Political Party Ideology Analysis: ALP and Nationals, SWSP6143

This report provides an analysis of the political ideologies of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and The Nationals, focusing on their key policies and commitments. The ALP, a centre-left party, is examined for its focus on childcare subsidies, education, and socialist principles. The Nationals, representing regional interests, are analyzed for their emphasis on regional economies, secure communities, and environmental considerations. The report explores the parties' philosophies, political ideologies such as social democracy and regionalism, and their approaches to key issues. References to the ALP and Nationals websites provide the basis for this comparative analysis, highlighting their distinct platforms and priorities within the Australian political landscape.

SWSP6143: Public Policy and Civil
Society
Assessment 1 Part A
Early Feedback: Political party ideology in action

Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party (ALP) is also known as Labor. It is the most centre-left political
party in Australia. The election promises of this party are – they announced more generous
childcare subsidies, housing afford ability measures and the most important one is cheaper
medicines. They also thought for the workers of better payment (Alp.org.au, 2019). Labor made
commitments of spending 18.9 billion dollar to winning the federal election of 2022.
Basically the two promises of the Labor party are- Childcare and another one is Education.
Labor’s promises are as described below:
i. Childcare: The party promised to increase the subsidy rate of the Higher Child Care,
expand eligibility, and also extend the subsidy to outside of the school hour’s care. The
lowest income families would have up to 90% of their childcare fees subsidized.
ii. Education: Labor promised 146.5 million dollar over four years to fix the shortages of
teaching and also lift standards. Under its plan, almost 5000 high-achieving school
leavers who enter an education degree would receive an amount of money per annual.
The philosophy of government of the Labor Party – It proclaimed a socialist party, whose
principles are quite different from another parties. The principles included a guaranteed
minimum standard of daily living for each ad everyone, nationalization of industry, and huge
amount of taxation of large incomes and of wealth (Alp.org.au, 2019). The political ideology of
this party has maintained a stable liberal democratic political system under its Constitution. The
ideologies are Social democracy, Democratic Socialism and their political position is Centre-
left.
The National Party of Australia
The National Party of Australia (NPA) is also stands for The Nationals or The Nats. It is an
Australian political party. Basically its represents grazers, farmers, and regional voters generally,
it began as the Australian Country Party (ACP) in 1920 at a federal level.

The two promises of the NPA are to build stronger regional economies and secure communities,
to deliver opportunity and prosperity for all the residents of Australia and also ensuring a well
and good environment (Nationals.org.au, 2020). They also provide security for their own
communities and their families, through the preservation of decent health, social and economic
welfare and safety.
The Nationals commitment to the national interest does not stop there. They provide a
considered and commonsense perspective on all the elements of their own government policy.
The policy platform, and their approach to daily political issues, is based on a triple bottom line
of social, economic and environmental considerations (Nationals.org.au, 2020). The philosophy
of The Nationals is dedicated to delivering future security, opportunity for all the residents of
Australia. Their targeted policies that focus on stronger regional economics, secure communities,
a very good environment and the most important is higher standard of living. Regionalism,
Ethnocentrism is the political ideologies of The National Party of Australia.

References
Alp.org.au. (2019). Labor's plan for a better future. Retrieved 7 August 2022, from
https://www.alp.org.au/we-stand-for/policies-and-commitments/.
Nationals.org.au. (2020). What We Stand For - The Nationals. The Nationals. Retrieved 7
August 2022, from https://nationals.org.au/about/what-we-stand-for/.