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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx

ALP: payback « Previous | |Next »
February 26, 2006

The event. An ex-leader of the ALP is to be rolled at pre-selection with the blessing of the ALP leadership, despite an unequivocal pledge a year ago that Simon Crean shouldn't be nudged aside?

The implication? The federal ALP is a party divided between the factions of right, centre and left:

PryorVH4.jpg
Geoff Pryor

It is a party that has a dysfunctional culture based around smear and innuendo in which the machine men preserve their hierarchy of command and control by ensuring tha the people below them say yes and yes. As Mark Latham says in the Latham Diaries:

It's a dense network of influence, a political mafia full of favours , patronage and, if anyone falls out with them, payback. (p. 399)

We are witnessing payback against Simon Crean now by the Right, because Crean organized Latham for leadership against Kim Beazley after Simon Crean was dumped as leader of the ALP by the Right.

Latham spells out the dysfunction:

Each machine man is determined to run something, and if they can't run a full faction, they have split the groups into their own little fiefdoms. It may involve just two or three people, but they see it as a power base of sorts...This has led to chaos in Caucus, and the institutionalization of conflict: fiefdoms fighting fiefdoms about all sorts of trivial issues. In Opposition, the problem is worse because of the lack of positions and patronage to hold them together as a cohesive federation. (p. 399)

Hence the politics of the lowest common demoninator.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 1:23 PM | | Comments (5)
Comments

Comments

I don't know if this situation can continue indefinitely, but they seem to be taking so many things for granted. Obviously, gaining preselection only has value if the public think the party is worth supporting. Many of the non-swinging voters for both parties vote by force of habit. But if there is an economic downturn or some trouble with the new IR laws, and the voters have to actually THINK about who they are going to vote for, what would make them vote for the ALP over the LP? I don't think that they are adequately working on that. Me-too-ism won't cut it!

The polls are saying that the public want an alternative to the Howard Government - remember we vote Governments OUT of office.

Rob, Yeh it is the waitocracy again. It doesn't really matter what the opposition is like, or structured, eventually government exhausts itself and the electorate will vote the other guys in no matter how high on the nose they are. Witness Hamas and Fatah in Palestine.

Beazley and Howard are the same politician. Hanging on by their finger nails in opposition leadership until they get their go at the Prime Minister and get all the legitimacy and authority it confers.

I think that is possibly the Opposition tactic Cam. Don't know if it will work though - without trying to win government.
Whitlam was seen to try to increase public services too quickly and irresponsibly with regard to cashflows. You could perhaps argue that Howard is doing the reverse - slashing the Commonwealth and burning the proceeds with election handouts - also irresponsibly and possibly damaging our long term stability.

But Fraser went for Whitlam, he wasn't sitting around waiting. Howard has been on the ropes before too, and used terrorism and refugee issues in populist ways to stay in power. If Labor want to wait it out Howard will latch onto an emotive controversial issue when the opportunity will arise, and Labor will lose again - regardless of IR and a recession. If Labor want to win they have to run the agenda, and go for it. Government won't fall into their laps.

What IS a machine man, anyway? A person who works for the Labor party? A person who is an advisor?

How did Crean get his spot, if not via the intervention of so-called machine men?

I'm not sure about all this, but I do perceive that there are these general lables that get repeated and embedded that have no concrete meaning. I also perceive that for so many in Labor who complain when things aren't going their way what was good for the other faction's geese suddenly isn't good for their own gander...

Armaniac,
for sure.

But Crean also talks in terms of honor, loyalty, trust and sticking to deals made---solidarity values that the ALP is supposed to uphold and live by.

It's a betrayal. If it is successsful it indicates the hollowness of the ALP--says Crean.

What you make of Crean the whole sorry episode doesn't bode well for the social democratic project of social reform.

You could argue that some of these tendencies apply to the Democrats in the US.