tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/john-faulkner-600/articlesJohn Faulkner – The Conversation2020-01-23T19:02:23Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1303722020-01-23T19:02:23Z2020-01-23T19:02:23ZWhy we need strong ethical standards for ministers – and better ways of enforcing them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311518/original/file-20200123-162221-jjwu9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prime Minister Scott Morrison has asked his department to probe whether Bridget McKenzie was in breach of ministerial standards in her handling of the sports grants program.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Prime Minister Scott Morrison has asked the head of his department to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-22/scott-morrison-seeks-bridget-mckenzie-sports-grants-probe/11890922">investigate whether Bridget McKenzie violated</a> <a href="https://www.pmc.gov.au/resource-centre/government/statement-ministerial-standards">ministerial standards</a> when she dispensed sports grants to clubs in marginal seats and those being targeted by the Coalition in last year’s election.</p>
<p>It is generally accepted by Australians that “public office is a public trust”. The nature and extent of that trust, however, is continuously being debated. </p>
<p>This is especially true in an age of virtually unlimited potential for scrutiny of governments, and unlimited scope for the court of public opinion to take submissions (and make judgements) about ministerial conduct – well-founded or otherwise. </p>
<p>The late (and much lamented) <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-10/john-clarke-dies-aged-68/8430174">John Clarke</a> once told me his main role as satirist-in-residence to the nation was to remind the Australian people how fragile their democratic institutions are. </p>
<p>Almost a decade later, we are told on good authority that a significant proportion of young Australians <a href="https://lowyinstitutepoll.lowyinstitute.org/themes/democracy/">do not trust “government”</a>, to the point where many might well prefer military rule.</p>
<p>This is one reason why codified and enforceable standards of ministerial ethics and conduct will remain relevant - and expected - in our country. </p>
<h2>Early steps toward enacting standards</h2>
<p>Australia hasn’t always had a set of ethical standards for ministers and government officials. It is a relatively recent phenomenon which came about during Prime Minister John Howard’s time in office in the 1990s. </p>
<p>The idea was first broached in 1978 when Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser commissioned <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=CHAMBER;id=chamber/hansards/1994-10-10/0023;query=Id:%22chamber/hansards/1994-10-10/0035%22">Nigel Bowen</a> to conduct a review of conflict of interest matters involving officials. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-heads-roll-ministerial-standards-and-stuart-robert-54479">Will heads roll? Ministerial standards and Stuart Robert</a>
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<p>Instead of regulation, however, the committee sought to rely on the “court of public opinion” to deter unseemly conduct by MPs.</p>
<p>In the next few years, the culture of government in Australia began changing radically, and quickly.</p>
<p>When the Fraser government introduced both the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2017C00238/Html/Text">Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act</a> and the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Series/C2004A02562">Freedom of Information Act</a>, the opportunities for public scrutiny of ministerial decision-making – and conduct more generally – significantly affected public expectations about the way “the business of government” was done.</p>
<p>At a stroke, new standards of conduct by decision-makers at all levels were needed for the first time, for a new era of accountability and “speaking truth to power”.</p>
<h2>Standards put forth by Howard and Faulkner</h2>
<p>While the Hawke Labor government chose not to bring in new ministerial standards in 1983, Howard did so in 1996 - 20 years after Bowen. </p>
<p>After Howard introduced his <a href="https://australianpolitics.com/1996/04/13/howard-ministerial-code-of-conduct.html">ministerial code of conduct</a>, a significant number of ministers were forced to resign over various conflict of interest matters, and the code was amended to be less onerous.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-barnaby-joyce-affair-highlights-australias-weak-regulation-of-ministerial-staffers-91744">The Barnaby Joyce affair highlights Australia's weak regulation of ministerial staffers</a>
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<p>Against this backdrop, Opposition Senator John Faulkner introduced draft ethics and integrity standards to the Labor shadow cabinet. It was adopted as party policy in 2001.</p>
<p>The Faulkner standards, which I co-authored with George Thompson on Faulkner’s staff, drew on public ethics principles, legal definitions and community norms regarding the integrity expected of public officials. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311520/original/file-20200123-162232-145d9rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311520/original/file-20200123-162232-145d9rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311520/original/file-20200123-162232-145d9rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311520/original/file-20200123-162232-145d9rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311520/original/file-20200123-162232-145d9rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311520/original/file-20200123-162232-145d9rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311520/original/file-20200123-162232-145d9rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The standards introduced by John Faulkner have been endorsed by every government since 2007.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alan Porritt/AAP</span></span>
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<p>The standards recognised several challenges for parliament in policing its own members, chiefly that parliament had not enacted a code of conduct itself and had recently passed laws prohibiting it from expelling an MP for misconduct. </p>
<p>It therefore became the responsibility of the prime minister to enforce the standards. </p>
<p>The Rudd government endorsed these standards of ministerial ethics when it came into power in 2007. And each prime minister since then has endorsed a version of the standards, largely unchanged. </p>
<h2>Challenges of enforcing standards</h2>
<p>Every version of the standards has reminded ministers of their ethical and fiduciary duty to respect the trust placed in them by the public, and maintain public trust in parliament and our system of government.</p>
<p>Yet, challenges remain when it comes to interpreting and enforcing the standards. Notably, the standards impose a “waiting period” for former ministers and their staff to take up certain forms of employment after leaving office. </p>
<p>Yet, no government has sought to introduce statutory bans on specific jobs for former officials. There is also a lack of specific information about what forms of employment conduct are, and are not, permissible. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/many-professions-have-codes-of-ethics-so-why-not-politics-113731">Many professions have codes of ethics - so why not politics?</a>
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<p>This lack of specifics emerged as a notable problem in the recent cases involving <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-christopher-pyne-and-julie-bishop-fail-the-pub-test-with-their-new-jobs-119875">Christopher Pyne, Julie Bishop</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/oct/31/andrew-robb-did-not-tell-prime-minister-about-role-with-chinese-company">Andrew Robb</a> after they took up new roles that raised questions after leaving office. </p>
<p>There were similar problems in earlier cases involving former Labor ministers who left office. This requires immediate remedy.</p>
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<p>In the two decades since the Howard code, new ways of thinking about integrity in public office – and ministerial conduct, in particular – have also emerged. </p>
<p>The common law offence of “misconduct in public office” has become extensively used in North America in cases involving unethical and prohibited conduct by government officials, such as abuse of office, bribe-taking, vote-buying, unlawful lobbying and conflicts of interest. </p>
<p>There has also been a major revival in the prosecution of this offence in the UK, Hong Kong and Australia in recent years, generally for corruption cases. </p>
<p>The offence now ranks as the charge of choice for anti-corruption investigators and prosecutors in a host of jurisdictions, yet it has been the subject of relatively little academic research or recent commentary.</p>
<h2>Personal responsibility for conduct</h2>
<p>But ethics standards can only do so much – MPs and former ministers, in particular, must also take responsibility for their own conduct, irrespective of any formal sanctions which might apply.</p>
<p>It is always the minister’s personal responsibility to uphold the letter and the spirit of the oath of office, because of what that oath represents.</p>
<p>As former US Senator Alan Simpson once said:</p>
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<p>If you have integrity, nothing else matters. And if you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Howard Whitton is a Director of The Ethicos Group, and was one of the two co-authors (with George Thompson, then of Senator Faulkner's staff) of the original version of the 'Standards of Ministerial Ethics'. </span></em></p>Our government has grappled for years to devise ethical standards for ministers and other officials. But codes are only part of the answer – MPs must also take responsibility for their own conduct.Howard Whitton, Visiting Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/894902017-12-31T14:19:01Z2017-12-31T14:19:01ZCabinet papers 1994-95: Keating’s climate policy grapples sound eerily familiar<p>A highly publicised international deal on climate change is two years old. Australia’s federal government, under pressure from environmentalists and with a new prime minister at the helm, signs up and <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-to-ratify-the-paris-climate-deal-under-a-large-trump-shaped-shadow-68586">quickly ratifies it</a>. However, its emissions reductions actions don’t work, and the government faces a dilemma: strengthen the measures (including perhaps carbon pricing), or keep cooking up voluntary measures, spiced with a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-federal-climate-policy-review-a-recipe-for-business-as-usual-89372">dash of creative accounting</a>.</p>
<p>While the paragraph above might just as well describe the present day, it also sums up the situation in 1994, when Paul Keating’s government was wrestling with Australia’s climate policy. The period is better remembered for <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/133332774">angry timber industry workers blockading Parliament</a>, but there were also important battles over carbon pricing and Australia’s international negotiating position.</p>
<p>Cabinet papers from 1994 and 1995, <a href="http://naa.gov.au/collection/explore/cabinet/by-year/index.aspx">released today</a> by the National Archives of Australia, show how Keating’s cabinet fought an internal civil war over how to respond to climate change, while working hard to protect Australia’s fossil fuel exports.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-30-years-since-scientists-first-warned-of-climate-threats-to-australia-88314">It's 30 years since scientists first warned of climate threats to Australia</a>
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<h2>International pressure building</h2>
<p>Two years previously, in 1992, Australia’s environment minister Ros Kelly had <a href="https://theconversation.com/twenty-five-years-of-australian-climate-pledges-trumped-78651">enthusiastically signed up</a> to the new <a href="https://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/background_publications_htmlpdf/application/pdf/conveng.pdf">United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)</a> at the Rio Earth Summit. Australia’s willingness to support targets and timetables for emissions reductions (something the United States ultimately vetoed) gave it credibility. </p>
<p>Australia used this credibility to propound a “fossil fuel clause,” which made the now-familiar argument that:</p>
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<p>…economies that are highly dependent on income generated from the production, processing and export, and/or consumption of fossil fuels and associated energy-intensive products and/or the use of fossil fuels … have serious difficulties in switching to alternatives.</p>
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<p>The cabinet papers released today reveal that defending this clause was a major preoccupation of the government of the day.</p>
<p>In early 1994 Ros Kelly’s political career was brought low by the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/close-keating-ally-resigns-in-grants-scandal-1426241.html">“sports rorts” affair</a>. She was briefly replaced by Graham Richardson, and then the highly respected John Faulkner.</p>
<p>By this time, all climate eyes were on the first UNFCCC summit, to be held in Berlin in March-April 1995. As an August 1994 cabinet memo noted: </p>
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<p>…international pressure is mounting to strengthen the Convention’s emission reduction commitments,</p>
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<p>…Australia’s measures will fall short of reaching greenhouse gas emission targets and that Australia’s greenhouse performance is likely to compare unfavourably with that of most other OECD countries.</p>
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<p>This was a reference to the 1992 <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AUMPLawJl/1997/48.pdf">National Greenhouse Response Strategy</a>, which was already being shown to be toothless, with state governments approving new coal-fired
power stations and renewable energy ignored. Environmentalists wanted more mandatory action; business wanted to keep everything voluntary. After a roundtable hosted by Keating in June, cabinet debated climate change in August.</p>
<p>The political calculations involved are evident in the official record, which states: </p>
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<p>[Australia’s] ability to influence international negotiations away from unqualified, binding uniform emissions commitments towards approaches that better reflect Australia’s interests will be inhibited by a relatively poor domestic greenhouse response.</p>
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<p>And what are Australia’s national interests? It won’t surprise you to learn that the government worried that:</p>
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<p>…action by the international community could have a major impact on Australia’s energy sector and on the economy in general, by changing the nature and pattern of domestic energy use and/or by changing the world market for energy for Australian exporters.</p>
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<p>Cabinet pondered finding international allies – such as Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland and New Zealand – for the get-out-of-jail idea of “burden sharing”, which would allow countries to finesse their climate commitments by funding emissions reductions elsewhere.</p>
<p>Cabinet also canvassed the possibility of adopting either a proactive or reactive stance, or even withdrawing from the UN climate negotiations altogether. That last option – one that in essence would be adopted by John Howard, at least after George Bush opened up that space in 2001 by withdrawing from Kyoto – was seen as too risky. While the UNFCCC didn’t contain provisions for banning imports from recalcitrant countries, nevertheless:</p>
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<p>As a major exporter of energy and energy intensive products, Australia would need to be involved in the negotiations to guard against the possibility of this occurring.</p>
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<h2>Carbon tax?</h2>
<p>Faulkner had already flagged that he would bring a proposal to December 1994’s cabinet meeting, possibly including a small carbon tax – something the Greens, Democrats and Australian Conservation Foundation were <a href="https://theconversation.com/tax-or-trade-the-war-on-carbon-pricing-has-been-raging-for-decades-46008">all pushing for</a>.</p>
<p>His opponents were ready, with a two-pronged approach. First, they produced economic modelling (with, it later emerged, <a href="http://www.ombudsman.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/26286/investigation_1998_01.pdf">significant help from fossil fuel companies</a>), which warned that “to stabilise emissions at 1988 levels by 2000, taxes per tonne of CO₂ would need to be around US$192 for Australia and US$24 for the OECD.</p>
<p>So far, so frightening. But given that decisions reached at the Berlin summit might have consequences for Australia’s prized coal exports, some sort of
response was necessary. Fortunately, the Department of Primary Industry and Energy had prepared a document, called Response to Greenhouse Challenge "in consultation with key industry organisations” such as the Business Council of Australia. This had provided a “basis for discussions with industry and incorporates the key principles that industry wants included in the scheme”.</p>
<p>The carbon tax decision was deferred, and ultimately after a series of meetings in February 1995, Faulkner was forced to concede defeat. A purely voluntary scheme – the “Greenhouse Challenge” – was agreed, with industry signing on to what was essentially a reboot of the demonstrably ineffective National Greenhouse Response Strategy.</p>
<p>The Berlin meeting did lead to a call for <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09644019508414218">binding emissions cuts for developed countries</a>, and
Australia signed on, albeit grudgingly. By the end of the year, the same industry-funded modelling was used to produce a <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2351285">glossy report</a> which argued that Australia deserved special consideration because of the makeup of its economy. Australian diplomats would use this argument as a basis of their lobbying all the way through to the 1997 Kyoto climate summit.</p>
<p>In one of history’s ironies, on the same day that this report was released – December 1, 1995 – Keating’s cabinet discussed “the development of a more comprehensive effort in greenhouse science”, noting that: </p>
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<p>Climate change is capable of impacting severely on coastal infrastructure, living marine resources and coastal ecosystems such as reefs. The Australian
regional oceans strongly influence global climate, and Australia is vulnerable to oceanic changes affecting rainfall and possibly the incidence of tropical cyclones.</p>
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<p>A look at <a href="https://theconversation.com/2017-the-year-in-extreme-weather-88765">2017’s weather</a> tells you they may have been onto something there.</p>
<p><em><strong>Read more</strong>: <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-ten-years-since-rudds-great-moral-challenge-and-we-have-failed-it-75534">It’s ten years since Kevin Rudd’s ‘great moral challenge’, and we have failed it</a></em></p>
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<h2>The ominous parallels</h2>
<p>As I pointed out in <a href="https://theconversation.com/cabinet-papers-1992-93-australia-reluctant-while-world-moves-towards-first-climate-treaty-70535">last year’s cabinet records article</a>, “when it comes to climate policy, there are no real secrets worthy of the name. We have always known that the Australian state quickly retreated from its already hedged promise to take action, and told us all along that this was because we had a lot of coal”.</p>
<p>Reading these documents is a bit like yelling at a person in a horror movie not to open the door behind which the killer lurks. You know it is futile, but you just can’t help yourself. The December 1994 cabinet minutes contain sentences like this:</p>
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<p>Greenhouse is expected to generate future commercial opportunities for Australia with increased export of renewable energy technology e.g. photovoltaic, wind and mini-hydro technology, especially in the Asia-Pacific Region [to] support renewables.</p>
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<p>At yet, several governments later, we’re stuck having the same debates while standing by and letting other countries embrace those exact opportunities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Hudson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Paul Keating’s government, faced with the prospect of international action on climate change, took steps to preserve the coal industry - a tactic that has been rebooted many times since.Marc Hudson, PhD Candidate, Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/338942014-11-07T04:19:49Z2014-11-07T04:19:49ZMemoria in Memoriam: Whitlam’s farewell invokes power of oratory<p>In a playful rhetorical flourish at the Sydney Town Hall on Wednesday, Indigenous leader Noel Pearson <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/comment/noel-pearsons-eulogy-for-gough-whitlam-in-full-20141105-11haeu.html">monumentalised</a> Gough Whitlam’s prime ministerial legacy, Monty Python-style: </p>
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<p>What did the Romans ever do for us?</p>
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<p>Whitlam’s Romanesque bequest was amply uttered by Pearson and the other big Australian voices invited by the Whitlam family to publicly memorialise the life and service of Australia’s <a href="http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/whitlam/">21st prime minister</a>.</p>
<p>Whitlam left office nearly 40 years ago. That day, something else distinctly Roman boomed through “The People’s Hall” and out across the town square of modern Australia. </p>
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<p>As if young Cicero had taken up the conductor’s baton, Whitlam’s eulogists rose to his instruction in the ancient and still exigent business of oratory. Their task was to deploy the rhetorical canon of memory to construct a mighty aural memorial.</p>
<p>If we can resist the lure of cynicism and partisanship. If we can allow the decent people in public life, no matter their stripes, a brief warm reprieve from the chilly, unforgiving stage. If we can be thankful that at least the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-booed-as-he-arrives-at-gough-whitlam-memorial-service-20141105-11h6qd.html">boos</a>, cheers and ovations signal an honest, though unfiltered, civic engagement. </p>
<p>If we can give even the “old man” himself a break from the immense weight of acclaim, we open up a space to hear the larger, freer story the Whitlam orators tell of a nation and its people through the memories of one prodigious individual. In Pearson’s words:</p>
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<p>Raised next to the wood heap of the nation’s democracy, bequeathed no allegiance to any political party, I speak to this old man’s legacy with no partisan brief.</p>
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<h2>Memoria speaking to the present and future</h2>
<p><em>Memoria</em> in the classical rhetorical treatises was concerned with the revered discipline of impeccable memorisation, and with the locales, images and icons that serve as storehouses and mnemonics to natural human memory. Alas, the said discipline has suffered a great deal over the last couple of thousand years. Yet prompts of people, place, poetry and melody abounded in <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/gough-whitlam/gough-whitlam-memorial-labor-tribe-shows-colours-at-service/story-fnpxuhqd-1227113096955">Wednesday’s proceedings</a>. </p>
<p>Like memory itself, the notion of <em>memoria</em> is supple. Enter the Common Era and a Judaic kind of remembering emerged: one that is not a call to preserve, but to act, in the present, for the future; the essence of deliberative rhetoric. Memory scholar <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Carruthers">Mary Carruthers</a>, Professor of Literature at New York University, writes that:</p>
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<p>The matters memory presents are used to persuade and motivate, to create emotion, to stir the will. </p>
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<p>Beyond the personal and the partisan, the Whitlam orators “drew out” the memories they were charged with. Rather than assign them to an old Australia, static and gleaming behind velvet cordon, they gathered and recollected and re-imagined them for us now. Accounts of past travails resounded in present struggles and aspirations: different names and places; timeless human emotions and desires.</p>
<p>Whitlam’s speeches “gave the Aboriginal people hope”, said Wiradjuri elder, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-05/whitlam-treated-us-as-equals/5867906">Aunty Milly Ingram</a>. </p>
<p>Australian actress Cate Blanchett, who “was but three when he passed by” (alluding to Robert Menzies’ <a href="http://www.menziesvirtualmuseum.org.au/1960s/1963.html#film_b1">1963 homage</a> to the Queen), <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/cate-blanchett-pays-tribute-to-gough-whitlam-full-text-20141105-11hdb1.html">expressed her sadness</a> at the loss of a man whose initiatives ensured that she would be:</p>
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<p>… the product of an Australia that engages with the globe and engages honestly with its history and its Indigenous people. </p>
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<h2>Timeless truths outlast fad of the new</h2>
<p>Pearson observed that a four-decade-old policy program that promoted equality, indigenous participation and opportunity and advancement for all Australians was:</p>
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<p>… as fresh as it was when first conceived. It could scarcely be better articulated today. </p>
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<p>Senator John Faulkner <a href="http://www.senatorjohnfaulkner.com.au/file.php?file=/news/SFAEDSSSPU/index.html">declared</a> Whitlam’s achievements to be:</p>
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<p>… undeniable proof of the power of politics wedded to principle; of the capacity of government to change our nation for the better, and forever.</p>
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<p>And in concluding <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/gough-whitlam-remembered-by-his-eldest-son-antony-whitlam-qc-20141105-11hegm.html">his eulogy</a>, Whitlam’s eldest child, Federal Court judge Antony Whitlam, QC, gave gentle reassurance:</p>
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<p>The road ahead may be tortuous and difficult for all Australians, but we need not be divided on partisan lines.</p>
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<p>These appeals betray a profound gratitude for Whitlam’s unqualified rage against inequality and discrimination. Pearson again:</p>
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<p>Without this old man the land and human rights of our people would never have seen the light of day.</p>
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<p>They are also a clarion call to maintain that rage above the political fray. In words that were certainly meant for today, Whitlam’s long-time speechwriter, dear friend and comrade, Graham Freudenberg, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/now-its-time-for-australia-after-gough-whitlam-20141105-11hc68.html">vehemently cautioned</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Optimism, enthusiasm, confidence against fear, prejudice, conformity – that is his enduring message to the men and women of Australia, never more than now.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yZbzQ3qymUM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Public oratory remains a critical instrument of democratic governance to those who know and can mobilise its power. </p>
<p>Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating — who was present and quoted more than once at Whitlam’s memoriam — has for decades spoken of the need for leaders to <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/paul-keating-explains-as-never-before/story-e6frg74x-1226173493029">articulate the nation’s big story</a>. </p>
<p>These stately acts of public remembering can, if we can let go of partisan lines, play a crucial part in accessing public memory, motivating ideas and debate about the nation’s present and future, and reshaping the national story. To quote Whitlam’s watchword:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Contemporary relevance, comrade.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Chapple receives PhD candidature funding from the Commonwealth Government through a UQ Research Scholarship.</span></em></p>In a playful rhetorical flourish at the Sydney Town Hall on Wednesday, Indigenous leader Noel Pearson monumentalised Gough Whitlam’s prime ministerial legacy, Monty Python-style: What did the Romans ever…Kate Chapple, Tutor and PhD Researcher, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/329352014-10-28T00:30:19Z2014-10-28T00:30:19ZLabor will be making a mistake if it simply divorces the unions<p>Proposed reforms in the Australian Labor Party aim to give members a greater voice in party governance and policy development. This is driven by the need to reverse the party’s shrinking support base after disastrous recent election results and declining membership. </p>
<p>Reform is commonly framed in terms of reducing the role of unions in the party, as their own membership has declined. It is argued this would break down factional control by “union bosses” of candidate pre-selection and of bloc votes at state and federal conferences that determine policy. Under ALP rules, <a href="http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/australianlaborparty/pages/121/attachments/original/1365135867/Labor_National_Platform.pdf?1365135867">50% of delegates</a> are union representatives. </p>
<p>Senator John Faulkner is the latest to <a href="https://theconversation.com/cut-union-representation-in-labor-conferences-faulkner-32634">propose reducing union conference representation</a>. Party reviews have already downgraded the union-party relationship to “partnership” in 2002, and “links” in 2010, alongside “other community organisations”. </p>
<p>When proposing that union membership no longer be required for new party members, federal Labor leader Bill Shorten <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bill-shorten-outlines-alp-reforms-aimed-at-boosting-party-membership-20140422-zqxvb.html">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It used to be said that Labor was the political arm of the union movement. I’m saying today, as proud as I am of unions and what they’ve done, the Labor Party is the political arm of no one but the Australian people. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The ALP has always sought broad appeal to “the people” and must continue to do so for electoral viability. Nevertheless, the unions remain the largest membership-based representative civil institutions in Australia, rivalled only by the number of people who at least occasionally attend religious services. It would be a strategic error for the ALP to distance itself further from unions.</p>
<h2>Affiliates are unrepresentative of labour movement</h2>
<p>The problem is that unions affiliated to the ALP are unrepresentative of unionism as a whole. Only 11 unions account for all federal Labor parliamentarians with union backgrounds, nine of which are affiliated to the party. Almost half of these 39 MPs come from three affiliates: the Shop Distributive and Allied Industries Union (eight), Transport Workers’ Union (five) and Australian Services Union (five).</p>
<p>The unions that originally affiliated to the ALP in the early 20th century were predominantly blue-collar. However, these unions have declined in significance along with traditional blue-collar jobs. </p>
<p>Most white-collar unions, especially in the public sector, remain unaffiliated. But white-collar and public sector unionism expanded from the 1960s to 1980s. Although contracting after that, public sector union membership is 42% compared with 12% for the private sector. Public sector unions account for 41% of all union members. </p>
<p>The historical unions-ALP relationship suggests ways for improving political mobilisation and participative processes in the ALP by broadening the union base. In each of the Australian colonies where Labor parties originated in the early 1890s, peak union bodies played the initiating role. </p>
<p>In New South Wales and Queensland, where the ALP first became strongly established, the Sydney Trades and Labour Council and the Australasian Labour Federation, respectively, brought a mass base of unions to the party because they broadly represented most unions in their colony. </p>
<p>It is important to note that this political mobilisation was not dependent on high union density. The NSW union membership rate was barely 20% in 1890, although this was comparatively high at the time.</p>
<p>The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), representing virtually all Australian unions, could play the same role as its 1890s equivalents. The Australian Labor Advisory Council (ALAC), which previously brought Labor and ACTU leaders together for policy discussion, has been dormant for some years; its revival could be an important step in this direction. </p>
<h2>Nordic models of engagement</h2>
<p>Scandinavian examples suggest further possibilities. Swedish, Norwegian and (until 1995) Danish Labour or Social Democratic party executives have traditionally included peak union leaders. Norwegian party and union leaderships meet weekly in a joint consultative committee. Such measures could develop a policy platform around which the ACTU could mobilise.</p>
<p>When the ALP was formed, individual unions also played a major role at the local level. Unions were largely localised organisations. Early party branches also enjoyed some autonomy. This allowed for a high degree of participatory democracy, but over time both unions and parties became more centralised.</p>
<p>Union affiliation at the central party level could be replaced by affiliation of local union branches or workplace groups at the local ALP branch level. This is similar to the successful <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-can-learn-a-lot-about-public-policy-from-the-nordic-nations-32204">Swedish Social Democratic</a> practice. </p>
<p>Affiliation would occur only where local union groups were sufficiently engaged to affiliate. It could be based on substantial work sites, clusters of work sites or residential areas with significant proportions of members from particular unions.</p>
<p>This might require new branches or redrawing of branch boundaries, but the advantages would be twofold: potentially boosting party membership at the branch level; and breaking up central control of union bloc voting at conferences, upon which factions rely.</p>
<p>These restructuring proposals provide opportunity for greater rank-and-file participation at the “grass roots” level, as well as greater coordination with the ACTU, which represents all unions. This would reinvigorate the ALP’s position as a mass party for workers, rather than a party of disconnected “union bosses”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32935/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ray Markey is a member of the National Tertiary Education Union, which is not affiliated to the ALP.</span></em></p>Proposed reforms in the Australian Labor Party aim to give members a greater voice in party governance and policy development. This is driven by the need to reverse the party’s shrinking support base after…Ray Markey, Director of the Centre for Workforce Futures, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/326612014-10-13T02:03:29Z2014-10-13T02:03:29ZPolitics as usual? Ailing parties fail to get to grips with social media<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61491/original/wqt3mfdw-1413159140.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Senator John Faulkner's call for political parties to re-engage with Australians through social media is laudable, but his own efforts illustrate how much politicians have to learn.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facebook/John Faulkner</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After his <a href="http://australianpolitics.com/2014/10/07/john-faulkner-alp-reform-speech.html">speech about party renewal</a> last week, I went to Labor Senator <a href="https://www.facebook.com/senatorjohnfaulkner?ref=br_rs">John Faulkner’s Facebook page</a>. It has about 2700 likes. The page features links to speeches and pictures of events that Faulkner has been to, including meeting US President Barack Obama and a charity event for Alzheimer’s. But in reality it’s being used as just another medium to “broadcast” political messages and statements.</p>
<p>There is no evidence that John Faulkner himself uses the page - it says it’s managed by his office. There is no interaction at all with the people who have taken time to comment on the page. This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the way social media works.</p>
<p>Social media provides an everyday horizontal network between a group of connected individuals; it’s meant to be an informal space to interact and engage. Increasingly, ordinary citizens want to see that politicians are ordinary like them, just community members who happen to be politicians. They want politicians to be authentic and are sceptical if they see staff posting on their behalf.</p>
<h2>Social media is a primary source of source</h2>
<p>I recently completed a project, <a href="http://www.york.ac.uk/satsu/civic-network/">The Civic Network</a>, in collaboration with USA and UK-based colleagues, Michael Xenos and Brian Loader. Our project examined how young people use social media for political engagement. We were especially interested in whether social media was making it easier for a broader range of young people to express themselves and take action on politics.</p>
<p>Facebook has become ubiquitous for young people. About 90% of those aged 16-29 in each country have a Facebook page. Young people also learn about politics and major news events on Facebook rather than via traditional news outlets. That is, 65% of young Australians hear about major news events first on Facebook, before any other media outlet, and a majority regularly follow links to news stories from Facebook. </p>
<p>Our research suggests that we need to take Facebook much more seriously as a space where young people - purposefully or incidentally - engage with politics, with their networks of friends and family. Furthermore, contrary to popular speculation, this does not lead to an echo chamber of hearing only one-sided views. A majority of young Australians say they learn from Facebook friends who have different political views from theirs.</p>
<p>Many of our research participants believe that “liking” is an important way of showing symbolic support for political issues they and their friends care about. They are more likely to do this than to comment on posts about politics, which was just over a third in Australia and UK and 40% in the US.</p>
<h2>Old politics is for old media</h2>
<p>In qualitative online discussions we asked young people what they thought about posting on politics on social media and to explain the reluctance to make comments. One of the main reasons they are reluctant to comment on politics is that it could lead to conflict: they are wary of disagreement, arguments and offending someone. </p>
<p>This means that young people in general equate politics with conflict that is best avoided. Some said they thought that political conversations were better done face-to-face. Those who weren’t actively engaged in politics really wanted social media to be kept as just a social space for family and friends.</p>
<p>However, some of our young participants were optimistic about engagement with politics through social media platforms. One young woman stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I do think it is good. Many people my age have switched off the traditional media and it is rare to meet somebody who regularly watches the news or reads a newspaper. It is therefore important to spark their engagement in other ways. If they are actively reading, engaging and being informed by conversations on social media sites, then it creates a more informed public.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We also asked them whether they thought politicians should use social media more. Most thought it was a good idea as politicians should be available to be asked questions publicly and needed to be responsive to people, demonstrating that they listened to their views. They thought it was a way that politicians could focus on sharing information and policy, especially for young people who weren’t watching the news.</p>
<p>For example, one person said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think it’s a good thing our society is moving online and politicians are usually older people and it’s good to seem making an effort to stay up to date with technology and younger people who popularly use social media.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some suggested that more interaction should become a normalised practice for politicians:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think politicians using Facebook or Twitter is a good thing, as it allows them to interact with a younger audience on a more regular basis. However, I think that politicians need to use these social networks better, for example, perhaps doing weekly question and answer posts submitted from users.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61493/original/rgb3tgq5-1413159512.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61493/original/rgb3tgq5-1413159512.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61493/original/rgb3tgq5-1413159512.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61493/original/rgb3tgq5-1413159512.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61493/original/rgb3tgq5-1413159512.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61493/original/rgb3tgq5-1413159512.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61493/original/rgb3tgq5-1413159512.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While some scoffed, Kevin Rudd’s ‘shaving cut’ selfie suited social media’s more personal political culture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facebook/Kevin Rudd</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many also thought it could help show politicians were normal people, especially if their messages were positive and genuine. In a discussion about Kevin Rudd’s use of a <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/kevin-rudd-cuts-himself-shaving-then-shares-it-on-twitter/story-fnho52ip-1226676991326">selfie after cutting himself</a> shaving during the 2013 election campaign, one young man said: “I think it’s funny, and it shows that Kevin Rudd has a humorous side to him and can be taken as not just a politician who’s always serious.”</p>
<p>But some were concerned that politicians wouldn’t be authentic and that their staff would write the messages, not them. Part of authentic engagement was about being positive, not mired in adversarial and partisan conflict. For example, one woman said that politicians needed to “post relevant pieces of information that are interesting to people, without tearing to shreds the opposition”.</p>
<p>In the end, this is the difficult challenge for politics and politicians. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/10/john-faulkners-call-for-trust-drowned-out-by-all-the-stunts">Politics is about contestations</a> over power, resources and decision-making. Debate and conflict are core. Young people’s everyday social media use is often about positive affirmation, liking posts and engaging on issues that matter to them. </p>
<p>The reconciliation of these two spaces is increasingly important if we want to reverse democratic disengagement. It will require a new form of interaction that cannot be politics as usual.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32661/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ariadne Vromen received funding from The Spencer Foundation (USA) for the project The Civic Network, undertaken with Michael Xenos and Brian Loader.</span></em></p>After his speech about party renewal last week, I went to Labor Senator John Faulkner’s Facebook page. It has about 2700 likes. The page features links to speeches and pictures of events that Faulkner…Ariadne Vromen, Associate Professor, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/294852014-07-24T04:26:09Z2014-07-24T04:26:09ZFaulkner’s reforms will fail as NSW Labor refuses to change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54595/original/nc8mky5z-1406077547.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It seems things are not yet bad enough in the Labor Party to make significant reform, such as John Faulkner's proposed changes to preselection, likely. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Daniel Munoz</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Labor senator John Faulkner <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/john-faulkners-preselection-proposal-faces-defeat-20140717-zty3l.html">does not anticipate</a> that his moves to reform the party’s preselection processes will succeed at this weekend’s NSW State Conference. Faulkner is hoping to have the rules changed so that candidates for upper house elections in NSW and federally will be chosen directly by party members, rather than by the ALP’s Administrative Committee, where trade union delegates are <a href="http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2014/07/19/faulkner-expects-state-conference-defeat-party-reform/1405692000#.U8yfrGS1YhQ">all powerful</a>.</p>
<p>The relationship between trade unions and party rank-and-file members has been strained from the Labor Party’s birth in the 1890s. In the early years of the 20th century almost every state ALP conference saw protests by either unionists or local members that one or the other was being sidelined. </p>
<p>Today, trade union delegates dominate state conference, which is the policy-making body of the party, so they are unlikely to give up their power voluntarily.</p>
<h2>A long history of conflict</h2>
<p>The first NSW Labor Party – the Labor Electoral League – was created by the trade union movement in the 1890s precisely to defend its interests in the parliamentary arena. The unions still regard the party as theirs.</p>
<p>However, it is unwise to rely too heavily on history to justify present-day policies, since both the Labor Party and the trade union movement have been utterly transformed since the late 19th century. The NSW party has been virtually recreated many times since then:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>by <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/holman-william-arthur-6713">William Holman</a> in order to make it electable to majority government in 1910;</p></li>
<li><p>by the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) creating a rigid faction system in order to get rid of supporters of conscription (including Holman) in 1916-17;</p></li>
<li><p>by <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lang-john-thomas-jack-7027">Jack Lang</a> to create his own personal political machine in the 1920s and 1930s;</p></li>
<li><p>by <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mckell-sir-william-john-15293">William McKell</a> in the early 1940s to restore sanity and to foster the values of postwar reconstruction of Australian society;</p></li>
<li><p>by <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/neville-wran-labor-premier-had-a-golden-run-20140421-370ho.html">Neville Wran</a> to further the principles of Gough Whitlam’s social agenda and;</p></li>
<li><p>most recently by <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/labor-to-seek-life-ban-for-eddie-obeid-ian-macdonald-and-five-others-20140717-ztwed.html">Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi</a> to outdo Lang in using the party for personal profit. </p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54626/original/y268t9q8-1406094139.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54626/original/y268t9q8-1406094139.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54626/original/y268t9q8-1406094139.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54626/original/y268t9q8-1406094139.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54626/original/y268t9q8-1406094139.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54626/original/y268t9q8-1406094139.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54626/original/y268t9q8-1406094139.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54626/original/y268t9q8-1406094139.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eddie Obeid and others recast the NSW ALP in a bid for personal profit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Paul Miller</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not surprisingly, many party members are hoping for a modern-day McKell to restore sanity. </p>
<p>The union movement also bears little resemblance to the Trades and Labor Council of the 1890s. It is now called Unions NSW and very few of its leaders have ever worked at the coalface or spent half a lifetime recruiting members among shearers or stonemasons, as was the typical career path for union leaders until the 1960s. </p>
<p>Now, most union leaders hold their positions because they have university degrees and management experience, irrespective of the craft or trade of their members.</p>
<h2>What chance is there for genuine reform?</h2>
<p>Calls for the Labor Party to reform are nothing new. Every election defeat at federal or state level brings an official inquiry and report explaining that further effort should be made to stop the decline in party membership and to introduce structural changes to the party to make this possible.</p>
<p>Occasionally there is a more formal inquiry, as with Bob Hawke and Neville Wran’s <a href="http://australianpolitics.com/2002/08/09/hawke-wran-alp-review.html">report</a> after the party’s loss at the 2001 federal election. However, its modest recommendations disappeared without trace.</p>
<p>In his first stint as prime minister, Kevin Rudd tried to reduce the role of large unions by denying a role for left and right factions to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-09-29/rudd-seizes-power-from-factions/684454">choose his ministry</a>. The present leader, Bill Shorten, <a href="https://theconversation.com/shorten-the-unions-and-the-challenge-of-labor-party-reform-25854">talks up</a> the need for modest party reform but, as a former union leader himself, it is unlikely that his words will lead to firm action.</p>
<p>In previous eras, federal intervention could force reform of corrupt state branches. The party’s federal executive has intervened in the NSW ALP at least half-a-dozen times and leaned rather heavily another three or four times. The most important occasions were to get rid of Lang in 1939, to disband a pro-communist state executive in 1941, and to sort out the problems of the DLP split in the 1950s. </p>
<p>However, it is difficult to see federal intervention forcing the NSW party to introduce internal democracy. Trade unions are also dominant at the federal level. A very strong party leader, with unchallengeable electoral support, could force the federal conference or executive to intervene in this way, but such a leader is not currently in view.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54628/original/jpvfrfc6-1406096286.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54628/original/jpvfrfc6-1406096286.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54628/original/jpvfrfc6-1406096286.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54628/original/jpvfrfc6-1406096286.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54628/original/jpvfrfc6-1406096286.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54628/original/jpvfrfc6-1406096286.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54628/original/jpvfrfc6-1406096286.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54628/original/jpvfrfc6-1406096286.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten has talked up the need for modest party reform.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dan Himbrechts</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In one sense, the current political climate is not favourable for such reforms. At the next NSW state election the ALP should improve its position markedly, although it is unlikely to win. At the federal level the reaction against prime minister Tony Abbott is so strong that there is a genuine possibility that Labor could win the next election, even led by a lacklustre Shorten. Party minders will be saying that now is not the time to rock the boat.</p>
<p>The alternative that will become more likely the longer nothing is done is the complete reformation of the party. Robert Menzies accomplished this in the 1940s when he helped to create the present Liberal Party from the ashes of the previous United Australia Party (UAP), which had imploded over leadership and policy issues. </p>
<p>Gough Whitlam completely transformed the federal Labor Party in the late 1960s, although the party structures and name maintained considerable continuity. But such leaders do not come along every day.</p>
<h2>A final caveat</h2>
<p>Giving power over preselection to local members does not guarantee <a href="https://theconversation.com/careful-what-you-wish-for-the-pitfalls-of-internal-party-reform-25387">genuine party democracy</a>. Especially in a party where membership is declining and apathetic, local branches can very easily be stacked, as has been demonstrated time and time again. And stacked branches go with faction-driven preselections. </p>
<p>In the 1922 state conference, for example, AWU branch stacking was so all-pervasive that a motion was debated that all preselections be abolished and any candidate should be allowed to present at election. That is even less likely to be supported in 2014 than in 1923. </p>
<p>Perhaps the better alternative is to allow candidates to contest primary elections open to a vote of non-party members, as in the US, and as happened recently in the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/verity-firth-wins-community-preselection-for-seat-of-balmain-20140503-zr41m.html">selection of Verity Firth</a> for the state seat of Balmain. But primaries can become very expensive and the need for electoral funding becomes even more pressing – along with its temptations. And in a tight contest, it is open for members of opposed political parties to penetrate the process in order to block a candidate whom they fear. </p>
<p>All in all, the lesson seems to be that things are not yet bad enough in the Labor Party to make significant reform likely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29485/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Hogan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Labor senator John Faulkner does not anticipate that his moves to reform the party’s preselection processes will succeed at this weekend’s NSW State Conference. Faulkner is hoping to have the rules changed…Michael Hogan, Associate Professor and Honorary Associate, Department of Government and International Relations, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/148182013-05-30T14:38:59Z2013-05-30T14:38:59ZGrattan on Friday: Could John Faulkner get the last laugh?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/24688/original/9cgjdws4-1369897554.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tony Abbott's credibility has taken a blow this week, after going back on the electoral funding legislation.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was an extraordinary moment. Tony Abbott, overcome with emotion, as he paid a tribute to Martin Ferguson, after Labor’s former resources minister announced he would leave parliament at the election.</p>
<p>Just as strange as Julia Gillard in tears recently when she introduced the bill to increase the Medicare levy to help fund the national disability scheme.</p>
<p>No one doubts the sincerity of Abbott’s regard for Ferguson, nor the genuineness of the PM’s commitment to the disability plan.</p>
<p>But some also see these moments as revealing the extreme pressure these leaders – like many others in the political fray – are under as this parliament grinds towards its end. Nerves are stretched beyond breaking point; exhaustion is rife.</p>
<p>While the overall pendulum has tilted so far towards the Coalition that most observers take its victory in September for granted, at an hour-to-hour level fortunes swing.</p>
<p>On one of the big issues of the week (others were allegations of Chinese hacking and claims of inadequate funding for intelligence agencies), Labor came under huge criticism for its attempt to hand out tens of millions of dollars to the political parties for their administration.</p>
<p>But when Abbott went back on the deal the opposition had done to support the legislation – the only thing he could do, given the reaction within the Coalition and the community – his credibility took a blow. Suddenly Labor had a stick to beat him with, and the commentators had questions to raise.</p>
<p>How would he respond in government on his earlier promises, when the heat was applied to his feet? Would there be core and non-core pledges?</p>
<p>“In the end, democratic political leaders have got to be conscious of the mood of the public”, Abbott said yesterday, explaining himself.</p>
<p>In power, would he be willing to be flexible in response to “the mood of the public”? No doubt critics within his own ranks, who would like him to alter some policies, such as his generous paid parental leave scheme, will wonder if such a somersault gives hope for their future influence on him.</p>
<p>Politicians make lots of promises, big and small and inevitably a number get broken or compromised. Abbott, if he becomes PM, will be saddled with some very large promises - most obviously repeal of the carbon tax when it is already embedded and, if that were blocked in the Senate, his undertaking to have a double dissolution. What if the public were groaning at the prospect of another election? Would their “mood” come into consideration?</p>
<p>More immediately, now that the dollar handout for the parties has been sunk, the government is expected to return to the disclosure legislation it already has in the Senate.</p>
<p>On Wednesday night’s ABC Lateline Special Minister of State Mark Dreyfus flagged that if the coalition broke its commitment and the government didn’t proceed with the legislation, “we will be looking very closely at the bill that passed through the House of Representatives in 2010”.</p>
<p>That bill is much tougher on disclosure than the aborted one. It brings down the level at which donations must be made public from more than $12,000 at present (which is indexed) to a flat $1000, and provides for the aggregation of donations so donors can’t evade disclosure by splitting money between various parts of a party. It would also crack down on anonymous donations.</p>
<p>The government would have to negotiate with the crossbenchers in both houses which could mean some changes.</p>
<p>The Senate numbers are there to pass this legislation, assuming Greens backed it. The Greens yesterday were talking about ambitious amendments but you would think they would prefer this bill to nothing.</p>
<p>The bill (which gives no extra funds to parties) would have to go back to the House of Representatives because it requires some technical alteration. But as it has passed there once it should be able to get through again with crossbench support.</p>
<p>It does not go as far on funding reform as it could – for example, critics of the present system would like to see caps on union and corporate donations (which should have been a trade off for any move to give money for party “administration” but was not being proposed). But it definitely would be a step forward.</p>
<p>(A glance at the agenda for this weekend’s Nationals Federal Council meeting in Canberra is a timely reminder of the place of big donors in the political system. Climate sceptic professor Ian Plimer delivers what’s billed as “Major Sponsor’s Address”. The sponsor referred to is Gina Rinehart’s Queensland Coal Investments company. Then there is CropLife Australia Leaders’ Luncheon followed by the Manildra Group Gala Dinner.)</p>
<p>One of the most trenchant critics of the government’s funding handout legislation this week was Labor senator John Faulkner who told caucus it made him “ashamed”. Faulkner as special minister of state in the Rudd government set the ball rolling on donations’ reform. Only Faulkner and Daryl Melham, chairman of the parliamentary committee on electoral matters, spoke out in opposition at Tuesday’s meeting of the full caucus.</p>
<p>Faulkner and Melham would both be delighted to see the passage of the 2010 bill. It is legislation that has been opposed by the Coalition and would be again, but if it happened to be passed in coming weeks, it would be courtesy of Abbott breaking his word on the other bill. Politics can move in the strangest ways.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/14818/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It was an extraordinary moment. Tony Abbott, overcome with emotion, as he paid a tribute to Martin Ferguson, after Labor’s former resources minister announced he would leave parliament at the election…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/111652012-12-05T00:29:13Z2012-12-05T00:29:13ZNSW Labor, the Catholic Church and the ADF: institutions eating themselves alive<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18334/original/f3s6z64c-1354665755.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Labor elder Senator John Faulkner has called for a thorough reform of internal party practices.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Dean Lewins</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since its nineteenth century birth, the Australian Labor Party has helped to define the country’s institutional landscape.</p>
<p>But according to one of its most respected members, party grandee Senator John Faulkner, the very institution of the ALP, and the structure that has underpinned its health, is at risk of becoming fundamentally corrupted.</p>
<p>Arguing <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/faulkner-urges-alp-integrity-reforms/story-fn59niix-1226529716092">in a speech yesterday</a> that the concentration of power in “the stunted perspectives of just a few” has created an “inherently undemocratic” situation, Faulkner highlights a status quo where internal decisions are opaque and corruption can flourish. </p>
<p>But is the decline of the ALP, especially in its troubled NSW branch, currently undergoing the humiliation wrought by daily revelations at the <a href="http://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/">Independent Commission Against Corruption</a> of Tammany Hall style deal-making, indicative of a wider problem in Australia’s great institutions?</p>
<p>As months go, it’s been a bad one for the organisations that have traditionally characterised Australian society. Facing allegations varying between systemic indifference and active corruption, three of our oldest and most socially entrenched organisations, the NSW Labor Party, the Catholic Church and the Australian Defence Force, have each found themselves at the centre of enquiries into serious bureaucratic failure.</p>
<p>But what unites the ICAC hearing, Royal Commission and Ministerial apology isn’t simply their uncanny timing; what unites these stories is their insight into the very nature of institutional life. Whether based on the covering-up of cronyism, pedophilia or sexual assault, the three scandals tell a story about the tendency of public organisations to undermine their original goals, to cannibalise their reasons for being, all in the name of self-preservation and the status quo.</p>
<p>Or to put it more succinctly: in order to keep their organisations superficially healthy, leaders disregarded the very reasons those organisations exist.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18335/original/3pqpf4t9-1354665834.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18335/original/3pqpf4t9-1354665834.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18335/original/3pqpf4t9-1354665834.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18335/original/3pqpf4t9-1354665834.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18335/original/3pqpf4t9-1354665834.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18335/original/3pqpf4t9-1354665834.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18335/original/3pqpf4t9-1354665834.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cardinal George Pell has shown great difficulty in responding to allegations of sexual abuse within his organisation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Paul Miller</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Take, for instance, the allegations of corruption directed at the New South Wales Labor Party. As the Independent Commission Against Corruption has heard, the party’s sixteen year reign was mired in cronyism and the use of public office for private gain. Both Morris Iemma and Nathan Rees have testified that the government was effectively run by Eddie Obeid’s “Terrigal” faction, a group that enjoyed as much influence over Cabinet positions as it did the state’s mineral sector. In one accusation astonishing in its brazen magnitude, the Commission is examining whether Obeid sought to gain $100 million from a conveniently granted mining license.</p>
<p>Like the Catholic Church’s handling of pedophilia, the existence of corruption in the ALP is worrying because it wasn’t simply the product of a few bad apples; instead of exposing the rot, the institution served to the hide it from public view. As both Premiers admitted, members of the government, once presumably idealistic people, remained quiet in order protect the party and their place within it. This got to such a point within the NSW party that, more than being merely tolerated, the bad apples were actually running the orchard.</p>
<p>The result of this silence, this overwhelming loyalty to institution, was that a progressive party was complicit in the damaging of its own ideals. An organisation designed to give the broader citizenry, rather than economic elite, a voice, and to preserve the role of the state in creating a fairer society, left office with that voice muzzled and trust in government shredded.</p>
<p>In a similar way, we can see this pattern playing out in both the Royal Commission into Catholic child sex abuse and Stephen Smith’s apology to victims of ADF sexual assault.</p>
<p>In order to remain fittest in the Darwinian jungle of public opinion, the two organisations also prioritised survival over their founding moral principles. Whether it was the Catholic hierarchy, as Julia Gillard put it, “averting their eyes from evil”, or the ADF establishment, in the words of Stephen Smith, “turning a blind eye” to instances of sexual abuse, both enquiries are the product of an institution losing sight of its ethical reasons for being. With the former, Catholic leaders ignored Christ’s emphasis on the meek and vulnerable, and the need to protect them from exploitation at the hands of the powerful; with the latter, the military establishment disregarded its desire to instill the values of “Courage, Initiative and Teamwork”.</p>
<p>Like with the NSW Labor Party, the logic of preservation helped to overturn the reasons why preservation originally mattered.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18337/original/p2yvzyv3-1354666172.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18337/original/p2yvzyv3-1354666172.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18337/original/p2yvzyv3-1354666172.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18337/original/p2yvzyv3-1354666172.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18337/original/p2yvzyv3-1354666172.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18337/original/p2yvzyv3-1354666172.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18337/original/p2yvzyv3-1354666172.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">NSW powerbroker Eddie Obeid has come under sustained attack at recent ICAC hearings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Paul Miller</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But why exactly does this occur? Why did the three orgnisations ignore their original goals, their moral purposes, all in order to protect their reputations? There are a number of factors of play, but most seem to revolve around the nature of hierarchy and the place of the individual within it.</p>
<p>On one hand, there’s a clear incentive for those at the top of the tree to defend its structural integrity. After all, to admit institutional failure would be to also admit a failure of leadership. At least sub-consciously, Morris Iemma, George Pell and successive leaders of the armed forces must have all felt this instinctive desire to save face.</p>
<p>But perhaps more importantly, the rigid hierarchy in each institution serves to quell the discontent of those on lower branches. Because progression tends to be primarily internal, solidarity and loyalty to the institution, rather than its principles, is often a prerequisite to promotion. Frank Sartor, Sydney’s former Lord Mayor and a Labor minister, told ICAC of Obeid imploring him to be a “team player” in approving his commercial development in Balmain. Playing out at a number of levels in each institution, this logic of internal promotion means dissatisfaction is likely to remain dormant: if a priest wants to become a bishop, if a back-bencher wants to become a minister, or if captain wants to become a major, it pays to be loyal.</p>
<p>Finally, and more nebulously, there’s the role of identity in institutional solidarity. Beyond being purely a question of rationality, this evokes the way that an individual’s self-conception can begin to merge with an institution’s. As members spend so much time within these organisations, expending so much of their hopes and energies in the process, it’s natural that they begin to see an attack on the institution as an attack on themselves. Whist, again, this is harder to quantify, it’s also crucial in building a culture of reflexive self defence, rather than scrutiny.</p>
<p>But for whatever combination of these and other reasons, when viewed together, the three enquiries do paint an overarching picture of institutional failure. Indeed, it’s also a picture that can be extended to other examples of organisational corruption, such as the degradation of freshmen at St John’s College in Sydney. </p>
<p>In each case, it would serve an institution well to ask itself one clear question: beyond the need to survive, why, again, was I born?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/11165/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shaun Crowe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since its nineteenth century birth, the Australian Labor Party has helped to define the country’s institutional landscape. But according to one of its most respected members, party grandee Senator John…Shaun Crowe, Doctoral candidate and Research Manager, Centre for the Study of Australian Politics, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/17852011-06-10T02:14:40Z2011-06-10T02:14:40ZTear down that wall, Senator Faulkner<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1622/original/PIC_-_John_Faulkner.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">ALP stalwart Senator John Faulkner's recommendations do not go far enough.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Let’s get serious, Senator Faulkner, the problem is the process of candidate selection. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.senatorjohnfaulkner.com.au/file.php?file=/news/CCJRYPLYRC/index.html">John Faulkner’s excellent speech last night</a> describes a process of ALP decline that has been underway for most of his long career in public life. It’s a <em>cri de coeur</em> we should have heard years ago. But it’ll go the same way as previous efforts to reform a near-dead party organisation.</p>
<p>Faulkner’s shortcoming is not his acknowledgement of the problem and its symptoms; rather he fails to understand the process required to fix toxic organisational cultures. </p>
<p>The ALP won’t reverse its long-term organisational decline with a few more rule changes, as suggested by Faulkner last night. Real change requires someone to put a bomb under the place. </p>
<p>The persistent ALP insider belief that rule changes can solve cultural toxicity is part of the problem.
Nearly a decade ago, then ALP leader Simon Crean led a crusade to reform the ALP by reducing direct union representation at state ALP conferences to 50 per cent. </p>
<p>This, it was thought, would help revive the ALP’s branch structure. It did nothing of the sort. Local ALP branches continue to close at an alarming rate, meanwhile ALP MPs are ever more likely to have an employment record that includes a stint in a union affiliated with the ALP.</p>
<p>Crean’s reform effort helped to destroy his own leadership. The rule changes did little but re-acquaint many voters with the exclusiveness of the ALP structure and the way power is centralised within it. </p>
<p>Crean holds an unenviable position in ALP history, as one of two national leaders not to lead his party in an election campaign. The other was Frank Forde, Prime Minister for a week between the death of Curtin and the swearing in of Chifley.</p>
<p>The ALP has been in a spiral downwards with many “causes” reinforcing each other. Membership decline solidifies the grip of factionalism; campaign professionalism with its emphasis on messages, safe candidates in neutral tone suits and centralised control all leave little role for individual members and supporters. As more members drift away, factions get more insidious, centralised control gets tighter – so it goes on.</p>
<p>A wall has emerged between the ALP and the people it purports to serve. Each year there are fewer people inside the wall and more on the outside looking at the pile of bricks that grows higher each year. Focus groups are peepholes for the entombed insiders.</p>
<p>Incremental reform and appeals to the ALP’s factional warlords to mend their ways will not interrupt the ALP’s pathway to oblivion. There have been internal reports of inquiry over the years, all as well-intentioned as the one released by Senator Faulkner and former premiers Carr and Bracks.</p>
<p>These reports always talk boldly of getting members more involved, as did Senator Faulkner last night. This just ends up shuffling the deck among those few remaining stalwarts inside the wall. The poisonous ALP culture is never changed by these largely symbolic reforms, it just gets worse.</p>
<p>The only way to change the culture is to dismantle the wall of exclusion that has built up around the ALP over the past quarter of a century.</p>
<p>That means opening up pre-selections to many more people. Open pre-selections are the bomb needs to use to blow apart its toxic culture.</p>
<p>When the ALP had lots of ordinary people among its membership, and rank and file ballots were more the rule than the exception, potential candidates for parliament under the party’s banner had to actually get some practice in seeking the votes of people who were representative of the concerns of their communities. That’s how you build community connection in a democracy.</p>
<p>Yes, I mean some version of US style primaries.</p>
<p>But we don’t have to look across the Pacific for inspiration; we can look instead back to the beginnings of the ALP in NSW. In the early 1890s anyone willing to pay 5s (50 cents) a year membership fee could vote in the local labour pre-selection.</p>
<p>This pre-selection system was stunningly successful, but democracy is an uncomfortable business, and the NSW Labor Council (now Unions NSW) soon stepped into constrain the genie it had let out of the bottle.</p>
<p>The ALP needs to go back to that brief period when Labor really was a community-based party. Arguably, the ALP was never more inclusive than it was back at the start.</p>
<p>Repeated efforts by the ALP organisation to control pre-selections and ALP parliamentarians has resulted in an ever narrower base level of support. First to go were the Protestants (over caucus discipline and later overseas conscription), then the small farmers and rural dwellers (because the ALP focused on its urban working class vote), then the Catholics (off to the conservative side after the split).</p>
<p>The details of the pre-selection rules don’t matter much, as long as they are open enough to make them effectively beyond the control of the gang inside the wall. Any pre-selection that doesn’t attract at least 2 per cent of the eligible voters in the electorate concerned (about 2000 in a federal seat) should be considered a failure.</p>
<p>Sure, democracy is messy. Local pre-selections where just about anyone who supports the ALP can vote if they want to, will throw up a wide diversity of candidates. Some of them will be marvellous, some will be awful. That’s what changing the internal culture and reviving a dying party will look like.</p>
<p>Overall open pre-selections will generate competition internally and candidate diversity, that will strengthen party forums and in particular parliamentary caucuses. Open pre-selections will force the ALP, through its parliamentary candidates, to re-connect with a broad electorate.</p>
<p>Senator Faulkner and his colleagues in the ALP’s insider elite need to do more than tinker with the masonry, it’s time to tear down that wall.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/1785/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Trevor Cook was a member of the ALP for many years, and was also a ministerial staffer in the Hawke Government.</span></em></p>Let’s get serious, Senator Faulkner, the problem is the process of candidate selection. John Faulkner’s excellent speech last night describes a process of ALP decline that has been underway for most of…Trevor Cook, Recently awarded doctorate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.