ALP president urges party to dispel the ‘myth’ of trickle-down economics and not to blame election defeat on ‘any one person or policy’ • Inequality is growing in Australia. Labor’s mission is to create a fairer society

The ALP president Wayne Swan has declared the party needs to stay the course with economic policy that combats inequality as it regroups after the election defeat, because that agenda remains “Labor’s sacred mission”.

As senior figures position ahead of a campaign review, and ahead of a policy reboot telegraphed by the new leader, Anthony Albanese, putting more emphasis on economic growth and aspiration, Swan argued in a column for Guardian Australia the election on 18 May was not a huge setback.

Cautioning colleagues not to overreact or attribute blame for the defeat “to any one person or policy”, Swan said the election was “actually a close run thing” where primary vote swings were recorded against both the Coalition and Labor “although our poor showing in Western Australia and Queensland made victory almost impossible”.

Inequality is growing in Australia. Labor's mission is to create a fairer society | Wayne Swan Read more

“Although the loss was a shock, our response must be measured and considered, starting with our review,” he said.

Albanese has argued Labor needs to adjust its pitch in the coming term, talking more about aspiration as well as fairness, and appealing to “people who want to get on in life and want a better life for themselves”. The Labor leader said he wanted “to appeal to people who are successful as well as lift people up who aren’t as successful”.

Swan, who was influential in the framing of Labor’s election economic policies as a former treasurer in the Rudd/Gillard era, and because of a full-throated campaign he ran internally and externally against neoliberalism, said Labor needed to learn the lessons of the election, but not turn its back on inequality as an issue as it overhauled its policy offering.

“In confronting economic policy we must not turn our backs on the fact that inequality is a growing problem in Australia,” Swan said. “Labor’s sacred mission is to fight it and create a fairer society.

“We must continue to oppose the trickle-down economics that is causing so much havoc around the world. The so-called rising tide is not lifting all boats and corporate tax cuts are not lifting workers’ wages. These are myths and we must continue to dispel them.”

He said the Coalition would attempt to frame Labor’s loss as a consequence of “class war rhetoric” and pursuing the politics of envy, arguing that Bill Shorten lost because the party was positioned too far to the left, and surrendered the middle ground.

Swan contended that was not the reason for the defeat. “Swinging voters in middle-income areas stayed with Labor, upper-middle-income voters in our cities shifted towards Labor, but lower-income voters in regional and outer-suburban areas shifted to the Coalition.”

He said false claims that Labor would implement a 40% death tax was also a factor in the contest. “Aspirational middle-income voters did not desert us, or at least not as decisively as is being repeatedly asserted. The truth is much messier and we have to address it.

“We can’t let the conservative trickle-downers rewrite history, nor can we go into denial about what went wrong,” he said.

'It felt like a big tide': how the death tax lie infected Australia's election campaign Read more

Swan said questions for the looming campaign review should include whether Labor lost because of Shorten’s “low approval ratings and the relentlessly negative attacks made on him by the Murdoch press, the Coalition and Clive Palmer”; or whether there was a problem with the policy offering, either in substance or marketing; or whether “we were simply outgunned in our television, radio, and social media campaigns”.

He also queried whether Labor had fallen behind its opponents with campaign techniques.

Swan said Labor would need to look in the future to better sell its economic program because “our opponents’ claims that our mainstream tax policies were anti-business and anti-aspiration were simply wrong”.

He said the failure to sell a positive economic story about the future, and failure to capitalise on Labor’s record keeping Australia out of recession during the period he was treasurer, “allowed our opponents to put undue spotlight on our policies on things like negative gearing and franking credits, making us a large policy target”.

“The next three years must be used to show that we have a positive economic strategy that will make the nation wealthier and in doing so provide the means for reducing inequality and unfairness.”