| Genre: | Political docuseries |
| Director: | Sue Spencer |
| Narrator: | Kathy Bowlen |
| Country: | Australia |
| Language: | English |
| Num Seasons: | 1 |
| Num Episodes: | 5 |
| Executive Producer: | Paul Williams |
| Producer: | Sue Spencer |
| Runtime: | 58 mintues |
| Network: | ABC TV |
Labor in Power is a 1993 Australian documentary series about the first ten years of Labor's Hawke-Keating government produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It was divided into five one-hour episodes and originally broadcast from 8 June to 6 July 1993.
The documentary was filmed with the interviewees anticipating electoral defeat in the 1993 Australian federal election.[1] [2] The final ten minutes of the last episode document the surprise result that returned the Keating government for a final term. The longest period the century-old Australian Labor Party spent in office was the 13-year Hawke-Keating government.
A long-running thread within the series is the secret Kirribilli Agreement of 1988 and the expectations it created. Episode 1 covers both the 1982 Australian Labor Party leadership spill and 1983 Australian Labor Party leadership spill which preceded the 1983 Australian federal election in which Labor came to power, and the following 1984 Australian federal election in which Labor's majority reduced. Episode 4 covers Early 1990s recession in Australia, and Episode 5 includes events of the Gulf War, reflections on the June 1991 Australian Labor Party leadership spill and December 1991 Australian Labor Party leadership spill, then the subsequent 1993 Australian federal election.
Although produced before the end of the period in which Labor was in power, producing long-format retrospectives on Australian Federal governments became an ironclad ABC tradition. Labor in Power was followed in subsequent decades by The Howard Years, The Killing Season and Nemesis, the ABC having learnt from Labor in Power in not producing such documentaries until after a government's defeat.[3]