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The Labor Right Faction of the Australian Labor Party (the Right) make up the more economically liberal and socially conservative members of the ALP. The Right claims to represent the social democratic (as opposed to socialist) element within the party.
The Right is currently the dominant faction in the Labor party, with former Labor leader, Mark Latham, and a majority of the shadow Ministers coming from this faction. The faction also holds a majority on the party's National Executive. The faction has 38 of the 87 Federal Labor MP's.
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 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. 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 irresponsible party. In addition, they stress the need to maintain a broad constituent base that includes the "aspirational voters" of middle Australia.
Current members of the Labor Right
Annette Ellis
Chris Bowen, Sharon Bird, Tony Burke, Justine Elliott, Joel Fitzgibbon, Michael Forshaw, Michael Hatton, Steve Hutchins, Julia Irwin, Rob McClelland, John Murphy, Roger Price, Ursula Stevens.
Arch Bevis, Craig Emerson, John Hogg, Joe Ludwig, Bernie Ripoll, Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan.
Geoff Buckland, Kate Ellis.
Kay Denman,
Anna Burke, Anthony Byrne, Jacinta Collins, Stephen Conroy, Simon Crean, Michael Danby, Robert Ray, Nicola Roxon, Kelvin Thomson.
Kim Beazley, Mark Bishop, Graham Edwards, Stephen Smith, Ruth Webber.
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