Australian labor right

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 is currently the dominant faction in the Labor party, with current Labor leader, Mark Latham, and a majority of the shadow Ministers coming from this faction.

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 serious issues of policy, in particular economics.