ALP left protest succeeds

SYDNEY — Four hundred Australian Labor Party left-wingers protested outside a meeting of the party's administrative committee meeting here on April 8; they were demanding the reinstatement of rank and file preselection ballots for two safe Sydney seats. After two weeks of internecine warfare in which the dominant right faction had refused to bow to membership pressure for a ballot, and left unions had threatened to withhold election funding, the Sussex Street regime of John Bella Bosca caved in. However, as one observer noted of the left victory: "It's a pity that it takes factional interest to mobilise the ALP left, when we don't hear a peep from them about the hundreds of thousands of unemployed walking the streets of Australia". Photo by Catherine Brown.

From GLW issue 138