By Phillip Coorey CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
The former Labor MP Maxine McKew has attributed Labor's poor showing at the federal election to a lack of courage and creativity, too great a gap between promise and delivery, and for behaving like ''control freaks''.
Launching a book of essays entitled More Than Luck last night, Ms McKew said 2010 had been '' a dog of a year for Labor'' and the party's bout of introspection was akin to ''cannibalising our own''.
Maxine McKew ... "cannibalising our own".Credit: Anthony Johnson
Ms McKew became a Labor hero by taking Bennelong from John Howard in 2007 but lost the seat to the Liberal John Alexander on August 21 after just one term. She has stayed largely silent since.
Last night, Ms McKew said Labor had scored considerable achievements in its first term. She listed the increase to the pension, the first paid parental leave scheme, re-engineering the childcare industry, apologising to the stolen generation and emerging from the global financial crisis with a 5 per cent unemployment rate.
However, these achievements were masked by broader problems. She said voters abandoned Labor because ''we lacked two things, courage and creativity''.
Voters ''reward gutsy behaviour'' but ''our credibility crashed when we walked away from the emissions trading scheme''.
''If you're prepared to be so cavalier about something that you said was so important to the survival of the planet … then what else are you prepared to ditch?'' she asked.
Ms McKew said ''we also lost because we were control freaks and ironically, in the end, we lost control of everything''.
''Had we had a bit more faith in our individual and collective capacity to transform the debate, we might not have been left clinging to office.
''We were a government obsessed with messages, with talking points and PowerPoints.''
Ms McKew said the way back for Labor was to ''get back to the main story'' of managing prosperity for everyone. This involved economic reforms, immigration, and pricing water and carbon.
Ms McKew's contribution is one of several observations about the state of Labor by its past and present members.
Recently, Greg Combet, the Minister for Climate, spoke of the need to eschew focus group politics and embrace equity, social justice and compassion as a means of recovering votes.
The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, said this week Labor should not pander to the left but repair its fracturing base by creating prosperity and opportunity.
Yesterday, Mr Swan said the best way to deflect the opposition's criticism that the government was being led by the Greens was to concentrate on the economy.
He cited ''bread and butter issues of jobs and job security, the conditions of jobs and the capacity to access affordable health, education and housing''.
There is a growing push from the Labor Left for the party to move towards policies such as gay marriage.
Mr Swan said there was nothing wrong with discussing such issues but not at the exclusion of other issues.