Labor’s federal president, Wayne Swan, says characterising centre left and centrist government policies with authoritarian government actions was damaging “to the social democratic cause”.

The former treasurer, who was speaking to Labor supporters in Queensland a week out from the 30th anniversary of Wayne Goss’s election win which swept Labor to power in the sunshine state following more than three decades in the political wilderness, said it was unfair to compare the Palaszczuk government’s measures against climate protesters to the crackdowns of the Bjelke-Petersen era.

“Ridiculous and damaging characterisations of [Wayne] Goss government legislation enabling and protecting protesters and protests and characterisations of the Palaszczuk government as a throwback to the authoritarian Bjelke-Petersen era are wildly inaccurate and damaging to the social democratic cause.

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“On climate change and democratic rights, Labor in this state has an enviable record and such ill-informed criticisms make it hard for a party of the centre-left to hold the line against the radical right who have largely taken over conservative parties in Queensland and nationally.”

Despite the criticism, Swan said Labor had reason to remain optimistic about electoral success.

He warned the party needed to react to changes in voter sentiment and could no longer assume “economic discontent will push political support our way”, adding that Labor needed to focus on matters of “economic democracy”, including how wealth was created and distributed.

Swan said Labor was right at the previous election “when we argued for a fair distribution of wealth and when we argued to stand up on a pivotal issue like climate”, but acknowledged the party made mistakes.

“We may not have gotten every bit of messaging and campaigning right, and our defences could have been constructed better, but we were, where it mattered, when it mattered. And we will be again in the future. That’s in our DNA,” he said.

“Labor didn’t do enough to defend our vulnerabilities on tax and climate and our policies were ruthlessly demonised by the ‘surround sound state media’ of the Murdoch press and the biggest advertising spend ever seen by a single plutocrat in the modern history of western elections.

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“… I firmly believe we didn’t focus enough on defending our vulnerabilities, especially on tax measures, and the negative characterisations of Labor’s economic management credentials.”

Moving forward, Swan said Labor needed to hold firm to its core values, even as it navigated the new political sphere.

“I agree with the election review, that we can not retreat on the progressive shape of our agenda on inequality and climate change,” he said.

“But we are living in a world where the right’s success in demonising the whole political class depletes the reservoir of trust progressive parties rely on to shape and win a mandate for change.

“In a world of diminished voter trust, progressives must start with a core set of saleable intelligent reforms that begin to turn back the tide – reforms that build political capital for the new tranche of reforms and the one after that. That’s been the experience of all our post-war Labor governments.

“I would suggest to party members in particular, that the lesson of this period, as we are increasingly surrounded by authoritarian right-wing mini-Johs, is we can win the battle of ideas once again and be on the right side of history. Federally, the conservative agenda of the past is with us again, and it’s knocking on our door in this state.”