This post is cross-posted at Red Rag.
Every time there is a factional ruction in the ALP, Shane Maloney’s Murray Whelan is trotted out to explain it. In 2003, for instance, it was New South Wales and this passage:
“Even now, a great white or a blue pointer was rising from the deep, circling for the kill … or something worse. Some nameless horror from the primordial depths. A creature of suckered tentacles or poisonous spines. Anyone familiar with the leading personalities of the NSW branch of the Labor Party would know exactly how I felt.” – Shane Maloney’s new book Something Fishy.
Such are the thoughts of the fictional Victorian Labor MP Murray Whelan as he seeks refuge from a human killer in Bass Strait. The author’s jarring gag has a special edge at present with the once-powerful NSW Labor Right poised for some blood-letting.
Now it’s the Victorian branch where the knives are out, and here’s Whelan in the press again:
While similar places and people probably exist in plague proportions in the Liberal and National parties, the Victorian court case, and the selection of a lifelong party professional as the new Premier of NSW, demonstrates there are many, many Murray[ Whelan]s in real-life Labor.
And their presence goes a fair way to explain the mind-set of a party that seems happier fighting over preselections for seats it already holds than worrying about winning some new ones.
When I saw Stephen Matchett’s column in The Australian yesterday, I got excited — I assumed it meant a new Whelan novel was about to hit the shelves. Alas, we’ll have to wait a bit longer, though Shane Maloney’s website reveals that “[t]he author is presently toiling on number six, with a total of seven in mind.” Happy happy joy joy! I just hope they come sooner rather than later.
It’s not surprising that Maloney’s works are called upon by columnists. They paint a very real picture of an aspect of the Labor Party — overworked electorate officers dealing with eccentric bosses and mad constituents, grey meetings where members pretend they have an influence, and secret meetings where the real decisions are made. Matchett highlights a passage from Something Fishy that must resonate with everyone who has been a member of the Party:
The Australian Labor Party is composed of two main factions. Them and us. Ideologically distinct only at their extremities, their function is the distribution of spoils. But fighting over the spoils of defeat was a ritual for which I could muster little enthusiasm.
But it’s easy to let that aspect of party politics — “politics as a trade, not a cause” — overshadow the real reason most people are involved. I get angry when I see people who join factions for their career prospects, or who hop from one to the next on the promise of some perk. Thankfully, those people are fewer than the press, or Maloney’s novels, would have you believe. I’m a proud member of a faction because I believe in its cause. If the Labor Left was a party in its own right, that’s what I would join.
I reckon outfits like Labor First and GetUp! might do more harm than good. GetUp! wants to develop a non-partisan movement, but it risks entrenching left-wing disenfranchisement with the political process. Sitting on your arse, bitching about tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee, and firing off an occasional email will not fix anything. Labor First blames factionalism for the party’s woes, but what’s its solution? A new faction, with no coherent ideological or policy base beyond… well, opposition to factions.
I’ll admit that the existing factions behave badly from time to time, and they aren’t always as inclusive as they should be (my own faction recently stripped ordinary members of voting rights), but I don’t think establishing new structures is the answer. Matchett says Maloney’s novels reveal that “politicians and officials manoeuvre against each other, because that is what they do, but the members are ever fewer.” That, I think, is the problem: Labor’s structure is that of a mass political party that no longer exists.
Factions work best when they have strong (real) membership bases. If you support the ALP but don’t support the way it is run, I think you should join the party and go to meetings. Find out about the factions, identify which one holds the beliefs that most closely resemble your own, and join it. Turn up to meetings, speak your mind, and do your best to avoid getting caught up in subfactional turf wars.
It’s about time members of factions stopped being embarrassed by them. We should be telling people about the reasons we joined: I enjoy Left meetings more than branch meetings, and I enjoy caucus more than State Executive meetings. It’s about friendship, debate, drinking and, most importantly, shared values and beliefs. The factions are the life of the party, and Labor supporters should cut through the media bullshit to find out what they’re really like.
The gloss comes off
Peter Beattie lost both the by-elections in Queensland last night. Given the hospitals crisis, clear problems in cabinet and the natural resentment of electorates against governments when members depart mid-term, these are not surprising, but they are …
Agree with all of that, Rob, and thanks for a thoughtful post. I think you’ve hit on something with the idea of the Labor Party as the ghost of a mass party, and also with the possible negative consequences of GetUp! etc. As I argued in my post, there’s a certain middle class constituency who see electoral politics as somehow distasteful – as well as the often liberal economic views held by many who identify with some of the “progressive” and “non-partisan” anti-Howard outfits. People can let off steam, and pat themselves on the back that they’re not involved in a party where “grubby factional deals” take place, but politics is about power as well as ideas. As the Weberian allusion in your post implies, a politics of conviction and power politics can (but often don’t) go together. But that’s no reason to wash your hands of power politics – to do so is unrealistic and futile.
Naomi, I think you’re right about Whelan. That’s a weakness in Matchett’s review: he sees Whelan as a soulless hack who’s in politics because, well, he ended up there. But he does believe in the Labor cause, even though he’s disappointed that the party doesn’t meet those high expectations.
Thanks, too, for that link to your post about factions. I’ll join the discussion over there in a sec.
Mark: it’s tricky to find a balance between achieving your goals and “selling out”. Peter Garrett understands the problem pretty well, I reckon.
I see factions almost as separate parties working in a coalition — and until the red scares about Communist influence in the ALP, that’s exactly what they were. The Victorian Socialist Party existed as a separate entity, but its members were also members of the ALP. When it became impossible to hold two party memberships, people chose either their minor party or an informal faction in the ALP.
Rubbish. Don’t join a faction — join the party and pitch in at your local branch. The solution to the ALP’s ills is to return control to the Branches, not the head office factions. Party office holders should be banned from pre-selections for two years after they last held party office. The left factions are no better than the right factions – the difference is the right collectively controls the NSW state conference floor and the left doesn’t.
I am not arguing against factionalism per se but the general tone of all the factions is pretty appalling. All about divvying up jobs in Sussex St.
I’ll admit the Terrigals are the worst of the lot, though.
Might depend where you are, Rex – I’m not so sure things are anywhere near as centralised in Qld – at least they didn’t use to be when I was in the party.
What Mark said.
And it’s disingenuous to say, “Don’t join a faction” and then “I am not arguing against factionalism”.
Besides, what precludes you from participating in both your faction and your local branch? I don’t see how it could work any other way.
The first thing that needs to be done is the branches need to get their power back. I am not arguing against factionalism – just all the currently existing factions.
Factionalism is fine, so long as it doesn’t monopolise party activity (which it is doing at the moment!).
A good post Robert, but I disagree that LaborFirst and GetUp will do more harm than good. Both these organisations have sprung up because Labor itself is failing, and that means the existing factional system is failing the ALP members and the community at large.
The factions have deservedly received a shocking name, certainly in Victoria and now it seems in NSW. The media coverage of factions says one thing and one thing only – that the factional players are in it for power and are in it for themselves. This might not be your experience of factions Rob, but is the clear message being sent by their public behaviour to the wider community, and that message is being received loud and clear.
The simple fact is people donÄôt trust the factions, and the factions don’t trust each other – ergo the ALP internally is dying because there is no trust. Until the factions can demonstrate an ability to work together and to foster trust between themselves and within the Party then the ALP goes backwards.
LaborFirst and Getup are a completely understandable and legitimate response to this lack of trust. In your mind they might be diluting the message and impeding the ALPÄôs progress, but to me they are signals that the ALP is failing badly and people are frustrated and are reaching out for something else to give them hope.
Until the factions can demonstrate that they can be trusted then your desire to see people join them, and participate will not be fulfilled.
bring back the real rex I say
“Another reason why a vote for a Green is a vote wasted. And I think itÄôs dead right to criticise GetUp for ghettoising politics. If thatÄôs an example of the political nous that Evan Thornley and Bill Shorten are so famous for, I donÄôt want it.”
Naomi, your comment brings back memories of when I lived in Sydney between 1983 and 1988, and took part in any number of discussions about renewing/reforming the Left. A predictable feature of such discussions was that people from all organisations of the Left (both existing and proposed) would get up and exhort others present that the way forward was for all of us to fall in and unite behind their particular party/faction/group/project.
Fortunately, such exhortations were unsuccessful, for reasons I state in the next few paragraphs. Considering where you and I each currently sit, it’s only fair that I state that (i) the ALP Left weren’t the worst offenders in this regard and (ii) one of the most naive and grandiose errors in this regard was the attempt by the proto-Greens to utilise the Getting Together Conference in Sydney in April 1986 to unite all green-progressive activists in a single big new green-progressive organisation.
I believed then, and believe even more strongly now, that such views are:
1. unrealistic, as they fail to consider the very real difficulties of getting the entire Left together in one organisation in spite of significant differences over analyses of society, positions on specific issues, ways of organising and working, issue priorities, etc.;
2. misguided, as the main game for the Left needs to be, not the zero-sum one of deciding which particular Left group the existing small pool of activists belongs to, but the positive one of increasing the numbers of people involved in left activism in any form, with the question of which Left group they join a secondary one; and
3. wrong in principle as such views fail to recognise both the democratic desirability and the practical utility of having a pluralistic Left.
By a pluralistic Left, I don’t mean the kind of schismatised Left that the trotskyist and stalinist groups give rise to. I mean one which recognises the diverse and complementary strengths of an effective Left within the ALP, a radical-democratic party with mass support outside the ALP (which we now have with the Greens) and diverse other initiatives, for the most part not within the framework of a political party.
From this perspective I obviously regard the existence of the Greens in parallel with a strong Left inside the ALP as an improvement on the 1980s situation of there being no organised party-political Left outside Labor, other than Marxist sects.
It would be poor form for people like me in the Greens to offer gratuitous advice to comrades like you who are fighting the good fight on another field, so I’ll simply content myself with the observation that the existence of the Greens, GetUp, etc., are matters which the Goddess should grant you the serenity to accept, whereas the quality of the analysis, the soundness of the policies and the strength of the organisation of the ALP Left are all things She should grant you the strength to do something about.
Interesting post, and I agree with Mark’s idea “As I argued in my post, thereÄôs a certain middle class constituency who see electoral politics as somehow distasteful…”
I think I was part of this constituency while doing my PhD, and was in “splendid isolation” – but since submitting my PhD last April I feel like I’m becoming part of the community again – and I’m thinking of rejoining the ALP (I was a member 13 years ago). If I rejoin, it won’t be due to any naive illusions, but moreso in light of the desire to help in defeating Howard and being part of the political process (even if only in a minor way). It’s also related to the reality that any minor party can only play a peripheral (if important) role – I’ve always thought that the minor parties play a very important role in the Senate (except perhaps now!) – but I think that they’re influence is limited, even if a major party doesn’t hold a majority in the Senate.
Sorry for misspelling their in my last post! I always hate that!
Naomi, I know that Getup sits outside the ALP, but I was responding to Rob’s point. Rob says that Getup provides a vehicle for couch-activists – Sit on your arse and let the website do the work for you, and that Labour First is an anti faction faction.
I think Rob’s completley missing the point on both counts. As I said they’ve both come into existence out of a sense of powerlessness that is felt by the broader left of centre commuinity. Rob response to this is to say join a faction and we can make it better. I say nice in theory but it’ll never happen because factions are no longer trusted by anyone.
You can mock GetUp and Labor First all you like but they are representaive of the changes that are going to take place on the political scene right across the spectrum, because they are the only ones offering an alternative, and offering trust.
“What I said was, yes, branch activity is vital, but it has to be said that itÄôs a bit of a scary place to sit (not to mention boring. Those further up in the party need to provide support, encouragement and listening ears when branches get moving. And where is that going to come from, but the factions?”
Actually those further up in the party should do what the branch members ask them to do, or at least, what they are elected to do at conference, rather than “provide encouragement and listening” ears. They are elected officials they are supposed to represent the membership!
The problem is that “we” the branch members don’t elect anyone at (NSW) conference anymore. So first stop, reverse the coup of 1916! The paramount and only real goal of internal party organisation as far as I am concerned.
I’ll accept that one might have to join and work with a faction for that end, but when push comes to shove the factions (all of them) won’t back such a radical prescription because it would erode the factions’ collective power bases.
Talk to Rodney Cavalier for more detail.
“But if those higher up (who, letÄôs face it, usually do have factional support somehow)”
That’s practically axiomatic nowadays Naomi.
You do realise that by “1916 coup” I am talking about the rule that gives affiliated unions (read: factional powerbases) the majority of the vote on the floor of conference? Not 50%. 0%.
From the individual Party member’s point of view, factionalising should only be one more small compromise in engagement with the world’s most thoroughly compromised Party. I mean, the whole thing is rotten to the core, there should be no real problems mucking in and getting dirty with factions. Hey, it works for me.
It’s not as if factions are hard to join or get involved in—if you’re on a branch list, you’re probably already spoken for. The NSW Right’s membership initiation ceremony involves having your name ticked off on the head office lists as ‘doesn’t like the Left’, you don’t even have to know it’s happened to you.
Alex and Rob, the argument that ‘democratic’ factions can work in the Party’s benefit are a joke. They’re power oligarchies, pure and simple, and just because they’re the only marginally democratic feature of an undemocratic Party doesn’t make them any nicer.
I’ve thought for a couple of years that it would be good if party members voted directly for president/secretary/exec committee of the ALP – and if unions have a vote (as they do at the moment), then their members actually vote instead of the officials. But I don’t know what the situation actually is, although I know that the entire ALP membership votes for the national president (and two off-siders).
Mark. I seem to have impressively fucked up the fields. Perhaps an admin could remove my email address from the comment?
Ta. LH
Too late, Liam: Wing Attack Plan Berray has already been launched! Prepare for spam! I repeat: prepare for spam!!!
I blame the dodgy-arse internet cafe I’m in. It couldn’t possibly be my *own* fault.
Done, but you’re a bit lucky, Liam, because thanks no doubt to Barnaby and the consequent diversion of all available Telstra resources to the bush, my Broadband cable is down and I’m just logging on briefly from a dodgy old computer on dodgy old dialup.
I should probably preface my comment by saying that factionally I’m a bit of a non-entity. I support what I think makes sense regardless of whatever side of the floor it comes from. This probably undermines my ability to “climb the greasy pole”, but if that’s the case, so be it.
Needless to say the current factional arrangements within the ALP tend to shit me a lot of the time. As a couple of others have observed already though, the idea of simply replacing the current arrangements with something else is a fantasy, mainly because the very people holding the reins of power are of course the very same people who have gained the most from the factional system. A lot of these people are of course very good people, but one would hope that it’s possible for the cream to rise to the top in an organisation without the necessity for dirty deals, stacking, and the like.
If the ALP is to become less of a fairly memberless machine-party and more inclusive of the general community, the party must become more democratic and more meritocratic. The current factional arrangements are largely an obstruction to that happening. By all means, we should work within the factions to achieve positive change, but we also shouldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture. The continuing existence of factions and the often unseemly ways in which power seeps around within them makes the ALP look like the party of “faceless men” as Menzies so devastatingly observed back in the day.
Even if the Libs are barely any better (or even worse) it certainly doesn’t do us any favours electorally.
Liam: factionalism isn’t about democracy. It’s about power. That’s the problem for the ALP.
There’s a fair bit in this, so I’ll try to break it down a bit.
Paul
I agree with pretty much everything you said. I don’t believe that a vote for the Greens is a vote wasted (especially in a preferential system). I was careful not to say, “All Lefties should join the ALP”, or “All ALP members should join the Left”. Diversity is important.
My view is that all ALP supporters, even those who are currently disgruntled, should join the Party. Greens supporters should join the Greens, and Socialist Alliance supporters should re-evaluate their politics…
But I think GetUp! is a different proposition altogether — if people think electoral politics will be fixed by leaving the political parties to the branch-stackers and careerists, they are wrong. Absolutely wrong. I don’t care whether you join the ALP or the Greens, but join something and pitch in.
Furthermore, those who decide to join Labor should take the time to learn about the factions, and join one. Not necessarily the Left, though that is where I find myself and I think it is pretty good. Not perfect, but pretty good — and the involvement of new people would help iron out the wrinkles.
Sachmo
Good to hear you’re considering joining the Party. And your reasons for joining sound like just the sort of thing that will help fix Labor’s problems!
Rex
You think I’ve missed the point that GetUp! and Labor First are the product of people’s sense of powerlessness. I haven’t missed that at all — I just don’t think they will fix anything. In fact, I think they’ll make it worse. Firing off a few emails through GetUp! won’t fix Labor. It won’t defeat Howard. Abandoning Labor and its factions in favour of this new internet activism will exacerbate the problem, because it will leave Labor (and to a lesser extent the Greens) as hollow parties whose shells can be exploited by the worst kind of opportunists.
Labor First at least has the benefit of ALP membership, but it’s no good to pretend it’s not a faction. If Thornley et al were honest about it — tell people they’re bankrolling a new faction — then it wouldn’t be such a problem. But if all those who are sceptical of factionalism per se join in, Labor First is bound to disappoint them, because it can only have an influence by dealing with the (other) factions.
By the way, doesn’t it strike you as odd that these two “grassroots” campaigns are bankrolled by multimillionaires?
Liam
The factions as they exist now are oligarchic power structures, no doubt about that. Some are worse than others. But then, what are our Parliaments if not oligarchic power structures, with their political dynasties? I’m all for devolution of power to the grass roots, but that happens when people join in, not when they hide under the bed. And I think the more democratic they are, the nicer they are. Do you think that more democracy does not change how nice they are?
Guy
I absolutely agree that the Party would be better served by genuine democracy. That’s the role that factions should play: they’re like the political parties in the ALP’s internal representative democracy. All of the factions should have more internal democracy than they do, but as I keep saying, that means people getting involved, not withdrawing.
And I think the accusations of “faceless men” deciding policy are a product of the ALP’s low membership base. If there was a decent sized membership taking an active interest in party matters (through involvement in factions) the whole process would have more legitimacy.
I remember that after the 1996 debacle, Mark and I were chatting to Sandy B., a lefty friend, who thought that the thing to do was to join the ALP to help fight whatever the liberals would do. I thought that was misguided, as the ALP didn’t seem to be in any position to do anything. But now I think that joining it then would have been the thing to do – help it rebuild and to move in a better direction.
Defeating Howard will take everyone’s combined efforts in whatever ways they’re happy to contribute
Read in teh SMH about The Terrigals