By Pat Brewer
The current factional brawls in NSW and Victoria are an all too familiar scenario in a party which lacks real democracy. Party members of branches and affiliated unions have little real influence over policy formation, and no control at all over implementation. Their role has been reduced to turning up to vote at party and preselection ballots, and to doing their stuff on polling day.
During the period of the Whitlam government of the early '70s, many activists from social movements and progressive political struggles joined the ALP or looked to its leadership to present a real alternative to the conservative big business policies of the Coalition.
Many activists struggled to get progressive policies adopted by ALP units, battling their way from the branches through the electoral councils, on to policy committees and the agendas of state and national conferences.
However, the fact that a policy has been adopted is no guarantee it will be implemented in government.
Bob Hawke in his keynote speech to the 1984 national conference, the first following Labor's federal win in 1983, was quite blatant in his disregard for ALP policy, stating, "There is not proprietorship of the party. I do not own it, you do not own it, nor together do all its members own it ..."
The ALP was elected by the "mass of Australian people" and should be responsible to them, he claimed. The notion of the mass of the people soon shifted to that of "national interest". But who determines what the "masses" want or the nation needs? A quick look at the actions of state and federal Labor governments shows whose interests are being served.
There has been a massive polarisation of wealth: during the '80s the reductions in income inequality that had taken place since World War II were wiped out. And in the three years since 1990, inequality has worsened again by the same amount it did in the previous decade, returning to the levels prevailing during the 1930s depression.
The Accord has harnessed the trade union leadership to an economic strategy which has reduced the tax rates for the rich from 60 to 47% while the corporate rate dropped from 49 to 33%. Social services, health, education provision have all been slashed. The social polarisation has been so great that Keating is motivating his jobs compact as giving "the underclass a fair go" after all he's done for business.
Political differences between the factions, such as they were, have blurred. As the party implemented its big business program, the left's political agenda shifted rightward. The left has implemented some of the most brutal cuts: Brian Howe in health, Peter Baldwin in education, Gerry Hand, followed by Nick Bolkus, to slash migration and family reunion, Robert Tickner and Frank Walker to make sure that Aborigines got the most limited deal from the Mabo ruling on land rights.
After the Whitlam government, the party's already limited internal democracy was further reduced. Structures were adopted to consolidate power more firmly in the parliamentary wing.
In 1981 was rejected the proposal from the national committee of inquiry to expand the national conference to 310 delegates elected directly from affiliated unions and from branch structures. At the next conference, of the 99 full delegates, 20 were federal parliamentarians, 23 state parliamentarians, 20 full-time officials, six state ALP secretaries.
Internal party democracy has little interest for either of the factions. Delegates to national conference are elected at state conferences where dominant factions simply divide up the available positions. Ministers dominate the presentation of policy reports. Matters of dispute are often resolved between factions before reaching conference. The National Executive elected at national conference is dominated by party officers and faction leaders, and generally restricts itself to machine matters.
In the parliamentary wing, caucusing has been abused to further centralise power. Hawke tried to implement caucus solidarity within internal party meetings but was defeated. He succeeded in introducing cabinet solidarity within caucus. Within cabinet, Hawke built an inner cabinet so that policies can be initiated without ever going for discussion to cabinet, let alone caucus.
Parliamentary caucus is the place to discuss and decide policy. Once decisions are made, the parliamentarians can present a united face in public, including Parliament. Such unity in action is an aspect of party democracy — a mechanism for ensuring the implementation of collective decisions. But it's a travesty if this limited accountability is applied to internal forums of the party. That way, the tail wags the dog. Factional power is centralised, and decisions are rammed through lower and more inclusive bodies.
Faction domination of state conferences already gags debate and ensures those outside the factions have little role in the ALP. In the NSW branch, both right and left factions devise their strategies at top-level meetings and pass the instructions down to the delegations from unions and branch structures. Voting is preset hand-raising on factional lines after set piece debates.
Union delegations at the state level usually account for 60% of delegates. But these are factionally controlled and usually hand-picked for their obedience to the particular factional alignment. These delegates often aren't even members of the union, let alone members of the ALP.
Factional manoeuvres are a constant. Many of the alternate leadership tickets run within unions are part of this factional war for numbers, hence positions, in the ALP.
In NSW, they abolished state council, which was to deal with business not completed by annual state conference. Some of the functions of state council were transferred to the Administrative Committee. Because state conference now dealt with more time consuming matters, like the preselection of Senate candidates, time for debate of policy was further truncated.
NSW branch moved from fortnightly to monthly Administrative Committee meetings. More and more functions of party administration fall back on individual officers or informal meetings of officers and faction leaders.
NSW also abolished the annual women's conference, which had the greatest democratic structure, with each branch eligible to send four delegates.
Rules changed to deprive branches of the right to admit members to the party. Now you join the NSW branch centrally, then later apply to join the particular local branch.
A clear demonstration that the left has as little interest in democracy as the right followed the brutal bashing of Peter Baldwin in 1980. The left steering committee damped down the outrage of members. Instead of building a campaign for democracy within the party, the left did a deal with the right-wing faction to set up a task force to investigate the most glaring branch malpractices.
This uneasy compromise lasted just long enough to ensure electoral victory in 1981 and was then abandoned by the right.
It's no wonder that anyone with a commitment to left policies has been driven out of the party by frustration, if not expelled. What is amazing is that there are some who still think that such a situation can be reformed from within.