The Age reports that Labor Senator Linda Kirk is about to be disendorsed from Labor’s South Australian Senate ticket as a result of the Shop Assistants Union (SDA) withdrawing its support for her.
The disendorsement is in retaliation for Senator Kirk’s positions in Senate conscience votes on therapeutic cloning and RU486, which are at odds with the Catholic Right line of the SDA leadership.
Put simply, Labor allows its members a “conscience vote” on issues like this, and on abortion, basically to accommodate the religious social conservatives in its ranks who don’t want to be bound by the pro-choice planks in the party platform. When I was an ALP member I did not support the right of Labor parliamentarians to a “conscience vote” (really a free vote) on such issues. Be that as it may, I am also a great believer in Marx’s dictum “no rights without responsibilities, no responsibilities without rights”. If the SDA leaders and those who think like them are going to insist that their conscientious beliefs on “life” issues be respected to the point of allowing them a free vote on such matters, they morally oblige themselves to similarly respect the rights of others to vote in accordance with their - different - conscientious beliefs. That the SDA leadership is prepared to use its numbers to punish Linda Kirk for doing as much and no more is unconscionable hypocrisy.
This is completely outrageous. I do hope Labor women will kick up an unholy stink and bring this to wider public attention.
As you know, I have pretty firm views on all of those issues. But I don’t think that this is “hypocrisy�, even though I support Linda Kirk and don’t want to see her gone.
Factions give support to people who they believe will represent their interests, in the same way that we vote for Senators who will represent our interests. It isn’t hypocrisy to choose to support someone whose ideas you agree with.
Secondly, she isn’t being “dumped� in the sense of being sacked. She is, like all Labor MPs and candidates, going through a preselection process, in which she must convince enough party members that she is the best candidate for the job.
That said, it absolutely sucks that she will probably lose the job. Linda Kirk is an incredibly intelligent and hardworking Senator, who will be a great loss to the ALP.
In response to your comments about conscience votes – again, I sympathise with your view, but it’s important to remember that conscience votes work both ways. There are some states in which the pro-lifers in the ALP at times have the majority. Without a conscience vote, pro-choicers would be forced to vote against abortion. I wish we could force them all to vote my way, but that’s never going to happen, and I’m able to live with a solution that keeps the broad church in one party.
Grace - am I to take it you believe this to be completely AND utterly outrageous?
Occam’s razor here. Don Farrell wants to be a Senator, thus the Right faction existing Senator has to be displaced. Isn’t it less a case of her being dumped in retaliation for her votes than simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Is Farrell’s desire to be a Senator purely inspired by disagreement with Kirk’s votes? Given that he once ran for a seat Labor was expected to win (long before Kirk even joined the ALP) it seems he has always aspired to a political career eventually.
LOL FDB, I had some trouble posting, lost my text and retyped. And yes, I am utterly and completely outraged, redundancy notwithstanding.
Another reason for the watering down of Union power in favor of individual members in the ALP.
Oh to dream the impossible dream.
What are you talking about, blacklight? It’s getting more and more rare in ALP preselections that candidates are supported, or lose support, for policy reasons.
Agree or not, surely it is a positive sign. It certainly isn’t an example of the problems of union power in the party.
‘It certainly isn’t an example of the problems of union power in the party’
Anna I find that difficult to believe given the mention of the SDA in the post. This seems to me to have secretary Joe de Bruin’s fingerprints all over it, and I’m sure LP readers don’t need a potted history of secretary-for-life of the huge but somnambulant shoppies union to explain. I can recall a previous LP post mentioning how Joe managed to get some 23 pics of himself in the union rag.
I’m just waiting now for the Oz to run a pic of WA heavies Joe MacDonald and Kevin Reynolds AND Joe as yet another example of who runs the ALP.
I hope the Senator fights back somehow.
“It’s getting more and more rare in ALP preselections that candidates are supported, or lose support, for policy reasons. Agree or not, surely it is a positive sign.”
?? Then what’s the basis of the Party?
Who does favors for who? Who brings in the most money?
Pablo, most ALP supporters or members don’t have a problem with unions per se. it would be pretty weird if they did.
When people refer to “union control� or the like, what they usually mean is the sort of favours for mates, ignore the rank and file, policy deficient manner of deciding who gets preselected that too often passes for factional behaviour.
That is the exact opposite of what’s happening here, which is that the people who supported Linda Kirk the first time have decided to support someone else this time, based on a policy disagreement. Yes, it’s the SDA and those who choose to align themselves with the SDA who are voting this way, but that’s not a problem with “TEH UNIONS� – it’s a problem with one group of people believing something different to another group of people – ie: politics.
Factions are no more good or evil than parties. It’s how they use the power that’s the issue. I disagree with the SDA’s stance on these particular issues, and I also think that members of the SDA should be more vocal about the policies their representatives support, but that doesn’t mean that this is an instance of hypocrisy, or abuse of power.
If only more preselections were based on ideas, not fewer.
Anna, the problem is that this particular faction’s interests seem to have nothing to do with the views or desires of its broader membership base (restricting abortion rights would seem to be the last thing that most shop assistants want, given their demographics), making me wonder about why they should retain the power that they have.
Perhaps the structural issue here is that the basis of union representation within the Labor Party needs to be reformed so that affiliated union votes are exercised in ways which reflect the actual views of the union members in all their wondrous diversity.
Robert and Paul—the disconnect between the SDA’s leadership and rank-and-file is mainly their problem and their members’, not federal Labor’s. If there’s a structural problem that neesds fixing, it’s that the SDA hasn’t had a contested election in living memory—not that the SDA holds a significant number of bloc votes and uses them effectively. I’m with Anna: if only every affiliate union understood as well as the SDA how to make Federal Labor jump, its union politics might not be so increasingly pissweak.
Robert, why should unions have to ‘deserve’ the right to votes by behaving well? They pays their affiliation fees under the same rules as every other union, and have to abide by the same rules.
As a matter of accuracy: the SDA covers not only shop assistants but also the blue-collar warehousing, shipping, and storeman/packing sectors. Hard to say where the average fifteen y/o Maccas consolie would meet on politics with the average fifty y/o forklift driver.
Ah yes Paul, now there’s where the Electoral Commission could have an important role in a large and diverse union like the SDA - conducting a poll on a member inspired issue, quite apart from the Work Choices demand for a poll on strike action.
If you could get a sufficient number of shoppies (say 5%) to demand a poll on one or a number of social issues which a union like the SDA ought to have a view about if it is going to throw its weight around at ALP conferences and pre-selections. Petition inspired referenda makes for a better democracy.
I know that Robert, I wrote a post about it.
But like FDG points out - they have this power because they have it: they affiliate based on membership numbers, and rarely get challenged by their membership; they donate time and money to help the ALP get elected; they involve themselves in policy work; and they gather enough people who share their view to vote as a block for the ALP candidate who best represents what they believe. You don’t fight a policy position that you don’t agree with by denying them votes, you fight it by getting other people to vote differently. Which they are, by the way; others have votes in this ballot, and they are exercising it to vote for a pro-choice lesbian.
Just because I disagree with the reasons put forward for why this is bad doesn’t mean I’m happy about the result, by the way. I just disagree with the interpretation of events.
Anna, as noted on that thread, the SDA seems to have a severe problem with internal democracy.
Doesn’t that call into question the legitimacy of their influence?
The SDA hasn’t broken any rules, so it’s difficult to see how democracy is served by denying them votes that are given to others in similar situations.
The lack of contested elections is indeed a problem. However, given that the outrage in situations like this usually comes from outside the union’s rank and file membership, what exactly do you suggest be done? Criticise? Yes. Try to encourage change within the union’s leadership? Yes. Take away votes they’re entitled to under party rules? No.
To try and make my point clearer:
In WA, the SDA leadership is opposed to uranium mining. They will exercise their votes accordingly; in platform debates, and in preselection ballots. Will there be a similar outcry about how this is the problem with union influence in the Labor Party? I doubt it.
There’s too much confusion of issues here, that’s what I’m trying to separate.
“If there’s a structural problem that neesds fixing, it’s that the SDA hasn’t had a contested election in living memory—not that the SDA holds a significant number of bloc votes and uses them effectively.”
I’m with Rob - that DOES call into question their influence Anna asks “The SDA hasn’t broken any rules, so it’s difficult to see how democracy is served by denying them votes that are given to others in similar situations.”
The ALP should reconsider giving such power to unelected groups within its structure. If the SDA doesn’t represent its members (and if it hasn’t had a contested election in living memory that’s a fairly good indication of that) then why should it have so much influence on ALP policy? The SDA’s structural problems are a problem for its members, yes, but they’re also a problem for the ALP if it’s going to give the SDA so much power over its own members. It doesn’t HAVE to.
PS This is another reason why progressives should vote for the Greens over the ALP; you KNOW that your elected representative will be advocating for progressive principles in parliament, and that they won’t be stood over by some unelected hack to vote against those principles.
That’s flawed reasoning, MrLefty. The absence of a contested election could also show that members are happy with the union’s leadership. SDA members are generally paid better than non-members in the retail sector. I don’t understand how the fact that members haven’t organised a competing ticket demonstrates unrepresentativeness. If there was dissatisfaction, then someone would. I don’t think they should push their “social issues” agenda, but that’s a separate issue.
As you may know, all unions have to have a very transparent process for elections - which are conducted by the AEC and the procedures for which are set out by the Workplace Relations Act.
So again I don’t think this makes any sense at all:
Lefty, be careful of confusing the issues, as Anna warned.
Ballots of rank-and-file unionists on issues might bring about interesting results; remember how many trade unionists have voted for John Howard in the last four Federal elections. Conversely, ‘progressive’ principles in parliament might just be the result of ‘unelected hacks’ lobbying otherwise uncommitted Parliamentarians.
Are you more concerned with process or outcome?
Not unelected, Mr Lefty, elected unopposed. There’s a difference, and anyone who claims to know anything about politics and elections should understand it.
Mark wrote:
I’m not sure it’s entirely separate. A union leadership which is continually re-elected (whether contested or not) on the basis of its performance as a wages and conditions bargainer for its members could legitimately claim a mandate to speak for its members on ALP policy debates related to those issues and cast their votes in Labor forums accordingly, without the need to poll the members directly. It can’t claim such a mandate on issues like therapeutic cloning (which the SDA is much exercised by) in the absence of the issue having been referred democratically to its members.
The obvious comparison is with the Mining & Energy Division of the CFMEU. The leadership of that union also keeps getting re-elected on the basis of its performance as a wages and conditions bargainer, but it doesn’t presume from this a mandate to run with other issues in Labor forums without asking its members what they think. This union has a highly developed democratic structure and internal culture, exemplified by its rank and file ballot earlier this year which endorsed its position on climate change policy.
In general I’m all for unions having a “social issues” agenda and pushing it, provided they have the support of their members and the capacity to pursue this agenda without detriment to their core functions. I wrote an entire doctoral thesis on this very issue.
Paul, I’m not sure we’re in disagreement here. I was responding to MrLefty’s odd argument. I’d also be very happy if unions were to take the pulse of their membership in order to frame their policy stances in ALP fora.
Thirded, although it wouldn’t necessarily make MrLefty any more happy with the ALP
It may also have the additional benefit of giving union members more ownership over the party, and reduce the number of union members voting against the ALP.
Paul, the SDA doesn’t claim a democratic mandate for its positions on ‘moral’ issues—its claims are based on principle.
Agreed, but this is a different issue as to whether the SDA’s stagnant internal culture disqualifies it from ALP affiliation.
No it doesn’t disqualify it from ALP affiliation given the current ALP structure. But I think the question that has to be asked is: if Labor is going to continue with a system where affiliated unions hold sway in internal ALP forums on behalf of their membership and in proportion to the number of their members, should it not reform this system so as to require the leaderships of those unions to demonstrate that they really do speak for their members on issues?
The current system must be terribly demoralising for rank and file ALP activists who go to the trouble of researching an issue they feel strongly about, developing a position and formulating a policy proposal on the basis of their research and activity, and assembling a well-argued, well-informed case for the policy, only to be rolled by some spiv exercising a bloc vote, in the name of X thousands of union members, in support of some personal or factional prejudice which said members have never been consulted about.
Research and activity? Nah.
Me, I usually run with easy preconception and value-laden assumptions I never question—I call it ‘progressive principle’.
Interesting discussion, but it all really misses the point on such a contested political issue as RU486, when we know that Tony Abbott at the bidding of George Pell has already done his best to prevent women from accessing the medication (and is apparently still doing so), that the leadership of the SDA is also in the Pope’s pocket regardless of the wishes of its female constituency (who have not apparently been asked for their views), and that bumping Kirk out of the Senate could further undermine gender balance and signal a return to prohibition. The Pope is winning hands down. Where is our representation? I know, its a silly question.
Here’s a thought: what if the leadership of the SDA were not actually Romish stooges, but merely a set of highly motivated political activists with a coherent platform and a well-established network of supporters and sympathisers? What if the relative political success of the Catholic Right reflected not a malign corruption of the body politic but the results of a well-organised political campaign over decades?
I can’t help but hear on this thread echoes the old sectarian jibes of the early twentieth century about Catholic Labor politicians—watch out, they’ll be priest-ridden and captured by outside undemocratic influences!
Not in the NSW Legislative Assembly today. 65-26.
Ah yes, FDG, a temporary setback for the men in dresses…
What conspiracy theory, Fiasco? It’s demonstrated fact that the SDA is running a social conservative agenda straight off the Catholic Church’s hitlist. Furthermore, it’s a pretty reasonable supposition that if their members were fully informed about such things they would oppose much of it.
Like Paul said, if the union is straying into areas well outside its core responsibilities, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for it to have to demonstrate that it has the support of its members on the issue.
To play devil’s advocate, so to speak, why isn’t the membership being taken to task for letting them away with it? They’re doing things that they’re allowed to do, and their members aren’t trying to stop them. Politics being the art of the possible, they’re doing what’s possible.
There are also, as I’ve pointed out earlier in the thread, a lot more people who are also organising to counter them. Are the unions who voted for a pro-choice lesbian acting in any way that’s different to the SDA? Do you demand they poll their membership as well? Would you concede the pro-choice battle were they to poll their members and find out they’re on Joe de Brun’s side?
Shorter me: decisions get made by those who turn up to make them.
As per usual, Anna Winter’s take on the situation is spot on. The Labor Party should clone you, Anna.
Sorry about the snarky comments I used to make about you. I take them all back.
Grace’s:
I reject that kind of juvenile view of Church and politics.
Arguable, and it’d depend on who did the informing. I’d love to find out.
I don’t disagree, but I’d also like to see union leaderships stick up for ‘principle’ as they see it even if it meant defying the views of their members.
FDG, au contraire, its a very mature critique of church and politics, otherwise referred to as the separation of church and state.
Until the neoliberal louts in suits got their hands on the coalition, the political Right in this country just lurrrved the SDA. No strikes there, and handy support for coalition policies on a range of issues. However the winds have changed, and now the SDA finds itself in the gun along with all the other non respectable bits of the labour movement. Their membership won’t be voting for the coalition this election, I’ll give you the drum. This, more than anything else will mean better policies for their members overall, including better and more progressive social policies, irrespective of their leadership’s idiosyncratic views on a range of issues.
If people here disapprove of the leadership of the SDA, why don’t they get jobs in warehousing and retail and run a ticket against the leadership? No? I didn’t think so. Who wants to work in those shi**y jobs eh? The members clearly think that other things are more important when it comes to choosing a leadership, and in the scheme of things, I don’t think their influence is such in the ALP that what they think on these issues makes much difference. The vote in the NSW Parliament says it all really.
What i do not get here, is why Super Sunshine from ALP head office, does not lobb in and say……”we want Kirky”.
“She is a great asset to the party and we see no reason for a change”.
They have no problems parachuting ‘personalities’ into the lower house.
Why not a bit of respect for a strong candidate under siege from jesus jockeys?
Joe2:
The electorates of Lower House preselections in the ALP are some combination of a) local branch members, b) selection panel and c) State Executive. It’s different in every State but it’s generally easy for HQ to intervene on behalf of celebrities.
The electorate of Upper House preselections—including Federal Senate State tickets—in the ALP is all of the delegates to State Conference, which also elects the State Executives (aka Head Office). Therefore ‘parachuting’ a candidate into an Upper House would require an elected Head Office executive to overrule the body that elected it.
I understand a similar situation applies for the Libs and Nats.
Yeah, but if they did succeed in cloning a leftie, she’d probably split.
I find the subjects of cloning and abortion pretty boring right now!Although my sympathies are with the rights of women to make a choice,and all the medical promise is just that is just that on cloning. Promising research. So if the ALP Candidate cannot mend fences with the union,maybe that disqualifies her from the job. I would have to say,which is another way of saying I am about to say,with a phoney Catholic like Abbott and his acceptance of medical research superior in some way to other forms of treatment for maladies,the leadership of the copycat ALP. is letting down its members and voters.
Heh. It’s true, there’d be three different Anna Winter factions within a week!
“Me, I usually run with easy preconception and value-laden assumptions I never question—I call it ‘progressive principle’.”
I take it that was a dig at me, as if referring to “progressive principle” as a summary of what one might want their elected representative to advocate in parliament is somehow controversial or outrageous. I don’t see why it’s so complicated, though.
If certain voters want a representative who ISN’T going to be cowed by some unrepresentative swill from the SDA, then either the ALP as a body has to figure out how to let those voters know that their votes WON’T be used in such a way, or those voters may simply decide to vote for a party where their wishes on such a subject will be appropriately represented in parliament.
I’m not sure how anyone who’s concerned about these issues can vote for the ALP, because you have no idea how your local ALP MP is actually going to vote when related legislation comes up.
As for the SDA - you’ll have to excuse me if I see problems with the bureaucratic layered structure of the ALP resulting in someone like Joe De Bruyn having so much power to force his blinkered and unrepresentative views on subjects completely unrelated to his union (I don’t believe the SDA has ever polled its members on the subject of RU-486, for example) on the party, and then the rest of the country.
Actually, no, I was trying to be self-deprecating, but then again authorial intent is a slippery thing. Sorry, MrLefty if I caused offence.
You’ve got to admit, though, that one person’s ‘blinkered and unrepresentative’ views unrelated to their union are another person’s high principle in matters of important social concern.
That’s cool FdG - sorry for misinterpreting your remark.
“You’ve got to admit, though, that one person’s ‘blinkered and unrepresentative’ views unrelated to their union are another person’s high principle in matters of important social concern.”
Joe de Bruyn’s welcome to call the equivalent of a referendum within his union to determine his members’ attitude to RU-486 and so on, and then to represent those views in the ALP. But that’s of course not what he’s done.
And I’m welcome to make sure my vote goes to a party where I know what their MPs will advocate on the floor of parliament. And anyone else who’s concerned by such issues might want to consider doing likewise.
Ah, but does your Party or its constituent elements poll you on your views, accepting of a possibly ‘unprincipled’ result, or do its representatives vote according to principled expectation? There’s an undeniable tension.
What if (say) a powerful clique within the WA branch of the Greens were to vote in favour of unlimited uranium mining—would principle or democracy win out?
Both, given that uranium mining is better for the environment than the alternatives
FdG - the point is that those Greens would be held immediately accountable by the party membership, which is much more directly linked with the policy-making bodies than apparently is the case in the ALP.
Well, to repeat a tired point, Lefty – it’s very easy to run a party that way when you aren’t also running the country. If the Greens ever get the chance to do that, and continue to operate in the same way, then I will take it all back. Until then, you’re comparing apples with alternative governments.
Having been Ambassador to the ALP from the Republic of Harradine, de Bruyn fancies himself as a bit of a player.
In Victoria he fought for Jacinta Collins to get onto the Senate ticket while at the same time helping out Family First. in 2004, Fielding was elected at the expense of, not as well as, Collins. Nice own goal there Joe!
Still, I think he might be on firmer ground here. The streets of Adelaide are hardly aflame with indignation at the dumping of Linda Kirk. Surely she must have realised she was going to get the SDA offside - in that position you either resign yourself to oblivion or you start making nice with some other powerbase. She hasn’t done much of a job at either. No wonder Kim Beazley forgot the names of those Labor Senators.
If the WA Greens are anything like their Queensland counterparts, the “powerful clique” would not prevail unless they had persuaded the democratic decision-making bodies of the party to adopt such a position either by consensus or a two-thirds majority. And to render more profound Robert Merkel’s light-hearted point, if they achieved such an outcome it would be because they convinced the members that such a position was, in practice, a valid interpretation of Green principle.
Whether such a method of decision-making would be workable in a party of several tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of members which was also a potential party of government is, as Anna says, another question.
My views on this question are coloured by my formative political experiences in the Australian Union of Students, which collapsed in part because some of its policy positions, which those therein held to be expressions of “high principle in matters of important social concern”, were deeply unpopular with the membership.
To answer the question which some have posed: yes, if the members of an association of which I was an elected office-bearer voted down a policy position which I personally regarded as a point of high principle on a matter of important social concern, my only honourable options would be to cop the decision and carry it out in my elected capacity, or to resign if my conscience wouldn’t allow me to do that.
Thank you Paul, your 1.31pm comment illustrates my point better than I ever could have.
MrLefty, on a point of technicality, the imaginary clique of WA Greens elected to Parliament would not be immediately accountable, only accountable so far as they feel like obeying the rules and conventions of the Party. Their preselections would be in doubt come the next election cycle—naturally—as the preselections of any renegade MPs are in any Party, and they might face Party expulsion, but they’d keep their vote and pension. More importantly, they would have very effectively demonstrated that the moral locus of ‘principle’ is always contested as a matter of power, in that case between Parliamentary leadership and the rank-and-file.
Where we seem to disagree is on the legitimacy of union Executives to hold and act on such ‘principled’ stances: I don’t think we do, though, really, as my natural inclination would be to see the SDA’s State branch leaderships sacked, humiliated, tarred, feathered, convicted of heresy, hanged, drawn, quartered, burned at the crossroads at midnight, and formally asked to show cause why they should remain members of the Australian Labor Party.
You left out defenestration
Mate, they’re Irish Catholics, not Balts. Defenestration is for the NUW and the BLF.
“Well, to repeat a tired point, Lefty – it’s very easy to run a party that way when you aren’t also running the country. If the Greens ever get the chance to do that, and continue to operate in the same way, then I will take it all back. Until then, you’re comparing apples with alternative governments.”
It is a tired point, and it’s a delightfully frustrating catch-22 one. The Greens don’t deserve our support in order to grow because they’re not big enough to show that they deserve our support.
To concede that to form government you have to, by definition (and not by habit) abandon principle, is a pretty sad indictment on the whole concept of representative democracy.
That’s the problem with the ALP - it wants to try to capture votes without actually trying to represent the voters. It wants to try to pretend that it can hold two opposing sides of an argument simultaneously. It wants to represent both the right AND the left at the same time, and ends up doing neither.
I want representatives who are willing to consistently represent me, not the denizens of Bolt’s forum. (Bolt’s regulars can have their own representatives, and they can fight it out with mine.)
In response to the issues raised in the exchange between Anna and Mr Lefty, I think there is a very real question to be asked about whether a political party which starts out small and radically beautiful can grow to the organisational size of a moderate mainstream social democratic party and secure electoral support similar to that of a moderate mainstream social democratic party without coming under very strong pressures to evolve into something which closely resembles a moderate mainstream social democratic party. The history of the Italian Communist Party is instructive in this respect. By the 1980s it was to the right of the British Labour Party (which admittedly wasn’t difficult considering where the British Labour Party was at in the 1980s).
However this may not be the ideal thread to have such a discussion.
It would be an interesting question for discussion, but I have a feeling we’ve gone off on a tangent with Mr Lefty’s “vote for the Greens” message. I’m still waiting for the explanation of how unopposed elections demonstrate unrepresentativeness, though.
My own opinion is that it would be better for both the Labor Party and the Unions if the organic link were severed. I think FdG has argued that in the past as well.
Sorry - off-topic, but I just wanted to clarify that I have never said, and don’t believe, that the Greens don’t deserve support. I’m just more realistic about how they would behave were they to be a major party like the ALP - because by definition, being a major party would mean more members, and thus, more views to be considered.
FdG and I don’t disagree with you on most things, Lefty. It’s more often that we’re arguing at different levels. We all agree on most of the principles involved, it’s just that we have different ideas on how to get things done. It would be good if you could understand that.
That you persist in this line of argument shows that you’re either more interested in scoring cheap points against people who are your allies in getting more progressive policies up, or that you genuinely don’t understand how politics (as in power relations, rather than ideological arguments) works.
The “compromise� you see isn’t one person trying to walk both sides of the street, it’s the result of a really large group of people who all have different ideas about how to make the world better coming to agreements that all sides can live with. That is democracy, Lefty. What you seem to want is benign dictatorship.
The SDA has voted according to their personally-held beliefs – something that is more in keeping with what you advocate than it is with the compromised, power-hungry hacks like FdG and I that you are currently criticising. You seem unable to see this because your line of argument when it comes to this sort of thing seems to consist of nothing more than “ALP bad, Green good�. Life, and democracy, are a lot more complicated than that.
“You seem unable to see this because your line of argument when it comes to this sort of thing seems to consist of nothing more than “ALP bad, Green goodâ€?.”
Gee, thanks. Do you think you could have been a little more patronising?
Of course I understand the principle of compromise. I’m suggesting that the problem with the major parties is that the compromise is only vaguely linked to what the electors want. The spectrum of political beliefs and the percentages of MPs who hold them do not necessarily match those of the people they supposedly represent.
The compromise should happen BETWEEN MPs after they’re elected, not before they become candidates so that voters don’t have an actual choice.
I would prefer two left-wing parties to one, in fact, operating in coalition. Those who believe in left-wing economics but right-wing social politics could vote for one; those who believe in left-wing economics and progressive social politics could vote for the other. When questions of social policy arise, the appropriate balance could be reached depending on which one of those two parties actually had the most electoral support.
The problem with this is the basic inertia of the electorate and the fact that whichever of those two parties was the ALP would get the benefit of a century’s habitual voting. Still, for those of us who’d like to pull the center of politics back to the left, I think voting for the Greens makes that message plain and unmistakeable. And if the ALP doesn’t get it, then at least we’d have Green MPs who know what their voters want.
I think the real problem with the SDA is the winner take all electoral structure - something I accept exists in many other unions as well. The reason no ticket has been organised against them is presumably that (as I understand it) it is almost impossible for such a ticket to win a reasonable portion of positions and use this as a base to expand - they have to go from nothing to complete control in one election.
It’s equivalent to a situation where a party could expect that if they lost an election they would win no seats in parliament at all. If they have not been in power for many years (more than 50 in the case of the SDA) they can’t possibly have any experience so its hard to make the case that people should trust them with control.
If the ALP really was interested in keeping the factions in check the most effective change it could make would be to have the union votes for preselections etc conducted by proportional ballot of those unions. This would then lead to left win tickets running in the SDA and probably getting 30-40% first up. Likewise rightwing tickets would run in some left unions they don’t bother to contest at the moment. The people who had demonstrated their credibility by using their votes on ALP conference floor responsibly might, a few elections down the track, actually end up running the union.
Even more importantly, few genuine independents might be able to command a few percent of the vote and get elected. If ALP preselections, national conferences etc had even 10% genuine independents it would break the hold of the factions and lead to a far higher quality of preselections, as well as reviving the membership numbers. I’m not holding my breath.
This is why I vote democrat!
What really infuriates me is the SDA.
They are a ‘union’ which negotiates an award with KFC which allows KFC to pay $7.50 per hour - yes thats right, to 15 year olds. They are the only union in Australia where employers actively recruit for them - and you can clearly see why.
And after doing that, the executive of the SDA then pay themselves six figure plus salaries from the union dues! Naturally, the executive is a closed shop- stuffed with the children and partners of former officials etc.
My how things change.Not so long ago,say,20 years,I read a Socialist newspaper saying any job is basically better than none,because once in the workforce and unionised ,one is less exploited.$7.50 isnt a lot of money,and maybe also if Dave is right officials are overpaid,but then again so is the whole country including maybe the CEO.s.The sad thing really about all this,is if fifteen year-olds want to work,and their personalities are appealling,does it really match what they could do given the potential to be more responsible?Probably not!?Personally I do not think all these fast food outlets are needed at all as economic realities,even if one is addicted to chook.Maybe we should encourage a teenage union,rather than a adult union,and include potentials to be entrepreneurial ,whilst still at school.Instead they will grow in the mold of that type of marketing exercise,which is really flakey.and has never really settled as Australian.