Labor elder John Faulkner has called for a radical overhaul of the party’s structure that would drastically reduce union representation at its state conferences. Faulkner, who has been a continuing voice…
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…
It is a sign of Labor’s crisis that Mark Latham, the party’s former parliamentary leader, has been re-admitted to polite centre-Left company. For his book Not Dead Yet: What Future for Labor?, Latham has…
New Labor leader Bill Shorten has vowed to continue on the path of party reform, but the latest ALP leadership battle failed to expose all the dangers of the new system. Not only is there the possibility…
So the election between two middle-aged, middle class, white men with broadly shared policy agendas is over. In this case, it is not the federal election between Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott, but the month-long…
While Australia’s Labor Party is digesting a significant electoral defeat, the New Zealand Labour Party, in opposition since 2008, has gone through another leadership change and is positioning itself to…
I have been around for a long time and involved in some terrible campaigns, but the policy vacuum in 2013 was the worst I can recall. There was no serious debate on issues, whether simple or complex, and…
The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) today found NSW Labor powerbrokers Ian Macdonald and Eddie Obeid, and his son Moses Obeid, engaged in corrupt conduct and has recommended criminal…
The old saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same” is particularly appropriate when describing the Australian Labor Party at the moment. Upon being returned to the federal parliamentary…
Today, a specially convened meeting of the Labor caucus will decide on proposed changes to how the party selects its parliamentary leader. The politics of leadership in Australia have been described as…
Treasurer Chris Bowen’s new blueprint for Labor party reform Hearts and Minds gives us the easy listening version of Paul Keating, just as Tony Abbott offers us the same for John Howard. The book provides…
Prime minister Kevin Rudd’s proposal to prevent the ALP caucus from deposing a sitting prime minister has raised the hoary issue of the Westminster system. The dominant view among pundits is that under…