Carr on the ropes?
By Barry Healy
SYDNEY — NSW Labor Party leader Bob Carr will face a censure motion within caucus and his position may be in trouble according to rumours circulating inside the ALP after his performance at the National Day of Action rally in Sydney. The discontent with his limp style of leadership has been building for some months.
Carr won his position as Leader in a deal in which he gave up his claim to the federal seat of Kingsford Smith (at the time coveted by Laurie Brereton). The smart talk around the ALP now is that he will be offered a Senate seat so that Shadow Minister for Police Peter Anderson can lead against Liberal Premier John Fahey.
Anderson is of the beer-gutted populist style beloved of the NSW ALP right. He is seen as a more saleable figurehead than the austere, slightly eccentric Carr.
ACTU Assistant Secretary Jennie George told the press following the rally that Carr is "out of step". Other union leaders called him "self-serving", and "out of touch". The South Coast Labor Council wrote to Carr on December 4 telling him his comments were totally unacceptable.
This is the first time that the hostility to Carr has surfaced outside the ALP but it has been brewing for some time. Earlier this year a woman member of the Legislative Council wrote to the ALP head office complaining that Carr had called women party members "bitches", that women members of the ALP never offered anything and they should all get out. n