[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-595404-105":59,"doc-detail-595404-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","labors-poor-form-article","Labor’s Poor Form - Article","","An Australian politics commentary by David Burchell responding to the October election result that left the federal ALP in deep trouble. The piece compares Labor’s leader Mark Latham to a suburban cricketer out of form and describes how instant experts gave conflicting advice. It argues that the party’s messaging and policy framing were misjudged, and that voters ultimately chose stability, judging economic competence through lived experience rather than macroeconomic details.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/labors-poor-form-article/595404/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/labors-poor-form-article/595404.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Blitz","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-29","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":8},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What does Burchell argue about the ALP’s post-election situation?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"He argues the ALP is in its deepest malaise since the 1950s, reflecting on a “policy vortex” affecting Labor right now.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"Why does Burchell criticize the advice and commentary after the election?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"He says the advice from op-ed pages and party office became mutually contradictory and often unhelpful, like a torrent that hinders rather than improves.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does the article explain why Labor lost in October?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"It links the loss to voters choosing stability over adventure in economic policy, especially in areas where mortgagee families were most numerous and stretched.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},595404,1792081079,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":8,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":14,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":129,"read_time":24,"preview_page_count":4},24464137899374,"https://us-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_3d24733baf745e90a7e4bdd5f77d97b2","A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S R E V I E W  \nLabor’s Poor Form  \nDavid Burchell  \nThe October election result has thrown the federal ALP into arguably its deepest malaise since the 1950s. In a short postelection commentary David Burchell reflects on the policy vortex that is Labor right now, and argues against a purely  \neconomy-minded policy shift.  \nEvery lower-grade suburban cricketer knows the feeling. You got out for a duck, again, and everybody has advice. Your bat’snot coming through straight. Your backlift’s too high. You’re crouching too much. The eyes aren’t level. On and on the advice comes, like a torrent. Nets practice becomes like a session on the couch. No doubt everybody means well, but the cumulative effect is more to hinder than to help. Maybe you need to start again from scratch? New stance, new bat, new everything? Pretty soon your forward defensive stroke is so laboured it looks like Groucho Marx’s walk.  \nRight now Labor leader Mark Latham is just such a suburban cricketer, albeit with a much higher level of stress. Labor got out for a golden duck in October this year, and suddenly everyone from the op-ed pages toALP head office was an expert critic. Labor’s pre-election strategy was misguided,amateurish and wrong-headed. Policy was released too late and aimed atthe wrong people. The polling was wrong, and the advertising scattergun. The lines of communication between head office and the leader were down.  \nLike the star batsman out of form,the leader who’s just been thumped is fair game for everybody’s sharp tongue. For weeks after the election the shadow ministry wasn’t so much a leaking sieve as a spraying garden-sprinkler. Front-benchers abandoned ship and discharged ballast at the same time. Latham was freely described (off the record) by his supposed colleagues as wacky, paranoiac and out of control. People watched his eyes for tell-tale signs of self-doubt – the same look cricketers have when they fear the next ball’s bound to bowl them.  \nNever mind that much of the advice has been mutually contradictory and even unhelpful. According to Barry Jones Labor should have appealed more to conscience-driven inner-city professionals, such as some of the readers of this journal. (And so Latham went in sackcloth and ashes to Leichhardt in Sydney’s inner-west to placate the so-called ‘Balmain basket-weavers’). AWU secretary Bill Shorten, on the other hand, reckoned that Labor should ditch the‘latte set’and head back to the suburbs. (And so Latham mused on the‘new army of contractors’in the upward-mobile outer suburbs in our major cities) . The Fairfax columnist Gerard Henderson pooh-poohed Latham’s devotion to Bill Clinton-style‘triangulation’politics,and almost  \nLabor’s Poor Form, David Burchell  \nin the same breath counselled Latham to return to ‘move to the centre’ and to ‘focus on the broad economy’. As though Bill (‘It’s the Economy, Stupid’) Clinton ever forgot the importance of economic policy, or was prone to heading off in wild deviations to the romantic Left.  \nBut if there’s one thing all the instant experts, from Lindsay Tanner through to Glenn Milne, seem to agree on, it’s that Latham’s pre-election focus on what are vaguely termed‘touchy-feely’ or ‘soft social’ issues was a fatal error. What voters really want to hear about, so the story goes, is not warm and cuddly issues like child-rearing or the ‘crisis of masculinity’, but Labor’s hard-edged policies on international trade, industrial relations reform and competition policy.  \nWell, yes and no. The trouble with this response is that it conflates two distinct issues: on the one hand, a recognition of the understandable preoccupation of voters with the financial security of themselves and their families, and on the other the supposed status of macroeconomic policy as the only political ‘game in town’. Yet, in truth, these are quite different questions. It’s pretty well undeniable that Labor lost in October in large measure becau","cbCaiq53gI2Ko9YX","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiq53gI2Ko9YX","pdf",149641,"English","# Labor’s Poor Form\n## Post-election malaise and conflicting expert advice\n## Policy messaging vs. voter priorities\n## Economic policy judged through lived experience","[{\"question\":\"What does Burchell argue about the ALP’s post-election situation?\",\"answer\":\"He argues the ALP is in its deepest malaise since the 1950s, reflecting on a “policy vortex” affecting Labor right now.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does Burchell criticize the advice and commentary after the election?\",\"answer\":\"He says the advice from op-ed pages and party office became mutually contradictory and often unhelpful, like a torrent that hinders rather than improves.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article explain why Labor lost in October?\",\"answer\":\"It links the loss to voters choosing stability over adventure in economic policy, especially in areas where mortgagee families were most numerous and stretched.\"}]","Labor’s Poor Form - Article | PDF"]