Three weeks ago my paternal grandfather died. Julia Gillard was still the prime minister, but it wasn’t looking good.

During the war, my grandfather was posted to the 2/4 Field Squadron of the Royal Australian Engineers. He was a prominent member of the Australian Metal Workers Union, State President of the Railways Returned Servicemen’s Branch and a member of the Labor party.

An old school Labor man of tough working class stock, he was fond of Gillard. She was productive, allied with the unions and had strong Labor credentials. He believed that the press had crucified her. I asked my dad what Pa would have made of the events leading up to the spill: "he would have been disgusted." This is not the Labor party my grandfather knew.

Gillard’s loss resulted from a deranged, poll-obsessed media, deeply ingrained sexism, and a white-anting Kevin Rudd tearing Gillard’s Labor apart like a chest-burster from Alien. For some time, Labor has suffered from a loss of identity as its traditional working class voter base has diminished.

Tony Abbott has been winning over the lower and middle classes, and much of the public bemoans that it cannot tell the two parties apart. Whether the fault is identical policies (it’s not), or the result of a disenchanted, apathetic public, Labor has failed to distinguish its values as it once had.

The Liberal party seeks to make class distinctions invisible to the lower and working classes by attacking the policies that would directly benefit them, whilst serving only the wealthy. Abbott doesn’t even need to pretend he’s mates with the average Aussie worker if he pretends we’re all economic equals.

In 2004, Labor attempted to redirect funds from the most advantaged schools in Australia to the most disadvantaged, resulting in hysterical criticism ("class warfare") from the Liberals and much of the media. The same debate has arisen in the wake of the Gonski reforms, and most notably – Abbott’s dead horse – the carbon tax. Commentators called the tax "national suicide," when realistically it is a minor inconvenience for the wealthy. Labor bowed to pressure over the resource super profit tax after the mining industry and Liberals launched an aggressive and effective ad campaign.

To call policies that seek to redress existing inequalities "class warfare" is to deny the realities of class, privilege and inequality in Australia – much like accusing Gillard of playing a "gender card" denies the reality of sexism and gender inequality. It also stifles any radical policies that could genuinely enact change for the better.

Historically, Labor has brought in essential reforms that benefited lower and working classes, including universal health care, a Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme, Legal Aid, and national superannuation scheme. The party’s national platform states the party’s commitment to "a more equitable distribution of assets, income and employment."

The public says it can no longer see this Labor. The Liberals are so adept at stoking national fears (boats and taxes) that Labor’s sound policies are lost in the chaos of opposition rhetoric and misinformation.

As Rudd gains ground in the polls, it is only Abbott’s conservative values that keep many voters on Labor’s side. It is now a question of the lesser of two evils. Labor’s drift to the right goes on: Rudd continues to tighten border security, Gillard infamously cut the single parenting payment (which Rudd has sought to redress), and the NT Intervention remains.

Labor has never before seemed so far from Chifley’s 1949 Light on the Hill speech, in which it is not "putting an extra sixpence into somebody's pocket, or making somebody prime minister or premier, but as a movement bringing something better to the people, better standards of living, greater happiness to the mass of the people."

If Rudd is not interested in bringing back the Labor party of old, the one my grandfather would remember, then he needs to better sell Labor’s policies as beneficial to all Australians, not just the working classes.

Driving to my grandfather’s funeral from my parents’ house in Werribee, past Gillard’s electoral office in Synnot Street, I felt as if two eras had ended. I have never been a Labor voter – Greens, thanks – but I still felt a loss for a party that has been, at some points in history, responsible for real social reform.