‘Should Israel refer to Australia as occupied Aboriginal territory?’ asked Stephen Flatow in the Jerusalem Post on 13 August.Flatow asked the question because the Albanese government has announced that it will resume using the term ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’.

Flatow points out that Jerusalem, which the Albanese government ceased to recognise as the capital of Israel last October, has been the holiest city of the Jews since the 10th century BC. Palestine was a name imposed by the Roman conquerors after the Jewish-Roman wars (66-136AD) to efface the Jewish identity of Judea which dated back to the Kingdom of Judah established in the 6th century BC.

‘If you want to find some genuinely occupied territory, look no further than the country of Australia,’ argues Flatow. ‘“Occupied Territories?” “Illegal settlers?” Australia’s Labor party government ought to take a look in the mirror before hurling false and insulting accusations at Israel,’ he writes.

Flatow’s only error is imagining that his accusation that Australia is illegally occupied would insult or surprise Australia’s Prime Minister or his comrades.

Albanese presides over the most left-wing government in Australia in a generation. It is largely because the Western world has shifted so dramatically to the left and become so authoritarian and intolerant of free speech that the political orientation of the Australian government has escaped greater comment.

While the timing of the slap in the face to our ally is conveniently calculated to still be smarting by the time Labor’s National Conference convenes on Thursday, it is wrong to imagine that it is the advent of the conference that is driving the charge left.

Albanese has always been a stalwart of the left faction but he is loyally supported by the right faction which has always supported the leader. The right wing of the Labor party has always been driven by the sort of pragmatism best summed up by Graham Richardson’s motto, ‘Whatever it takes’.

With a left-wing prime minister and a world where pandemic panic and climate catastrophism have been used to justify economically ruinous policies, authoritarianism and censorship, the right wing of the Labor party has pragmatically adjusted to the policy parameters of the times.

Labor’s 2021 National Platform proves the point. For example, on the Voice, the Prime Minister is doing his best to say different things to different people but the National Platform is unequivocal – ‘Labor supports all elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, including a constitutionally enshrined Voice to parliament, a Makarrata Commission for agreement-making and a national process of truth-telling.’

The Voice is anti-democratic, empowering a tiny group to speak for all Aboriginal people including to negotiate reparations and a treaty, but that should surprise no one because Marxists scorn bourgeois democracy as a deception of the ruling class. That’s why co-architect of the Voice, Thomas Mayo paid his respects to ‘the elders of the Communist party who I think without a doubt have played a very important role in our activism’.

The whole point of creating a Voice to parliament is to create a partner with whom Albanese can negotiate a treaty and to whom he can hand over an Aboriginal sovereign state. And if the ‘partners’ in this project give any indication of the future character of this state it will probably recognise China before it recognises either Australia or Israel.

What is interesting about the government is not just that it is attempting to mainstream the ideas of communists but that so many erstwhile stalwarts of the party’s right-wing are channelling their inner-lefties.

Most people become more hardheaded and right-wing as they age and take on greater financial and social responsibilities but some people who reach the pinnacle of power and then move on become more leftist in their twilight years.

On Israel, with a few notable exceptions, Labor has been shifting leftwards. Former NSW premier Bob Carr, also of the NSW right, long ago moved from a pro-Israel to a pro-Palestinian position. Former foreign minister Gareth Evans, of the Victorian Centre Unity faction, has been pro-Palestine for a long time. Tony Burke, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and for the Arts, also of the NSW Right, is pro-Palestine.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating, who led the NSW Right in his day, has become increasingly shrill in his anti-American and pro-Chinese stances and is leading the charge against Aukus. As a result, the conference will be a Keating-free zone. It is Labor’s commitment to this Morrison government initiative that gives the government a mainstream appearance. But in almost all other policy areas it has veered sharply to the left.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has adopted a national wellbeing framework, the first step in the transition to a ‘wellbeing economy’, an economic approach endorsed by the Club of Rome and expounded in an updated version of The Limits to Growth called Earth4All. This is the view that resources are finite and their consumption is unsustainable. It has been discredited by economists such as Julian Simon who point out that what is considered a resource changes over time. No one should be surprised that former NSW treasurer Matt Kean also adopted a ‘wellbeing’ approach.

One thing Labor doesn’t worry about exhausting is taxpayer dollars. Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen, also of the NSW Right, has adopted a pursuit of renewable energy that is clobbering the economy and the environment at huge cost.

Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland, also from the NSW Right, has introduced the Misinformation Bill that will pressure social media companies to censor speech that runs counter to government policy for fear of facing massive fines. It is essentially the bill tabled by her predecessor, but worse.

Minister for Health and Aged Care Mark Butler is a member of the left faction so there is little surprise that he is comfortable allowing the World Health Organisation to take a dictatorial role in pandemic management.

Given how far to the left the Liberal party moved while it was in government adopting a net-zero goal and tabling a Misinformation bill it is hardly surprising that Labor is dishing out more of the same.