Three recent events tell the sorry tale. First, witness the orgy of mockery on Twitter and social media directed at Scott Morrison for the thought-crime of looking upon a Macca’s smart drive-thru in the United States. Morrison was attending an event promoting Australian jobs. That’s his job – to focus on Australian jobs. Second, witness the orgy of adulation granted to the 16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg’s address to the United Nations and a photo of her staring intently at US President Donald Trump. This on the back of 200,000-strong "climate strikes" to protest inaction by our government and governments globally. What have the protests achieved? How many climate agnostics or people who accept the science of climate change but worry about the costs – to their jobs, industries and living standards – have been activated? I suspect the majority of Australians and certainly the large bulk of the electorate who aren’t particularly ideological – would have looked upon the "strike" and wondered why these folks weren’t at work like them. I have heard reports that one blue-collar union has been hit by a number of resignations over their union’s public involvement. An Extinction Rebellion activist is arrested during a protest in Melbourne on Tuesday. Credit:AAP Australians see a climate circus rather than a serious movement for change that connects taking action with the creation of new jobs and industries around renewable energy. They hear the words "crisis" and "emergency" from progressives and they fear for their jobs. None of this climate denial or poo-pooing activism. The labour movement was built by activists who wanted to change the world and also, as many progressives forget, preserve their world – a world of dignified labour, well-paying, secure jobs and the ability to lead decent and meaningful lives. That’s how Labor needs to frame the climate debate today – in moral and economic terms.

Third, a fortnight ago, Labor’s Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers gave a fine "Light on the Hill" speech in Bathurst. He spoke directly to the need for Labor to reassert its economic credentials, of the threat of economic insecurity to individuals, families and the economy at large, and of the need to be fiscally responsible. For his troubles some Laborites assailed his speech as a "shift to the Right", as a capitulation to "neo-liberalism", and a "Liberal-lite" form of politics. I suspect most critics didn’t actually read the speech – and they should – and instead relied upon a headline in a newspaper reporting the speech. It’s symptomatic of an intellectually lazy, impractical mindset of activists who’d rather be ideologically pure than win elections and change Australia for the better. They no doubt idolise former Labor PM Gough Whitlam without realising that Gough lambasted such thinking in the late 1960s as he sought to modernise Labor and win power – “only the impotent are pure”. As I write in my forthcoming book, Getting the Blues: the Future of Australian Labor, Labor is as shockingly sclerotic as it was in the 1960s. It is hostile to new ideas and new people and stuck in a tired formula of policy announcements, speeches and talking head segments on Sky News or ABC. It won’t cut it anymore. The ALP can only revive if it opens up again to working people, becomes more dynamic, creative, idiosyncratic and democratic. Labor must become less progressive, inner-city middle-class in structure, culture and outlook. If the ALP can enshrine affirmative action quotas for MPs based upon gender, then it should be able to formally establish a new "working-class" quota system – a modest beginning might aim for 20 per cent of winnable seats. The aim should be to elect MPs without post-high school or tertiary education qualifications, or tertiary qualifications not acquired before age 25, and those who have worked in the workforce outside of politics. It would help avoid the three farcical recent events described above.