The Australian Labor Party (ALP) is the nation's oldest active political party.
It has contested state elections from 1891 and every federal election since Federation in 1901 and is proud of its long history fighting for workers.
(Transcript from World News Australia Radio)
The A-L-P is was largely created by trade unionists, and remains influenced by the broader labour movement.
Trade unions have been incorporated within the Party's formal structures.
Differing ideological beliefs have long been factionalised in the Labor Party.
Those known as the Socialist Left are said to believe in more socially progressive ideals, and those from the Right are said to be more economically liberal and focus less on social issues.
The trade unions are also factionally aligned, but are also commonly united on issues such as industrial relations policy.
Many of those regarded as traditional Labor voters have been the 'blue collar' male workforce - that is, those involved in jobs involving manual labour.
But Professor John Wanna (wonner) from the Australian National University says that line has been blurred over time and across the political divide.
"From the 1970s on combinations of economic crisis, globalisation, more educated populations. The parties have changed from those traditional models to becoming much more corporate entities and much more fighting over just the middle ground. Clearly there is a union side to the Labor Party and clearly there is a kind of small business side to the Liberal Party but if you stand back and look at them they are much more corporations. Their policies are relatively similar. Politics in the party sense has become more a sporting contest between two teams, rather than a competing set of visions and ideologies."
And it's this team sports approach that has worried Labor Party elder statesman and former Minister in the Hawke/Keating government and then in the first Rudd Labor government, John Faulkner (fork-nuh).
In 2011 Mr Faulkner warned his colleagues against the ALP's reliance on focus groups, the self-interest of party careerists and the unwillingness to tolerate debate.
"Dissent is contained behind closed doors. All potential embarrassment is avoided. I see it rather as a symptom of the anaemia that is draining the life from the Australian Labor Party, an apparent aversion to the unpredictability of democracy. Our changes in policy and direction seem arbitrary and startling. The party has now become so reliant on focus groups that it listens more to those who don't belong to it than to those who do. This... (applause) this makes membership a sacrifice of activism, not a part of it."
Professor Ian McAllister from the Australian National University says this criticism is fair.
He says focus groups shaping policy also set a dangerous precedent where voters decide exactly who to vote for based on opinion polls not policy.
"I think the circumstances of the Labor leadership over the last two or, three years that's created another circumstance in which people are focusing on the fortunes of the Labor Party. And then you have this constant drip of opinion polls, particularly Newspoll coming out every fortnight and people following it to see the fortunes of the parties."
John Wanna says part of the problem has been a lack of tangible, believable policy options from Labor.
Professor Wanna says the Labor brand has been damaged in recent years.
He says, in part, this springs from corruption woes within the New South Wales Labor Party, the move away from Labor in other states, and an enduring legacy harking back to the first Kevin Rudd-led Labor government.
"There was a groundswell of support for a change of government in 2007 but by about 2009, midway through 2009, there was a lot of criticism starting to appear about Rudd. Not just about his style announcing things, not following through. And that mood of governing from mid-09 on carried out throughout the Gillard period as well. And it seems to be going on now. That's damaged Labor a bit and Labor's done a lot of those and brought a lot of criticism of them."
Currently there are Labor governments in Tasmania, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.
