Every man and his dog has "come to the aid of the party" with their prescription for curing the troubles that ail the NSW Branch of the ALP.
Ultimately there are two issues in play. The first is the Right's definition of the objective, and hence how you approach the game and what you do with it. The second is that the Left doesn't know what it stands for.
The Right's position was best described in Eddie Obeid's recent attempt (in the SMH) at denial of the role of factions. His piece concluded;
The party will rebuild itself. There will be many new faces. We can rebuild but we need to listen to the community and advocate the policies they put forward.
That is the path to power is to reflect to the community the community's wishes. It is not to pursue a philosophical line, but to merely do - in Graham Richardson's words - "whatever it takes" to win power.
Writing in the SMH David Humphries nailed it as;
Rather than serve the ALP, Obeid was determined for it to serve him. Essentially a policy-free zone, his skills were limited to the assiduous pursuit of those vulnerable and hapless souls whose ambitions in politics far outweigh their talents, and to enforcing the consequences of disloyalty (that is, anything short of craven obedience) towards him and his clique. He who must be Obeid, went the line.
Humphries went on to recount a Michael Egan story that typifies this version of the right;
Another guest speaker was Mark Arbib, then the ALP assistant general secretary but later a Labor kingmaker and assassin, and a minister in the Gillard federal government after helping to elevate, then destroy, Kevin Rudd.
His speech to all those bright-eyed bushy-tailed kids was that they should follow the example of Joe and Reba and devote their time to endlessly recruiting numbers. ...
It struck me ... that Arbib had not once mentioned any policy achievement of any Labor government, or anything about the philosophical and policy differences between the Left and the Right.
A consequence of this tribal approach is then the nepotism that is so easily displayed. If you don't stand for anything other than the numbers, then you have to look after your mates.
The Left of the party is not much better. NSW avoided the split of the 1950s, but this really meant that the party remained in the control of the anti-communist Industrial Groups. To ensure an ongoing focus on the socialist objective a group formed inside the NSW ALP called the Steering Committee whose objective was support of the socialisation objective of the party.
In response to the Steering Committee the Right, under the name Centre Unity, organised to battle to keep this left suppressed. But technically at least the left formalised the factionalism first.
At some point (I'd need to check my Fruedenberg history) the right and left reached an "accommodation" that saw the spoils of the party distributed in a kind of proportional manner. Hence the Premier came from the Right, the Deputy from the Left. The General Secretary from the Right but an Assistant Secretary from each of the Left and Right. Similarly tickets for Senate and Legislative Council had their mix. A Senate ticket typically went Right, Left, Right, Right.
Having been accommodated the left largely then "went along" - they would ritually whinge and moan about annual conference, but would also do deals to ensure there was no great stoush. One memorable event though was over the stupidity of the way the power sharing rules meant that the Left's John Faulkner was not number 1 on a Senate ticket. It was also why with the departure of Carr the logical choice of John Watkins was not pursued.
Critics from outside the party interpret this "philosophy free zone" in different ways. Rick Kuhn has made another contribution urging Labor not to push unions away and to stay close to its working class base.
He writes of the proposed reforms of the party from the National Review;
These measures and the other recommendations won't lead to an expansion of the party's declining membership, largely a consequence of Labor's pro-business, racist and homophobic policies in government and opposition.
Over decades the ALP's connections with the working class have become more and more tenuous. A quarter of Labor's local branches in NSW have dissolved over the past 16 years and many that have survived are close to comatose. The ALP's working-class vote has not only contracted, it has also diluted. ...
The recommendations in the National Review will reduce the most important remaining connection between Labor and the working class: the role of affiliated unions in the party.
As I've noted before an issue for Labor is the decline in the numbers of that "traditional" working-class base. This is more so if, like Kuhn, you reject the idea of the validity of white-collar workers (including academics) as part of the working class. [See note below] In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels indeed drew the circle very wide;
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.
And it has always been an error to conclude that workers are not themselves "racist and homophobic". Let alone the massive conflict the ALP finds with environmental policies that can be seen as attacks on the jobs of the working class.
As I've said before the ALP needs to stand for something. It needs to stand for the (relatively) powerless in society. In doing so it needs to reflect to the "aspirationals" the reality that they may be successful but they are still not powerful, they might own shares but they are not capitalists.
It needs to go beyond the woosy words that Julia Gillard uses of being a party for a "Fair Go". Work Choices was battled against because it attacked the right of labor to organise while not attacking the right of capital to organise.
It needs to more explicitly state that it stands for empowering those who are powerless, that the socialisation objective is not anti-business but it is opposed to the narrow orthodox view that companies exist to create shareholder value.
It needs to stand for the rights of all groups that are otherwise powerless - that is what unites workers, gays, ethnic minorities, indigenous people and the environment itself.
There is no point in reforming the mechanisms of the party if you don't give people a reason to belong.
Note 1: Since writing the post I have been informed that Rick Kuhn's view is that white-collar workers are certainly part of the working-class. I mistook the paragraph below from an earlier article as suggesting that the party lost its worker focus with the influx of white collar workers.
After the split the blue collar membership of the Labor Party fell. In the late 1960s and 1970s this was offset by an influx of white collar workers and members of the professional middle class.
We certainly share the view, however, that the party has been more concerned with "Tammany" than policy.
Note 2: Jack Lang is an often reviled figure in ALP history because he tore the party apart in NSW in the 1930s. Bede Nairn's biography of Jack Lang The 'Big Fella' recounts the tales of the battles for the ALP leading up to the thirties. These were battles between communism, and industrial focus and outright "Tammany" (defined online as "a political organization within the Democratic Party in New York City (late 1800's and early 1900's) seeking political control by corruption and bossism. Lang had his faults, but despite the depiction of him otherwise he was no communist - he was also a vigorous opponent of Tammany. But eighty years later Eddie Obeid has shown you can't keep Tammany down without vigilance.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Showing posts with label Kuhn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kuhn. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
What to make of it - and what now
The NSW election has delivered - mostly - the results expected. However, as Imre Saluszinsky succinctly reported in the Oz, the result was still more a vote for the Centre than extremes.
Pauline Hanson failed miserably to attract support - though her 1.85% was still double that of the remnant Australian Democrats. More interestingly the Greens again failed to win an inner-city lower house seat. Their nearly 11% Upper House vote includes large slabs from those seats on the North Shore where the Greens out-polled (by as much as double) the ALP.
But the real story was the destruction of the ALP - and a 2PP vote of about the 35% forecast in the polls.
Bob Carr provides an interesting account describing the route as a "work of genius" - but not by O'Farrell but by the ALP itself. Carr's take is that the ALP failed the "McKell model", saying
It was a symbolic repudiation of the McKell model, the style of NSW Labor since William McKell (premier 1941-47). McKell's moderate ethos was based on middle course policies which gave the party support in the bush as well as the city.It was possible because the machine supported the parliamentary leadership, the premier of the day. This pattern prevailed under Joe Cahill, Neville Wran and me.
Rodney Cavalier in Power Crisis (reviewed by me here) places the blame here the other way round. Under the McKell model the Parliamentary Party took the party with it, not, as Carr suggests, was the party machine always merely the lap-dog of the parliamentary party.
It is naive of anyone to ever believe that in a stoush between the parliamentary party and the party organisation that the parliamentary party will win. It is untrue of a party with the pledge like the ALP but ultimately is unsustainable even in a party like the Liberals (or more pertinently the UAP).
It isn't even hard to find divergent views on KK. ALP General Secretary Sam Dastyari wrote;
The one figure whose stature rose in everybody's eyes during the campaign was Kristina Keneally. A talented and polished performer when she rose to be premier, she excelled as a campaigner. Her energy and her will to fight to the end impressed voters across the spectrum. People kept telling us, again and again, that they admired how she stood up for what she believed in. That attitude and commitment needs to be the spirit of Labor in opposition.
While former Howard CoS Arthur Sinodinis wrote;
Kristina Keneally has proved to be a major disappointment. It is doubtful she has any real future in politics, state or federal. She may be a feisty and attractive campaigner but there is no evidence her political skills during the campaign added to Labor's vote. But her actions before the campaign proper began showed the absence of mature political judgment.
First and foremost was her failure to support Nathan Rees who at least was attempting, if only at the 11th hour, to reform the worst excesses of state Labor. Keneally gained the premiership over Rees's dead body. She was the revenge of Sussex Street power brokers on a reforming premier...
Her botching of the electricity sale to satisfy the ambitions of her Treasurer - and the treatment of parliament in that process - convinced the public that re-electing this government would change nothing. Indeed, there was a danger that rewarding bad behaviour would only encourage it.
The latter is a telling statement. There seemed to be no real benefit in pursuing the electricity privatisation so close to the poll - other than to let BOF off - he'll just say "oh terrible deal but too hard to undo". It would have been good to see the man who voted down the original proposals have to deal with the issue in the next four years.
Equally it would have been interesting to see the ALP vote with Nathan Rees having the full run. Mind you, even more interesting would have been John Watkins replacing Bob Carr instead of Morris Iemma.
The question is - what now. Predictably John Faulkner has called for factions and individuals to put the party first. In that he wants support for party reforms recommended by the 2010 Review.
The review report contains nice sentiments like;
The Review Committee believes developing a modern and meaningful role for members within a democratic party is the fundamental challenge facing the modern Labor Party.
For Labor to effectively develop and articulate a modern reform agenda, it must stay closely connected to the broader progressive community, and our connection to Australia’s youth must be revived. This is best done by ensuring that we are open and authentic about our values and committed to involving members and reaching out to supporters. Labor must reach out to the progressive movements which already exist in Australia and which previously have provided the Party with innovation in policy and ideas. ...
The Review Committee believes that the Party should also explicitly adopt an organising approach to growing the Party membership. ... The Party should also formalise training activities through the creation of a national organising and training institute or academy. This body would be responsible for organising classes and courses for members and supporters on building the
Labor presence in local communities, as well as becoming a new home for the Party’s campaign training initiatives.
While seeking a "modern and meaningful role for members", the report backs the current 50/50 representation between branches and affiliate organisations (unions). While it makes some recommendations about reducing the rorting of the 50% from members (by including in it parliamentary representatives, young labor etc), and electing Presidents from the membership, it doesn't address the fact that members know they are irrelevant at conference. And the key party position - just as it was for Joe Stalin - is General Secretary, not President.
The view of the review that Labor "must stay closely connected to the broader progressive community" can be contrasted with the view of those from the academic (and indeed Socialist Alternative) left. Rick Kuhn has recently opined that "the relationship between the ALP and the working class is certainly much less intimate now than it was a century or even fifty years ago." He builds on work he has done with Tom Bramble in their book Labor's Conflict
which was also summarised in an article in the Oz last year.
In both these pieces there is reference to " low-working-class combativity" leading Kuhn to conclude;
On the other hand, a revival in workers’ combativity may lead many of them to conclude that their own actions could challenge the logic of production for profits and the structures of Australian politics, both embraced by Labor, that create their immediate problems.
This analysis provides one of the alternative narratives about the ALP - that it is either doing too much or too little to (a) embrace all progressive movements or (b) focus on its blue collar base.
Either is simplistic. The "progressive" cause is too broad to provide a cohesive base - just ask the Australian Democrats. The 'blue collar base" is too narrow, representing something less than 20% of the workforce.
The alternative is to redefine a philosophy of the left to give new meaning to "the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange" to not focus on ownership but instead on purpose. The enemy is not profit, but the idea that the "purpose of the firm is to create shareholder value". The latter is not only bad political philosophy, it is economically and historically incorrect.
Finally let us return to the Dastyari analysis. He writes that;
We need to address the factional system at a state parliamentary level. In the past this served Labor and the state well as it brought internal discipline and clarity to the party's thoughts and actions.
He needs to look closer to home. The factional system pervades Sussex St, and every other organ of the party. If he really wants to make inroads he needs to first prohibit the “show and tell” voting arrangements used to ensure factional discipline.
Secondly he needs to show real commitment to rebuilding the party by returning it to a truly democratic party in which decisions ultimately come from members who chose to join the party. That means cranking down union representation at conference to where it was when the party was founded, zero.
Unfortunately the parliamentary party is expected to select the former head of Unions NSW as its new leader. As Morris Iemma is says "Robbo becoming leader is not a good start".
What do Unsworth, Costa, Della Bosca and Roozendaal have in common? They were either former General Secretaries of the party or heads of the NSW Union movement. Oh, and they were monumental failures in parliamentary politics.
(Mind you Costa is quoted as saying "In my opinion Robbo has neither the intellect nor the political courage required to be an alternative premier." Problem is that was true of Costa as Treasurer too. Too little has been written about the role of Costa as Treasurer in canning the original North-West rail proposal and backing instead the ludicrous "metro line" that cost about $500M.)
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Pauline Hanson failed miserably to attract support - though her 1.85% was still double that of the remnant Australian Democrats. More interestingly the Greens again failed to win an inner-city lower house seat. Their nearly 11% Upper House vote includes large slabs from those seats on the North Shore where the Greens out-polled (by as much as double) the ALP.
But the real story was the destruction of the ALP - and a 2PP vote of about the 35% forecast in the polls.
Bob Carr provides an interesting account describing the route as a "work of genius" - but not by O'Farrell but by the ALP itself. Carr's take is that the ALP failed the "McKell model", saying
It was a symbolic repudiation of the McKell model, the style of NSW Labor since William McKell (premier 1941-47). McKell's moderate ethos was based on middle course policies which gave the party support in the bush as well as the city.It was possible because the machine supported the parliamentary leadership, the premier of the day. This pattern prevailed under Joe Cahill, Neville Wran and me.
Rodney Cavalier in Power Crisis (reviewed by me here) places the blame here the other way round. Under the McKell model the Parliamentary Party took the party with it, not, as Carr suggests, was the party machine always merely the lap-dog of the parliamentary party.
It is naive of anyone to ever believe that in a stoush between the parliamentary party and the party organisation that the parliamentary party will win. It is untrue of a party with the pledge like the ALP but ultimately is unsustainable even in a party like the Liberals (or more pertinently the UAP).
It isn't even hard to find divergent views on KK. ALP General Secretary Sam Dastyari wrote;
The one figure whose stature rose in everybody's eyes during the campaign was Kristina Keneally. A talented and polished performer when she rose to be premier, she excelled as a campaigner. Her energy and her will to fight to the end impressed voters across the spectrum. People kept telling us, again and again, that they admired how she stood up for what she believed in. That attitude and commitment needs to be the spirit of Labor in opposition.
While former Howard CoS Arthur Sinodinis wrote;
Kristina Keneally has proved to be a major disappointment. It is doubtful she has any real future in politics, state or federal. She may be a feisty and attractive campaigner but there is no evidence her political skills during the campaign added to Labor's vote. But her actions before the campaign proper began showed the absence of mature political judgment.
First and foremost was her failure to support Nathan Rees who at least was attempting, if only at the 11th hour, to reform the worst excesses of state Labor. Keneally gained the premiership over Rees's dead body. She was the revenge of Sussex Street power brokers on a reforming premier...
Her botching of the electricity sale to satisfy the ambitions of her Treasurer - and the treatment of parliament in that process - convinced the public that re-electing this government would change nothing. Indeed, there was a danger that rewarding bad behaviour would only encourage it.
The latter is a telling statement. There seemed to be no real benefit in pursuing the electricity privatisation so close to the poll - other than to let BOF off - he'll just say "oh terrible deal but too hard to undo". It would have been good to see the man who voted down the original proposals have to deal with the issue in the next four years.
Equally it would have been interesting to see the ALP vote with Nathan Rees having the full run. Mind you, even more interesting would have been John Watkins replacing Bob Carr instead of Morris Iemma.
The question is - what now. Predictably John Faulkner has called for factions and individuals to put the party first. In that he wants support for party reforms recommended by the 2010 Review.
The review report contains nice sentiments like;
The Review Committee believes developing a modern and meaningful role for members within a democratic party is the fundamental challenge facing the modern Labor Party.
For Labor to effectively develop and articulate a modern reform agenda, it must stay closely connected to the broader progressive community, and our connection to Australia’s youth must be revived. This is best done by ensuring that we are open and authentic about our values and committed to involving members and reaching out to supporters. Labor must reach out to the progressive movements which already exist in Australia and which previously have provided the Party with innovation in policy and ideas. ...
The Review Committee believes that the Party should also explicitly adopt an organising approach to growing the Party membership. ... The Party should also formalise training activities through the creation of a national organising and training institute or academy. This body would be responsible for organising classes and courses for members and supporters on building the
Labor presence in local communities, as well as becoming a new home for the Party’s campaign training initiatives.
While seeking a "modern and meaningful role for members", the report backs the current 50/50 representation between branches and affiliate organisations (unions). While it makes some recommendations about reducing the rorting of the 50% from members (by including in it parliamentary representatives, young labor etc), and electing Presidents from the membership, it doesn't address the fact that members know they are irrelevant at conference. And the key party position - just as it was for Joe Stalin - is General Secretary, not President.
The view of the review that Labor "must stay closely connected to the broader progressive community" can be contrasted with the view of those from the academic (and indeed Socialist Alternative) left. Rick Kuhn has recently opined that "the relationship between the ALP and the working class is certainly much less intimate now than it was a century or even fifty years ago." He builds on work he has done with Tom Bramble in their book Labor's Conflict
which was also summarised in an article in the Oz last year. In both these pieces there is reference to " low-working-class combativity" leading Kuhn to conclude;
On the other hand, a revival in workers’ combativity may lead many of them to conclude that their own actions could challenge the logic of production for profits and the structures of Australian politics, both embraced by Labor, that create their immediate problems.
This analysis provides one of the alternative narratives about the ALP - that it is either doing too much or too little to (a) embrace all progressive movements or (b) focus on its blue collar base.
Either is simplistic. The "progressive" cause is too broad to provide a cohesive base - just ask the Australian Democrats. The 'blue collar base" is too narrow, representing something less than 20% of the workforce.
The alternative is to redefine a philosophy of the left to give new meaning to "the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange" to not focus on ownership but instead on purpose. The enemy is not profit, but the idea that the "purpose of the firm is to create shareholder value". The latter is not only bad political philosophy, it is economically and historically incorrect.
Finally let us return to the Dastyari analysis. He writes that;
We need to address the factional system at a state parliamentary level. In the past this served Labor and the state well as it brought internal discipline and clarity to the party's thoughts and actions.
He needs to look closer to home. The factional system pervades Sussex St, and every other organ of the party. If he really wants to make inroads he needs to first prohibit the “show and tell” voting arrangements used to ensure factional discipline.
Secondly he needs to show real commitment to rebuilding the party by returning it to a truly democratic party in which decisions ultimately come from members who chose to join the party. That means cranking down union representation at conference to where it was when the party was founded, zero.
Unfortunately the parliamentary party is expected to select the former head of Unions NSW as its new leader. As Morris Iemma is says "Robbo becoming leader is not a good start".
What do Unsworth, Costa, Della Bosca and Roozendaal have in common? They were either former General Secretaries of the party or heads of the NSW Union movement. Oh, and they were monumental failures in parliamentary politics.
(Mind you Costa is quoted as saying "In my opinion Robbo has neither the intellect nor the political courage required to be an alternative premier." Problem is that was true of Costa as Treasurer too. Too little has been written about the role of Costa as Treasurer in canning the original North-West rail proposal and backing instead the ludicrous "metro line" that cost about $500M.)
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
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