The Exploration Of Neoliberalism By The Australian Labor Party Government(1983-1996)

In western capitalist countries,neoliberal governance schemes are often promoted and implemented by the right-wing Conservative Party.However,Australia’s neoliberal governance schemes have already taken shape before the right-wing Coalition government came to power in 1996.The Australian Labor Government from 1983 to 1996 did not issue policies with neoliberal color sporadically,but continuously and systematically carried out neoliberal policies with different contents for each class.Through the continuous exploration and practice of neoliberal policies,the Australian Labor government finally formed a set of local and systematic neoliberal governance scheme,which will escort the steady economic development of Australia in the next two decades.This paper analyzes the neoliberal policies of the Australian Labor Government during 1983-1996 from three aspects: the content,implementation effect and evaluation of the neoliberal policies adopted by the Labor government on the working class,the bourgeoisie and the public service sector.In terms of the policies and attitudes towards the working class,the Labor government signed a series of agreements with the working class to increase the social wages of the workers,so that the workers agreed that the government suppressed their direct wages,and gradually linked the wages of the workers with the production efficiency.Meanwhile,the Labor government also suppressed the radical labor movement.Aiming at the bourgeoisie,the Labor government affirmed its status by holding the national high-level meeting of economic leaders,emphasized the importance of enterprises in the process of national economic operation,realized financial liberalization reform by reducing intervention,gave full freedom to the market,and enabled enterprises to operate and make profits according to the will of capitalists.In addition,the Labor government restructured the public service sector and carried out market-oriented and privatization policy reforms on state-owned enterprises and public service sectors.The neoliberal policies of the Australian Labor government optimized the government’s financial distribution and structural functions,promoted the recovery and development of the Australian economy,but also made the working class fall into a disadvantageous situation to some extent.Despite the continuous opposition to the neoliberal policies,the Labor Party finally stepped down because it failed to deal with the relationship between efficiency and fairness,but in terms of the recovery and prosperity of Australian economy,the future development and direction of the country and other issues,the Labor government’s neoliberal policies have had a positive and far-reaching impact on Australia.Compared with previous Labour government economic policies,neoliberal policies emphasize the importance of free markets and social capital;Compared with the neoliberal policies adopted by the Reagan and Thatcher governments to fight against the workers by class struggle,the neoliberal policies of the Australian Labor government are more moderate and have the characteristics of easing the conflicts between classes.At the same time,neoliberal policies are also spurring the Labor Party to reposition and transform itself.On the one hand,the neoliberal policies of the Labor government promoted Australia to integrate more into the world,on the other hand,it caused a series of social problems.This paper argues that the neoliberal governance scheme of the Labor government is gradually improved with the implementation of specific policies and the level of economic development.It is a policy that the Labor government has to adopt in response to the weak economy.It is a passive promotion of the development of neoliberalism in Australia,or an unconscious rehearsal and rehearsal for the third way of the Australian Labor Party.At the same time,the neoliberal policies of the Labor government also provided the experience for the development direction of the Albanese Labor government that just came to power.Due to the inherent malpractices of the capitalist system,the Labor Party,as a social Democratic Party in capitalist countries,cannot solve the cyclical economic crisis of capitalism once and for all.Therefore,the neoliberal policy implemented by the Labor Party is actually an internal reform and transformation of the Labor Party,which is an attempt to gradually weaken the class nature of the Labor Party and release the shackles of class struggle.