nationals. Former prime minister Scott Morrison canvassed the idea among his close colleagues after the 2022 election.
Swan said it was a sad fact that the biggest bloc of Labor members were those who, like him, became activists during the Whitlam era in the 1970s.
While Albanese’s Labor was ascendant, Swan said, he noted: “We have seen time and time again that complacency is the handmaiden of decline.
“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.
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“To continue to be successful, we must build our movement and make our party much more vibrant, larger and imaginative. Contemporary democracy requires more boots on the ground. Activists, organisers and agitators who are active and more engaged with their local communities.”
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