Beyond Belief

In Beyond Belief, John Button examines what has gone wrong with the Labor Party. What has happened to the faith of the True Believers, and why is the ALP struggling to recruit new members? He offers a tough-minded analysis of what went wrong in the last election and questions why the Labor Party has turned its back on its destiny as a party of reform.

Here is a compelling account of the factions that seem to stand for nothing but their own power bases, and the unions who both give and gain little from the ALP. In a withering analysis, John Button scrutinises the quality of Labor members and the short-sightedness of a party abandoning ideas. This is an essay by a man who still believes in Chifley's light on the hill but who thinks the only hope lies with New Believers.

Beyond Belief represents one of the most disheartening accounts of a great political party this country has seen. This is the Australian Labor Party seen from the perspective of an elder statesman who has an absolute belief in the moral superiority of the Labor cause but who seriously doubts whether the ALP will ever achieve government again and distinctly implies that in its present state, it is not fit for it. - Peter Craven, Introduction

After the election debacle, some people blamed the Tampa and September 11. But the simple fact is that the ALP had not built an adequate policy profile or generated sufficient enthusiasm and respect for its style of politics. Without these, it had no hope of differentiating its position on refugees and asylum seekers from the government's when this became the key issue of the election. - John Button, Beyond Belief

This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 5, Girt by Sea, from Alison Broinowski, Gerard Henderson, John Hirst, Philip Ruddock, Angela Shanahan, Robyn Spencer, and Mungo MacCallum.