tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37052517093231345392024-03-19T19:37:41.211+11:00Modernising LaborAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926106536211619601noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705251709323134539.post-4348618359230929372012-07-05T17:01:00.000+10:002012-07-05T17:24:37.374+10:00Labor History and the Rise of The Greens - Now in PDF!A few readers have asked whether I could publish a copy of the essay on Labor History and the Rise of The Greens in a way that would allow it to be read in a single document.<br />
<br />
So for those of you who like your essays long form, you can download the entire piece as a single PDF <a href="http://www.bloggingthebookshelf.com/wp-content/uploads/The-End-of-the-Party-Labors-History-and-the-Rise-of-the-Greens.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926106536211619601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705251709323134539.post-42877978868762933702012-07-03T14:15:00.000+10:002012-07-03T14:20:04.369+10:00Part 9: Conclusion<br />
<div>
<h3>
<span style="background-color: white;">The End of the Party? Labor History and the Rise of the Greens.</span></h3>
</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/end-of-party-what-labors-history-can.html">Introduction: The End of the Party? Hysteria and History</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-2-electoral-challenges-to-labor.html">Historical Context: Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-3-direct-historical-parallel-to.html">Historical Context: A Direct Historical Parallel - The Lang Labor Split</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-4-lessons-from-history-limited.html">Lessons from History: The Limited Scale of the Threat</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-5-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of an Ideologically Isolated Labor Party</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-6-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of a Divided Progressive Movement</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-7-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Political Philosophy And the Case for Government</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-8-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Progressive Policy Making in the Real World</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-9-conclusion.html">Conclusion</a></span></li>
</ol>
</div>
<br />
<ol>
</ol>
<h3>
Conclusion</h3>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white;">In two years time, it is possible that Labor will be out of
power in every jurisdiction in Australia. With a seemingly ever-decreasing
number of voters and members, it is easy for supporters of the Party to become
disconsolate. However, Labor will always have one asset that will never
diminish; its history.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Labor’s history provides
important perspective on the scale of the threat posed by the rise in
prominence of The Greens. To this end, history suggests that while The Greens
are unlikely to usurp Labor’s role as the major party of the Left in Australia,
unless their agenda is confronted and rejected, they could do serious damage to
the electoral prospects of the progressive movement. Labor’s history also
provides practical lessons on how the party ought to engage with the threat
posed by The Greens. Importantly, Labor’s history offers warnings of the
electoral danger of giving into ideology and cutting the Party off from the
concerns of the mainstream of Australian voters. However, Labor’s history also
shows the futility of engaging in the fractious, emotional splits of the past
and the need for the threat of The Greens to be confronted in a way that does
not alienate future potential voters and supporters. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
More than anything however, Labor Members and the Party’s
fellow travellers, Labor’s rich and meaningful history will always be a source
of solace and strength for those who study it closely. In a world in which
there are three media cycles in a day and the attrition rate amongst MPs, staff
and journalists has never been higher, it can sometimes feel like the
institutional memory of Australian politics does not stretch beyond the current
term of the Government. In this environment, it is easy to get caught up in the
idea that we are living in unique times and that our democracy has never seen the
likes of the forces that are buffeting the political actors who are currently
on stage. It is only when one consciously steps back and look at the long arc
of Australian political history, that it becomes clear that there are bigger,
more enduring trends at work. For better or for worse, over the past 120 years
in Australian progressive politics, those bigger trends have unfolded through
the Australian Labor Party. With the benefit of a historical perspective, Labor
members can take comfort from the fact that despite the Party’s current
difficulties, there is nothing in the emergence of The Greens to make one think
that this will not continue for the next 120 years. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As Paul Keating once said with an eye to the Party’s history:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>‘We at least in the Labor Party know, that we are part of a
big story, which is also the story of our country. And what do they know?’</i></blockquote>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926106536211619601noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705251709323134539.post-77320664558823537882012-07-03T14:14:00.004+10:002012-07-03T14:27:19.440+10:00Part 8: Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Progressive Policy Making in the Real World<h3>
<span style="background-color: white;">The End of the Party? Labor History and the Rise of the Greens.</span></h3>
<div>
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/end-of-party-what-labors-history-can.html">Introduction: The End of the Party? Hysteria and History</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-2-electoral-challenges-to-labor.html">Historical Context: Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-3-direct-historical-parallel-to.html">Historical Context: A Direct Historical Parallel - The Lang Labor Split</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-4-lessons-from-history-limited.html">Lessons from History: The Limited Scale of the Threat</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-5-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of an Ideologically Isolated Labor Party</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-6-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of a Divided Progressive Movement</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-7-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Political Philosophy And the Case for Government</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-8-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Progressive Policy Making in the Real World</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-9-conclusion.html">Conclusion</a></span></li>
</ol>
</div>
<h3>
Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Progressive Policy Making in the Real World</h3>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the policy front, Labor must use its greater expertise
and experience of the realities of policy making to actively highlight the
areas in which The Greens’ policies produce outcomes contrary to the Party’s
purported progressive aims. There are numerous instances of such contradictions
that the ALP can choose from in this regard within The Greens’ voluminous
policy papers. One particularly egregious example can be seen in The Greens’
Higher Education policy that <a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_1260456856"></span>commits<span id="goog_1260456857"></span></a> the party to:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Abolish fees for educational services at public
universities for Australian students and forgive HECS debts and FEE-HELP debt
incurred at public universities.”</i></blockquote>
Even on the face of its own internal logic, the impact of this policy is deeply regressive. If one accepted (against 20 years of evidence to the contrary) that HECS fees discouraged those from lower socio-economic backgrounds from attending university, the effect of forgiving the outstanding HECS debts of those who attended university regardless is to deliver a massive financial windfall gain to those individuals who were not in fact discouraged from attending. The practical effect of this policy would be to deliver around $20 billion in windfall gains to the professional classes of doctors, lawyers, architects and accountants, for no public benefit. <br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Responding to a similar proposal to forgive student loans
that was floated in the United States the name of economic stimulus, Justin
Wolfers, a much lauded Australian-born economist at the Wharton School <a href="http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/19/forgive-student-loans-worst-idea-ever/">asked</a>:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“If we are going to give money away, why on earth would we
give it to college grads? This is the one group who we know typically have high
incomes, and who have enjoyed income growth over the past four decades. The group who has been hurt over the past few
decades is high school dropouts. So my question for the proponents: Why give
money to college grads rather than the 15% of the population in poverty?<br /> </i><o:p><i> </i></o:p><i>Conclusion: Worst. Idea. Ever. And I bet that the proponents
can’t find a single economist to support this idiotic idea.”</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><i></i></span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is but one example of the outcome of The Greens’ policy
prescriptions failing to live up to their progressive billing. Similar
arguments can be made regarding the outcomes of The Greens policies in areas
including Solar Feed-In Tariffs, local planning controls, refugee policy, opposition
to the war in Afghanistan, and the termination of the ANZUS treaty to name but
a few examples. In this way, highlighting the perverse consequences of The
Greens’ policies rather than engaging in personal conflict with their members
and supporters, offers Labor a road map for competing for the support of
progressive voters without risking a repeat of the damaging divisions and
animosities of the past. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-9-conclusion.html">Part 9: Conclusion</a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926106536211619601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705251709323134539.post-55859012574399595042012-07-03T14:14:00.003+10:002012-07-09T08:45:26.239+10:00Part 7: Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Political Philosophy And the Case for Government<h3>
<span style="background-color: white;">The End of the Party? Labor History and the Rise of the Greens</span></h3>
<div>
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/end-of-party-what-labors-history-can.html">Introduction: The End of the Party? Hysteria and History</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-2-electoral-challenges-to-labor.html">Historical Context: Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-3-direct-historical-parallel-to.html">Historical Context: A Direct Historical Parallel - The Lang Labor Split</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-4-lessons-from-history-limited.html">Lessons from History: The Limited Scale of the Threat</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-5-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of an Ideologically Isolated Labor Party</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-6-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of a Divided Progressive Movement</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-7-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Political Philosophy And the Case for Government</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-8-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Progressive Policy Making in the Real World</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-9-conclusion.html">Conclusion</a></span></li>
</ol>
</div>
<ol>
</ol>
<div>
<h3>
Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Political Philosophy And the Case for Government</h3>
<span style="background-color: white;">Philosophically, Labor must explicitly and forcefully make the
moral case for electoralism to progressive voters. In general, progressive
voters are highly engaged with politics and more interested in the
philosophical case for political actions than the typical voter. This presents
an opportunity to combat The Greens’ characterisation of Labor as a party of
Hollowmen who prioritise political self-interest over the moral consequences of
their political actions by demonstrating the benefits to the progressive
movement of securing government.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this respect Labor must explicitly make the case that far
from being cynical or self-interested, the pursuit of Government is the moral
imperative upon which the modern progressive movement must rest. Labor must
emphasise, as Gough Whitlam famously told the Victorian Branch of the ALP, that
the principle of electoralism has always been the defining tradition of the
Labor Party:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“There is nothing more disloyal to the traditions of Labor
than the new heresy that power is not important, or that the attainment of
political power is not fundamental to our purposes. The men who formed the
Labor Party in the 1890s knew all about power. They were not ashamed to seek it
and they were not embarrassed when they won it.”</i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;">Labor must assert that the collective achievements of the
Australian progressive movement over the past 120 years are a function of
Labor’s ability to secure and retain Government. It has been the touch stone of
the achievements of all the great Labor leaders. </span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">In this respect, Labor must aggressively call
out the Australian left’s habit of engaging in what Christopher Hitchens has described
as ‘grave robbing’, the stealing and repurposing of the legacies of Labor’s
past heroes. Current Labor leaders are frequently held up for comparison against
a revisionist imagining of Labor’s past in which electoral matters are absence
and ideological purity was the order of the day. Not un-coincidentally, this
golden era has always existed just beyond the immediate memory and experiences
of those proclaiming it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In reality, the heroes of Labor’s past against which the
ideological integrity of Labor’s current MPs is compared were invariably themselves
electoralists rather than ideologues. When talking about John Curtin’s record
as a party hero, few progressives raise the fact that he was vilified by the
left for opposing the existing ALP party platform in order to send conscript
soldiers overseas to fight in the Pacific theatre. Fewer still raise the fact
that when confronted with ongoing opposition from the left in caucus, Curtin
simply stated that “what is irrelevant can be endured”. When lauding Chifley’s commitment to the
Light on the Hill, few modern left wingers bring up his use of the military to
break up a communist led strike in the Australian coal industry in 1949. Fewer
still recall the “whatever it takes” electoral practices that he employed to
fight Lang Labor during the 1930s. Yet these electorally critical actions were
all essential to the ability of these great leaders to secure Government. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a similar way, the Whitlam Government is constantly cited
by those on the left as an example of ideological rigor that ought to be
followed by the modern ALP.
Yet most conveniently forget that Whitlam's famous <i>‘crash or crash
through’</i> comment was a reference <i>not </i>to the parliamentary obstructionism of
Malcolm Fraser’s Liberal Party, but instead to the ideological obstructionism
of the left wing of 1960s ALP. Indeed, Whitlam’s leadership was made on his electoralist
resistance to the Left, most famously when he castigated the hard left
controlled 1967 Victorian State Conference for their disregard for the
consequences of electoral failure.<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“We euphemise deep disasters as ‘temporary setbacks; the
nearer Labor approaches electoral annihilation, the more fervently we proclaim
its indestructibility. We juggle with percentages, distributions and voting
systems to show how we shall, infallibly, at the present rate of progress, win
office in 1998. Worse, we construct a philosophy of failure, which finds in
defeat a form of justification and proof of the purity of our principles.
Certainly the impotent are pure.”</i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another current darling of many a green voting modern
progressives, Paul Keating, was infamously hostile to the Left’s resistance of
his efforts to modernise Labor policy. Few remember now that Keating summed up
the agenda of the left wing of the 1980s ALP as being about:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“wider nature strips, more trees and we’ll all make wicker
baskets in Balmain. Then we’ll all live in renovated terraces in Balmain and
we’ll have the arts and crafts shops and everything else is bad and evil.”</i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Keating long insisted that his role was to resist the Left’s
efforts to shift the focus of the ALP from electoralism to ideological
orthodoxy, stating on one occasion that</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“(The Left) are trying to make my party into something other
than it is… They’re appendages. That’s why I’ll never abandon ship, and never
let those people capture it.”</i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;">To be sure, Curtin, Chifley, Whitlam and Keating all were
champions of the Labor movement who achieved great things for the progressive
cause. But they all understood the self-evident truth that without government,
and all of the compromises, trade-offs and sacrifices to obtain majority
support that it entails, they could achieve nothing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They understood the truth of George Orwell’s
characterisation of the uneasiness that many progressives feel when
contemplating the necessities of political engagement:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“We see the need of engaging in politics while also seeing
what a dirty, degrading business it is. And most of us still have a lingering
belief that every choice, even every political choice, is between good and
evil, and that if a thing is necessary it is also right. We should, I think,
get rid of this belief, which belongs to the nursery. In politics one can never
do more than decide which of two evils is the lesser, and there are some
situations from which one can only escape by acting like a devil or a lunatic.”</i></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;">Or to put it more succinctly, as Governor Willie stark did
in Robert Penn Warren’s magisterial account of the political practice, </span><i style="background-color: white;">“All the
King’s Men”</i><span style="background-color: white;">:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"You got to make good out of bad. That’s all there is
to make it with."</i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead, Labor must confidently assert that the only thing
in politics that can be definitively labelled as immoral in democratic politics
is prioritising a desire to be seen to do good over a willingness to actually
do what is required to achieve good. It is those who put their own feelings of
purity and ideological superiority above the practical necessities of the
democratic process who are the real cynics. To this end, as David Foster
Wallace has written, the most common mistake of ostensibly well intentioned
progressives is:<i style="background-color: white;"> </i></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“not conceptual or ideological but spiritual and
rhetorical—their narcissistic attachment to assumptions that maximize their own
appearance of virtue tends to cost them both the theater and the war.”<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title="">[i]</a></span></i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;">It is well to ask whether one is taking a political position
out of self-interest, but it’s worth recognising when doing so that an
individual’s self-interest can encompass a range of needs. Knowingly adopting
an unpopular position is frequently just as self-interested and philosophically
hollow as adopting a position that is likely to attract popular support.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-8-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Part 8: <span style="background-color: white;">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Progressive Policy Making in the Real World</span></a><br />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<strike><br /></strike></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">[i]</span></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 10pt;">Wallace, D. (2005), “Consider the Lobster: And Other
Essays”, Little, Brown and Company.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926106536211619601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705251709323134539.post-30599245934335562952012-07-03T14:14:00.002+10:002012-07-04T10:41:42.879+10:00Part 6: Lessons from History: The Risks of a Divided Progressive Movement<h3>
<span style="background-color: white;">The End of the Party? Labor History and the Rise of the Greens.</span></h3>
<div>
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/end-of-party-what-labors-history-can.html">Introduction: The End of the Party? Hysteria and History</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-2-electoral-challenges-to-labor.html">Historical Context: Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-3-direct-historical-parallel-to.html">Historical Context: A Direct Historical Parallel - The Lang Labor Split</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-4-lessons-from-history-limited.html">Lessons from History: The Limited Scale of the Threat</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-5-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of an Ideologically Isolated Labor Party</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-6-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of a Divided Progressive Movement</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-7-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Political Philosophy And the Case for Government</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-8-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Progressive Policy Making in the Real World</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-9-conclusion.html">Conclusion</a></span></li>
</ol>
</div>
<ol>
</ol>
<h3>
Lessons from History: The Risks of a Divided Progressive Movement</h3>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white;">The final lesson that the ALP must learn from its history of responding
to left wing challenges within the progressive movement is that while The
Greens must be actively confronted and their agenda rejected, the ALP must
ensure that the necessary confrontation does not alienate future Labor voters
and members. In this respect, Labor has handled past divisions in the
progressive movement poorly. All too often, Labor leaders like Kidston, Lang
and Evatt have responded to internal divisions with an aggression and personal
acrimony that split the party and the progressive movement for years to come. The
early signs of such a fractious division between the supporters of the ALP and those
of The Greens are already observable.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many in the Labor party, particularly those in the inner
cities, resent the way that the Greens actively court Labor voters, without the
constraint of having to make their appeal palatable to the broader population.
The feeling that The Greens are opportunists betraying the broader progressive
movement’s electoral prospects in pursuit of their own narrow political self
interest is palpable and the source of much anger. The Greens’ tendency to
frame their campaigns as black and white morality plays in which the ALP is
condemned not simply for adopting a different electoral strategy or policy
approach, but as being actively morally inferior to the Greens particularly
grates. As Proust once said, those that we hate the most are those who are most
like ourselves, but with our faults uncured. Given that to many on the Labor
side, the world view of The Greens is that of a left wing student politician who
never confronted the realities of democratic politics, it’s easy to see why
there is so much animosity towards the party within the ALP.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Despite this, Labor must learn from its’ history to resist
the temptation to engage in personal attacks on The Greens. The animosity that
has accompanied historic splits within the Australian progressive movement over
nationalisation, conscription, the response to the depression and communism has
wastefully diverted the energies and distracted the attentions of those who
ought to be working for Labor’s electoralist mission. Labor members should
remind themselves that one of John Curtin’s first acts as Leader of the ALP was
to establish a series of ALP Unity Conferences in which the motions to expel
Lang Labor supporters were rescinded and Lang Labor MPs were invited to rejoin
the Labor caucus. The resulting détente brought the McKell Government into
power in New South Wales and the Curtin led Labor Party into power federally not
long after. If the rancour and betrayals of a party split could be successfully
overcome in this way in the name of progressive solidarity, so too can the petty
frustrations of responding to opportunism and hypocrisy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead of engaging in counter-productive ad hominem
attacks, Labor must adopt an approach to confronting The Greens that keeps an
eye to a future in which these voters (and members) are brought back into the
fold. Instead of either belittling The Greens and their supporters, or engaging
in an unwinnable ideological auction for their support, Labor should seek to
confront The Greens asymmetrically, competing for the support of these voters
using the comparative advantages of the ALP in political philosophy and policy
making.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-7-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Part 7: <span style="background-color: white;">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Political Philosophy And the Case for Government</span></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926106536211619601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705251709323134539.post-31490751481683137362012-07-03T14:14:00.000+10:002012-07-05T09:19:17.355+10:00Part 5: Lessons from History: The Risks of an Ideologically Isolated Labor Party<h3>
<span style="background-color: white;">The End of the Party? Labor History and the Rise of the Greens</span></h3>
<div>
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/end-of-party-what-labors-history-can.html">Introduction: The End of the Party? Hysteria and History</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-2-electoral-challenges-to-labor.html">Historical Context: Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-3-direct-historical-parallel-to.html">Historical Context: A Direct Historical Parallel - The Lang Labor Split</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-4-lessons-from-history-limited.html">Lessons from History: The Limited Scale of the Threat</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-5-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of an Ideologically Isolated Labor Party</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-6-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of a Divided Progressive Movement</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-7-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Political Philosophy And the Case for Government</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-8-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Progressive Policy Making in the Real World</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-9-conclusion.html">Conclusion</a></span></li>
</ol>
</div>
<ol>
</ol>
<h3>
Lessons from History: The Risks of an Ideologically Isolated Labor Party</h3>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white;">During the first ten years of the ALP, when the future
viability of the ALP was last discussed as openly as it is today, an intense
debate developed within the Party about the electoral and parliamentary strategy
that Labor should employ to advance its policy goals. Denis Murphy described the
four most prominent theories as being:</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><i>“Labor should remain on the cross benches, like the Irish
Nationalists in the House of Commons, and support whichever of the two existing
parties would agree to implementing parts of the Labor platform;</i></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><i>Since the Labor Party could not hope, for some time, to win
sufficient votes to govern in its own right, it should seek to achieve
necessary reforms through judicious alliances with reform-minded Liberals;</i></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><i>The Labor Party should merge with or remain a part of the
Liberal party;</i></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><i>As it would be only when Labor gained office in its own
right that it could bring about any meaningful or major reforms, the party
should eschew all alliances and maintain a separate and independent identity”.</i></span></li>
</ol>
Given that Labor has now outgrown the option of sitting on
the cross benches and that the ideological gulf between the ALP and The Greens
is too significant for a merger to be a realistic possibility, options 2 and 4
remain as the only viable strategies for the modern ALP.<br /><ol>
</ol>
<span style="background-color: white;">In the 1890s, Labor chose the fourth option, to seek office
in its own right and to see off all progressive challengers, and has pursued it
for the better part of 100 years. It was the right decision for Labor and the
progressive movement then, and offers a template for Labor’s future now.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In response to the increasing prominence of The Greens, Labor
must explicitly reaffirm its strategy of seeking office in its own right, with
all of the tactical implications that entails. History has repeatedly taught
that when ideology has drawn Labor’s focus away from the need to obtain
majority support, the progressive movement has achieved nothing in the face of
long term conservative governments. Labor must not make the mistakes of
previous Labor leaders like Arthur Calwell who acquiesced to the agendas of the
left wing movements without regard to their electoral consequences. As the
former UK Labour leader, Hugh Gaitskell has warned progressives:“we can never
go farther than we can persuade at least half of the people to go.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this regard, Labor should not be under any illusions as
to the electoral viability of The Greens’ agenda. The ANU’s Australian
Electoral Study has <a href="http://aes.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/Trends%20in%20Australian%20Political%20Opinion.pdf">found</a> that on a left-right scale running from 0 (far left)
to 10 (far right) while voters on average place themselves in the centre of the
scale, at 5.03, they place the Greens on average at 3.3; significantly more
left wing than the mean voter. Older, but more granular academic research shows that the attitudes of Greens
candidates on specific policy issues are substantially to the left of the views
of not only the broader electorate, but even of those of self-identified Labor
voters<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">[i]</span></a>.
For example, given a choice between reducing taxes or spending more on social
services, 93% of Greens candidates favoured spending more on social services.
Labor voters, however, were split fairly evenly, with roughly a third favouring
reduced taxes, a third favouring more social services, and a third indicating
no real preference. Similarly, only 26.5% of Greens candidates agreed or
strongly disagreed with the statement that high income tax makes people less
willing to work hard, while in contrast 66.6% of Labor voters did so. This
ideological gulf seems likely to explain the apparent ceiling on The Greens
vote, even in the most fortuitous of electoral environments, revealed by recent
polling and electoral data. Labor should take note of this electoral disconnect
and not embrace the electoral irrelevance of this agenda. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ideological isolation is a particular risk in a situation in
which Labor is confronted by a left wing movement that is active electorally.
Labor can never be ‘more left’ than The Greens on totemic ideological issues.
No matter how far Labor moves to the left, The Greens will always be able to
move further across themselves, continuing to harvest the votes of those who
are motivated by left wing orthodoxy. However, by engaging in an ideological
bidding war with a party who is pitching to only a narrow segment of the voting
population, Labor can very easily lose the votes of the vast majority of voters
who are not motivated by these issues, driving them into the camp of the
conservatives. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As the former Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner, a Labor
figure who has had more cause to contemplate the rise of the Greens than most,
warned:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“The Greens have appropriated elements of the belief system
of Whitlam Labor and, free of the constraints of seeking to govern, intensified
them to a point where they have no prospect of attracting majority support.
Labor can only compete with Green grandstanding at the price of an indefinite
period in opposition”</i><a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><i>[ii]</i></span></a></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;">The current electoral situation in which Labor has lost
nearly 1.3 million primary votes to the Tony Abbott led Liberal Party and only
around 140,000 votes to The Greens ought to give the current party leadership
pause for thought in this respect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As such, in response to the increasing prominence of The
Greens, Labor must, in the words of Dennis Murphy, ‘eschew all alliances and
maintain a separate and independent identity’. In the modern context this means
that Labor must rule out any form of governing arrangement, formal or informal,
with The Greens. Unsurprisingly, building on the current formalised ‘alliance’
arrangements with The Greens appears to be a key strategic objective for the Greens.
Robert Manne, one of their most vocal cheer leaders of late has gone so far as
to <a href="http://www.themonthly.com.au/left-right-left-robert-manne-3861">assert that</a>:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“It is obvious that if there is to be a progressive politics
in Australia, its sine qua non is an informal version of what the Europeans
call the “Red-Green alliance”</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><i></i></span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While such an arrangement may well offer a rosy future for
the Greens, as predicted by Labor strategists in the 1890s, such arrangements
presents great danger for Labor. Labor must reject the tactical convenience of
such an approach in the name of the long term strategic good of the progressive
movement. As Labor has learnt over the past 12 months, a state of parliamentary
alliance with The Greens is the worst of both worlds for the ALP. On the one
hand, Labor surrenders the agency of progressive reform. Regardless of the
actual distribution of responsibility within the alliance, The Greens are able
to claim sole credit with left leaning voters for all progressive reforms
initiated by the Government. In this way, a Red-Green governing alliance would deliver
the inner cities to The Greens in perpetuity. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the other hand, and more significantly, governing with
The Greens adds to the degree of difficulty in Labor’s efforts to fight the
conservatives for the middle ground of Australian politics. The Greens are not
a moderating alliance partner of the style of the Australian Democrats. As they
freely admit, The Greens role in an alliance with Labor is not to “Keep the
Bastards Honest”, but instead to suck its host party dry. Under such an
arrangement, Labor forfeits the power to set the political agenda and to choose
the issues on which it engages the opposition. As a result, issues that are
important to a minority of voters but risk alienating mainstream voters (eg
ending mandatory detention of refugees) are permanently parked at the front of
the political agenda, perpetually sapping Labor’s political capital. The
inconsistent electoral objectives of Labor and The Greens and the competitive
dynamics between the parties mean that any alliance can only ever be destructive
to the broader progressive movement’s ability to secure government. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this respect, it seems certain that the with the benefit
of hindsight, the current Labor Government’s formalised alliance agreement with
the Australian Greens will be seen as the greatest strategic mistake of the Gillard
Government. While Paul Kelly was no doubt exaggerating when he stated that “the
once great Labor Party passes into history with this deal”, the alliance model
is clearly electorally unsustainable for the ALP in the long run.</div>
<br />
The reality is that Labor has little to lose and much to gain from explicitly saying that it will have nothing to do with The Greens. Even the absence of preference swap deals with The Greens in the lower house is unlikely to have any significant effect on Labor’s electoral prospects. ABC elections expert Antony Green has <a href="http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2011/11/does-it-matter-if-the-greens-do-not-direct-preferences-to-labor.html">analysed preference flow data</a> from preceding elections and has found that assuming a Greens primary vote of 10%, Green how to vote directions are worth only 0.3% of the vote. Ultimately, securing Greens’ preferences should not be a major priority for Labor’s electoral strategists. Certainly, it should not be prioritised over efforts to win back the support of the larger block of voters who have left the party to support Tony Abbott’s Opposition. There is indisputably widespread dysfunction in the modern ALP, however the dysfunction is not the instinct to retain government. To this end, Labor must make the moral case for electoralism as the least-worst hope for the progressive movement. By focusing on remaining relevant to the interests, hopes and dreams of the majority of Australian voters, much can be achieved through the use of Government to achieve incremental progressive reform.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-6-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Part 6: Lessons from History: The Risks of a Divided Progressive Movement</a></span></div>
<div>
<br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="background-color: white;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">[i]</span></span></span></a><span style="background-color: white;">
Betts, K. (2004), “PEOPLE AND PARLIAMENTARIANS: THE GREAT DIVIDE”, People and
Place, vol. 12, no. 2, 64.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">[ii]</span></span></span></a> Dyrenfurth,
N. (2010), “All That's Left: What Labor Should Stand For”, UNSW Press.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926106536211619601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705251709323134539.post-54422305319328881132012-07-03T14:13:00.001+10:002012-07-03T14:22:49.928+10:00Part 4: Lessons from History: The Limited Scale of the Threat<h3>
<span style="background-color: white;">The End of the Party? Labor History and the Rise of the Greens.</span></h3>
<div>
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/end-of-party-what-labors-history-can.html">Introduction: The End of the Party? Hysteria and History</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-2-electoral-challenges-to-labor.html">Historical Context: Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-3-direct-historical-parallel-to.html">Historical Context: A Direct Historical Parallel - The Lang Labor Split</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-4-lessons-from-history-limited.html">Lessons from History: The Limited Scale of the Threat</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-5-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of an Ideologically Isolated Labor Party</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-6-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of a Divided Progressive Movement</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-7-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Political Philosophy And the Case for Government</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-8-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Progressive Policy Making in the Real World</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-9-conclusion.html">Conclusion</a></span></li>
</ol>
</div>
<ol>
</ol>
<h3>
Lessons from History: The Limited Scale of the Threat</h3>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white;">The first lesson from history is that while left wing
insurgent groups have been able to divide the progressive vote and damage the
ALP, as Lang Labor found, there is a hard ceiling on the growth of their vote. The
Greens may be able to woo voters within ideologically sympathetic geographic
enclaves, but they are unlikely to grow their level of electoral support beyond
around 15% of the national vote without significantly moderating their agenda
and broadening their appeal. An examination of Australian polling and electoral
data over the past decade provides substantial empirical support for this view.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Peter Brent, a well known scion of the psephological
blogosphere under his pseudonym, Mumble, recently compared a time series of ten
years of Labor and Greens poll and election results and <a href="http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/greens_and_labor_support">noted that</a>:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“Since late 2001, Greens have tended to do well in the polls
when Labor has done badly... The Greens feed on dissatisfaction with the ALP
from (in crude terms) “the left”. Their chances of winning more lower house
seats at the next election largely depend on how badly the ALP does.”</i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p> </o:p><span style="background-color: white;">As such, the data show that in 2001 when September 11 and
the Tampa saw Labor’s vote crash, the Greens’ vote spiked by 5 percentage
points. In contrast, in 2007, when Kevin07 had Labor ascendant, the Greens’
vote increased only 1 percentage point on their 2004 result. The pattern continued
in the 2010 election, when a calamitous election campaign marred by internal
Labor recriminations led to the Greens’ vote jumping 4 percentage points to
around 13% of the national vote (11.76% in the House of Representatives and
13.11% in the Senate).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, it is important to note that while The Greens’ vote
tends to increase when Labor’s vote falls, this relationship is not linear.
More often, only a small proportion of the fall in Labor’s support transfers
into increased support for The Greens. Significantly,
despite widespread dissatisfaction with the Gillard government, unparalleled
prominence of Greens’ spokesmen in the hung parliament and major wins on their
key policy issues, the Greens’ surveyed level of support has barely increased
at all since the 2010 election, bouncing between 12 and 15%.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead, as can be seen from the work of another online
psephologist, Scott Steel (AKA Possum’s Pollytics), a weighted aggregation of
major pollsters as at 28 September 2011 (around Labor’s nadir), <a href="http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2011/09/28/wipeout/">shows</a> that while
Labor’s Primary support had fallen by 9.7 percentage points since the 2010
election, the Greens’ primary support had increased by only 0.6 percentage
points. For every ten voters who had left Labor since the 2010 election, only one had
gone to the Greens and five had gone to the Tony Abbott led Liberal Party. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Similar patterns can be observed in the recent Victorian,
New South Wales and Queensland State elections. In Victoria, despite a major
Greens’ campaign to build on their record 2010 Federal Election result by
electing a number of lower house MPs in inner city Melbourne electorates, The
Greens’ primary vote increased by only 1.17 percentage points to 11.21% of the
state wide result, a result that failed to produce a single lower house seat. Meanwhile,
Labor’s primary vote had fallen by 6.81 percentage points on a statewide basis,
more than half of which was picked up by the Liberal and National parties. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The 2011 New South Wales state election result told a
particularly damning story of the limits of The Greens’ electoral appeal.
Despite confronting what was universally regarded as a historically incompetent
State Labor Government and an utterly demoralised Labor organisation, The
Greens were only able to increase its primary vote by 1.33 percentage points
(to 10.3%) in the face of a 13.43 percentage point fall in Labor’s primary vote.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tellingly, as ABC elections analyst Antony Green <a href="http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2011/11/does-it-matter-if-the-greens-do-not-direct-preferences-to-labor.html">subsequentlynoted</a>, The Greens were not able to capitalise on the collapse of the Labor
Primary in Labor held seats:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“There was a swathe of inner-city seats such as Coogee and
Heffron where a collapse in Labor’s first preference vote could have put the
Greens into second place. Instead the Green vote was static and all the change
in vote was from Labor to Liberal. Even in the one seat the Greens did win,
Balmain, the victory came about entirely because Labor’s collapse in support
was so large that Labor fell to third place”.</i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;">Ultimately, even left leaning former Labor voters who had
given up on the ALP in disgust, did not opt for The Greens. The Liberal Party increased
their primary support by a total of 11.64 percentage points in the election;
ten times the increase in The Greens’ vote.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A similar pattern can be seen in the most recent Queensland
election in which a swing against the Labor Party of 15.4 percentage points
(leaving a primary vote of just 26.8%) was accompanied by a fall in The Greens
primary vote of 1.2 percentage points (to a primary of just 7.2%).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Consistent with the experience of all movements that have
challenged the Labor Party from the left since Federation, recent polling and
electoral evidence strongly suggests that the Greens’ appeal, at least as the
party is currently orientated, is limited to a small sub-set of ideologically sympathetic
Labor voters. In total, across the
Victorian, New South Wales and Queensland election results and polling since
the 2010 Federal election, Labor has lost an average of 11.33 percentage points
of primary support while the Greens have increased their primary support by an
average of only 0.475 percentage points.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Given the parallels between the rise in the prominence of
the Greens and Labor’s historic experience with left wing movements inside and
outside the ALP, what lessons can the Party learn from its history to avoid the
long periods of damaging division that have often accompanied these movements?</div>
<div>
<br />
<div id="edn3">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-5-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Part 5: <span style="background-color: white;">Lessons from History: The Risks of an Ideologically Isolated Labor Party</span></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926106536211619601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705251709323134539.post-68009440345915472762012-07-03T14:13:00.000+10:002012-07-04T14:08:52.063+10:00Part 3: A Direct Historical Parallel to the Challenge of the Greens: The Lang Labor Split<h3>
<div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">
<h3>
<span style="background-color: white;">The End of the Party? Labor History and the Rise of the Greens.</span></h3>
</div>
<div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/end-of-party-what-labors-history-can.html">Introduction: The End of the Party? Hysteria and History</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-2-electoral-challenges-to-labor.html">Historical Context: Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-3-direct-historical-parallel-to.html">Historical Context: A Direct Historical Parallel - The Lang Labor Split</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-4-lessons-from-history-limited.html">Lessons from History: The Limited Scale of the Threat</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-5-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of an Ideologically Isolated Labor Party</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-6-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of a Divided Progressive Movement</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-7-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Political Philosophy And the Case for Government</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-8-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Progressive Policy Making in the Real World</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-9-conclusion.html">Conclusion</a></span></li>
</ol>
</div>
</h3>
<ol>
</ol>
<h3>
<span style="background-color: white;">A Direct Historical Parallel to the Challenge of the Greens: The Lang Labor Split</span></h3>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white;">For the pessimists,
the ALP’s collapse in surveyed primary support since the 2010 election is
frequently cited as the most compelling evidence of Labor’s impending demise. In
the past 12 months, Labor’s surveyed national primary support has fallen as low
as 26% and has generally struggled to lift much above 30%. This is truly a
disastrous situation and would result in the wholesale rout of the party should
it be reproduced at an election. Many have speculated that such a rout would
leave Labor vulnerable to being overtaken by The Greens. However, those with an
eye to history will know that this is not the first time Labor’s primary
support has been this low, nor is it the first time Labor has been electorally
challenged from the Left. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the 1931 Federal Election, the Labor Government led by
Prime Minister James Scullin suffered a swing against it of -22%, leaving the
ALP with a primary vote of just 27%. Labor MPs of the calibre of John Curtin, Ben
Chifley and ‘Red Ted’ Theodore all lost their seats in the ensuing rout. While
this result occurred in the throes of the Great Depression, Labor’s
catastrophic performance was not merely a function of economic circumstance.
Instead, more than half of the collapse in Labor’s support was directly
attributable to the emergence of an opportunistic Left wing challenger to the
ALP; the Australian Labor Party (NSW), more popularly referred to a ‘Lang
Labor’. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lang Labor was a splinter group of left wing Labor MPs loyal
to the New South Wales Premier Jack Lang who triggered the 1931 election by
voting with the conservative Opposition against the Government on a confidence
motion. Lang Labor MPs advocated the adoption of the Lang Plan in response to
the Great Depression, a populist left wing programme which called for a
repudiation of Australia’s foreign debt (what we would call ‘default’ today) and
the abandonment of the gold standard in favour of a goods standard that would
significantly increase the monetary supply. While Conservatives and moderates
were aghast at such an extreme proposal at the time, Lang Labor was able to
capture around 10% of the national vote in the 1931 election. As its support
was largely concentrated in NSW, it was further able to convert this support
into four seats in Federal Parliament (including the infamous hard left MP
Eddie Ward, who would go on to become a constant thorn in the sides of both
Curtin and Chifley). At the subsequent
election in 1934, Lang Labor increased its support to 14% and its Parliamentary
representation to nine seats. Meanwhile Labor’s primary support fell even
further to just 26%, consigning the divided progressive movement to continued Opposition.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The similarities between the circumstances in which the
progressive movement found itself in the early 1930s and current electoral
environment are significant. In both cases, the progressive movement is deeply
divided. On one side is an insurgent minority group supported by 10-15% of
voters and advocating an extreme policy agenda to which the majority of the
electorate is actively hostile. On the other side is the bulk of the
progressive movement, weakened by internal conflict and external vicissitudes,
fighting a war on two fronts and losing the vital middle ground necessary to
form government. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So what does history tell us about the prospects for the
Greens and the ALP within this context?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-4-lessons-from-history-limited.html">Part 4: <span style="background-color: white;">Lessons from History: The Scale of the Threat</span></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926106536211619601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705251709323134539.post-75600056374221363202012-07-03T14:12:00.002+10:002012-07-03T14:21:14.747+10:00Part 2: Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left in Historical Context<h3>
<div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">
<h3>
<span style="background-color: white;">The End of the Party? Labor History and the Rise of the Greens.</span></h3>
</div>
<div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/end-of-party-what-labors-history-can.html">Introduction: The End of the Party? Hysteria and History</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-2-electoral-challenges-to-labor.html">Historical Context: Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-3-direct-historical-parallel-to.html">Historical Context: A Direct Historical Parallel - The Lang Labor Split</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-4-lessons-from-history-limited.html">Lessons from History: The Limited Scale of the Threat</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-5-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of an Ideologically Isolated Labor Party</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-6-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of a Divided Progressive Movement</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-7-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Political Philosophy And the Case for Government</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-8-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Progressive Policy Making in the Real World</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-9-conclusion.html">Conclusion</a></span></li>
</ol>
</div>
</h3>
<div>
<ol>
</ol>
</div>
<h3>
Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left in Historical Context</h3>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white;">The history of the Australian Labor Party is best understood
as a history of a conflict between the forces of electoralism and the forces of
ideology. From the earliest days of the Labor party, in the shearers camps
around Barcaldine and the workers cottages in Balmain, progressives have fought
over whether the proper role of the Labor Party was to seek Government or to
promote larger scale change in society through the pursuit of ideological ends.
Labor historian Denis Murphy has described this conflict as the clash between
the </span><i style="background-color: white;">‘more immediate goals of the empiricists and liberals’</i><span style="background-color: white;"> within the ALP and
the </span><i style="background-color: white;">‘long term aspirations of the socialists and idealists’.</i><a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="background-color: white;" title=""><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">[i]</span></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The majority of the trade unionists who had sat under the
Tree of Knowledge had their political enlightenment forged in the
practicalities of wage negotiations. Having been under the jackboot of the
Queensland Colonial Army and a hostile conservative Government, they understood
the negative power of holding government. As a result, they had specific,
practical policy goals for the Labor Party and they sought government to deliver
them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As historian, Ross Fitzgerald has written of this period:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“Labor electoralism, to which most Queensland unions remained
loyal for so long, was based on the notion that manipulation of the state was
the most effective strategy for labour advancement. The immediate goals of this
strategy were at no stage more ambitious than the modest extension of state
enterprise and social welfare services, and ‘socialism’ was consciously
redefined to fit within these bounds.’</i><a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">[ii]</span></a></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;">Murphy has echoed this view, noting that</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“In the years when the Labor party was establishing itself
there was little intellectual tradition in Australian society. Reflecting this,
the Labor party placed a greater emphasis on practical political questions and,
though there were some theorists among the socialist groups, the party was only
marginally concerned with theories of politics.”</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title="">[iii]</a></span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To this end, the early policy platforms of the ALP were
focused on a limited number of objectives that were directly relevant to the
lives of their potential constituents: increased wages; workers compensation; workplace
health and safety improvements; protections for workers against sickness, old
age and unemployment; and electoral reforms to give workers genuine
representation (particularly universal, equal franchise, one vote, one value
and the abolition of conservative upper houses).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, as Murphy intimates, even in the late 1890s, there
was a parallel, more ideological and militant stream of thought present in both
the party and the broader progressive movement. This stream of thought rejected
the incrementalism of the electoralists and advocated more fundamental political
change. Over the course of Labor's
history, groups both within the Labor movement (eg the Socialist Leagues, the
Industrial Workers of the World, the One Big Unionists) and outside the ALP (eg
Lang Labor, the Communist Party) have continually emerged seeking to shift
Labor from its founding electoralist objective. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The degree of success that these groups achieved in
influencing Labor’s political agenda has varied significantly. Their influence
has generally been stronger in periods of extreme adversity for progressive
voters, when more extreme policy prescriptions became more appealing to a
desperate electorate (eg wars, economic recession or depression) or when the ALP
was facing adversity of its own, generally in the form of internal divisions on
unrelated matters (eg religious sectarianism, single issue policy divides eg
conscription).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
An early example of the dynamic of this conflict between the
electoralists and the ideologues within the progressive movement can be seen
over the push for the inclusion of the nationalisation of industry as the key
plank of Labor’s policy platform. Driven initially by members of the Socialist
Leagues (and later by the IWW), and opposed primarily by the Labor MPs and
candidates who ultimately had to face the voters, the nationalisation objective
divided and damaged the ALP for more than 20 years before the issue was laid to
rest. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As Ross McMullin wrote in his centennial history of the ALP,
the debate over the inclusion of the nationalisation plank in Labor’s platform
caused divisions within the ALP across the nation. When the nationalisation
plank was not included in the 1898 NSW Labor electoral platform:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Many socialists resigned from the Political Labor
League, including its secretary. According to one of them, the Labor Party had
‘degenerated into a mere vote-catching machine, doing no educational work, and
generally following a policy of supineness.’"</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><i><a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title="">[iv]</a></i></span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The debate was even more rancorous in Queensland where in 1907
the Labor Premier Bill Kidston and the bulk of his Labor caucus split from the
organisational wing of the ALP over the issue and the broader question of industrial
control of the parliamentary party<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title=""><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">[v]</span></a>.
The split led to a decade of Opposition before a new leader, TJ Ryan was able
to reunite the Party and return Labor to Government.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ultimately, this early scene of conflict was resolved in
favour of the electoralists at Labor’s 1922 Federal Conference. While the party
did incorporate a ‘socialist objective’ into its platform, in light of the fact
that as ‘Red Ted’ Theodore noted, ‘no two delegates would agree as to what
socialisation of industry meant’<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title=""><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">[vi]</span></a>,
a rider was agreed to the effect that the objective would only apply to the
extent that it was necessary to ‘eliminate exploitation and other anti-social
features’ - effectively rendering the objective moot.<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_edn7" name="_ednref7" title=""><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">[vii]</span></a> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Viewed within this historical context, the rise of the
Greens and their policy agenda can be seen as simply the latest manifestation
of the challenge to Labor’s electoralist mission by ideologues within the
progressive movement. In fact, the parallels between the rise of the Greens and
one particular historical conflict of this kind are particularly striking. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-3-direct-historical-parallel-to.html">Part 3: <span style="background-color: white;">A Direct Historical Parallel: The Lang Labor Split</span></a>
</div>
<div>
<br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">[i]</span></span></span></a>
Murphy, D. (1990), “T.J. Ryan: a political biography”, University of Queensland
Press. </div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">[ii]</span></span></span></a>
Fitzgerald, R. & Thornton, H. (1989), “Labor in Queensland: from the 1800s
to 1988”, University of Queensland Press.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">[iii]</span></span></span></a>
Murphy, D. (1990), “T.J. Ryan: a political biography”, University of Queensland
Press. </div>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">[iv]</span></span></span></a>
McMullin, R. (1991), “The Light on the Hill”, Oxford University Press
Australia.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn5">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">[v]</span></span></span></a>
Fitzgerald, R. & Thornton, H. (1989), “Labor in Queensland: from the 1800s
to 1988”, University of Queensland Press.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn6">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">[vi]</span></span></span></a>
McMullin, R. (1991), “The Light on the Hill”, Oxford University Press
Australia.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn7">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///D:/Users/d372029/Documents/Dropbox/The%20End%20of%20the%20Party%20Compare%20-%20No%20Format.docx#_ednref7" name="_edn7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">[vii]</span></span></span></a>
McMullin, R. (1991), “The Light on the Hill”, Oxford University Press
Australia.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926106536211619601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705251709323134539.post-38918336040145405182012-07-03T14:08:00.000+10:002012-07-03T14:20:38.575+10:00The End of the Party? Labor's History and the Rise of the Greens<div>
<h3>
Background</h3>
About 12 months ago I wrote a long form essay pushing back against the hysteria that was accompanying the precipitous decline in Labor's Primary Vote after the 2010 election. Understandably, 7000+ words on Labor history isn't everyone's cup of tea and the (general appeal) publication took a pass.<br />
<br />
But, with the latest Nielson Poll showing Labor's Primary Vote <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/voters-desert-carbon-tax-20120701-21b4d.html">still languishing</a> at 28%, I still think the piece is relevant and would appeal to the True Believers in the audience of this blog. So, I've updated the piece to take into account developments over the past 12 months and have chunked it out so that it's digestible on a blog.<br />
<br />
I publish this in knowledge that a few thousand words on Labor's relationship with The Greens won't do anything to dispel the notion that I'm obsessed with The Greens. So let me say this: I get it - they aren't the main enemy. To paraphrase Albo words we need to be fighting Tories. Our political strategy should not revolve around combating The Greens. But that is the ultimate message of this piece. Labor has faced and seen off a series of challenges from the left in its history. But we saw them off by fighting not for ideological purity, but for the centre ground of Australian politics. It's this fact that we need to keep our focus on when confronting the electoral catastrophes in Queensland and New South Wales and when preparing to fight the next Federal Election.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="background-color: white;">The End of the Party? Labor History and the Rise of the Greens.</span></h3>
</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/end-of-party-what-labors-history-can.html">Introduction: The End of the Party? Hysteria and History</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-2-electoral-challenges-to-labor.html">Historical Context: Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-3-direct-historical-parallel-to.html">Historical Context: A Direct Historical Parallel - The Lang Labor Split</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-4-lessons-from-history-limited.html">Lessons from History: The Limited Scale of the Threat</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-5-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of an Ideologically Isolated Labor Party</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-6-lessons-from-history-risks-of.html">Lessons from History: The Risks of a Divided Progressive Movement</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-7-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Political Philosophy And the Case for Government</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-8-responding-to-challenge-of.html">Responding to the Challenge of the Greens: Progressive Policy Making in the Real World</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-9-conclusion.html">Conclusion</a></span></li>
</ol>
</div>
<h3>
Part 1: Introduction - Hysteria and History</h3>
<i style="background-color: white;">"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan, In accents
most forlorn”</i><span style="background-color: white;">. Self-flagellation and teeth gnashing have long been favoured
pastimes of members of the Labor Party and its fellow travellers. Angst-ridden
debate about what Labor ought to stand for and the extent to which the Party has
abandoned its founding principles have been standard fare in progressive
political discourse since before Federation. However, since the 2010 Australian
Federal election, the focal point for ALP navel gazing has shifted from
ideological ennui to an existential panic. Just as Hanrahan, the protagonist of
John O'Brien’s iconic Australian bush poem, glumly predicted that his
district’s dry spell would foreshadow collective doom, so too have progressives
begun to talk (sometimes in accents most forlorn, sometimes in open glee) of
the terminal roon of the ALP. The dramatic collapse in Labor’s primary vote since
the formation of minority government by Julia Gillard in 2010 and the parallel
rise in the prominence of The Greens has led many to speculate on the Party’s
very viability within this ‘New Paradigm’.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this vein, The Greens’ former Parliamentary leader Bob
Brown has<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/greens-will-supersede-alp-bob-brown/story-fn59niix-1226085967764"> predicted that</a>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"I believe the Greens as a party are in a similar
position to what the Labor Party was 100 years ago. We represent a widespread
view of the community and our support is geographically widespread. I think
that within 50 years we will supplant one of the major parties in
Australia.</i>"</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;">This idea is not just a Greens talking point; it has even being
publicly entertained by some of the most senior figures in the ALP. Former
Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/well-fade-away-rudd-warns-20111126-1o0aw.html">has stated</a> that given the prevailing electoral and organisational
situation, he believes that Labor risks becoming a</span><i style="background-color: white;">“diminished political rump”</i><span style="background-color: white;"> and a</span><i style="background-color: white;"> “marginalised third party of
Australian politics given the opportunism of the Greens”</i><span style="background-color: white;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Party elder, Senator John Faulkner, has similarly <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/defiant-left-ready-for-policy-battle-with-gillard-at-conference-20111120-1npbv.html">told colleagues</a> that Labor is:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i> “facing our first
electoral challenge in history from the left, in the Greens. And we are a
declining political force”<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">.</span></span></i></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;">While the left has always incorporated electoral pessimism
into its electoral worldview, these statements should not be lightly dismissed.
One should always be careful to avoid the assumption that the status quo
reflects the natural order of things. Societies and systems of government
continually evolve and so too do the actors and their roles in them. Political
parties come and go. Since Federation, Australia has seen the rise and fall of both
minor parties (eg the Democrats, One Nation) and former parties of Government
(eg the United Australia Party, Free Trade Party, The Commonwealth Liberal
Party, the Protectionist Party). Similarly, just last year in another stable
democracy, the Liberals, a former party of Government, were usurped </span><span style="background-color: white;">by the New Democratic Party </span><span style="background-color: white;">as the
official opposition party in Canada. As such, the
primacy of the ALP as the dominant party of the left in Australian politics
should not be taken for granted.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So are the Hanrahans right? Is Australia currently approaching
an inflection point in which the nation’s oldest political party could be
usurped at the ballot box by a new progressive force? If so, how should the Party’s leadership, and its ever diminishing number
of members, respond?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To answer these questions, Labor should look to its past. As
Graham Freudenberg wrote in<i> “Cause for Power”</i>, the official history of the New
South Wales branch of the ALP,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“The Australian Labor Party was born with a sense of
history. That sense of its past has always been, and remains, one of its great
sources of strength and its confidence about its future.”</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;">Freudenberg, G. (1991), “<i>Cause for Power: The Official History of the New South Wales Branch of the Australian Labor Party</i>”, Pluto Press.</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;">Labor’s history shows that the Party’s current dire position
is far from unique and further, that the threat posed by the Greens is nothing
new. Like poor Hanrahan, those proclaiming the demise of the ALP are merely
heralding the ebb of a long-term cycle. For more than a century, Labor has been
pushed and pulled between forces of electoralism and those of ideology both
within and outside the Party. However, in the long run, the ALP has always
responded to bouts of ideological extremism that threatened its long term
viability by successfully reaffirming its commitment to electoralism. Viewed in
this way, Labor’s history offers not only solace that the rise in the
prominence of The Greens as an ideological challenger to the left of the ALP does
not signal the decline of the Party, but also practical lessons for how it should
go about responding to this challenge to its electoral prospects.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/part-2-electoral-challenges-to-labor.html">Part 2: Electoral Challenges to Labor from the Left in Historical Context</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926106536211619601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705251709323134539.post-59065718849474050662012-05-18T15:00:00.002+10:002012-05-18T15:00:19.362+10:00In Defence of New Labour, Electoralism and Focus Groups<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the more encouraging initiatives in modernising the ALP party organisation is <a href="http://www.laborvoice.com.au/">Labor Voice</a>, the new Centre Left Journal <a href="http://www.laborvoice.com.au/about/">"of ideas and discussion"</a>. As you'll see from the piece below that I contributed to Volume 2 of Voice, I've long thought that the Labor Right hasn't publicly argued the principled case for electoralism as the core strategy of the progressive movement. In this regard, a journal that encourages those on the right of the ALP to publicly articulate what they stand for and the principles under-pinning this world view has the potential to add a lot to the quality of the policy and political discourse within Labor. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was particularly pleased to be able to contribute an article that pays homage to one of the great champions of centre-left politics that I had the privilege to know personally, the late Philip Gould. Philip was probably the best advocate of the electoralist mission of Labour politics and I've long through that his work deserves to be more broadly read and understood in Australia. The parallels between Gould's work with the British Labour Party of the 1980s and the political situation currently confronting the ALP are difficult to miss....</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The Reckoning of a Hollowman - Labor Voice Vol 2. 2012</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A Hollow Man died in London last year. Philip Gould, the Labour Party pollster and
key architect of Tony Blair's "New Labour", was told in September
2011 that he would die of oesophageal cancer within three months. With morbid
accuracy, he died in the first week of November. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is a strange burden to be forced to examine one’s
mortality this way. The inevitability of
the outcome removes the incentive for self-delusion; the half-true
self-justifications that we cling to in order to live with ourselves. There is
little choice but to honestly assess the value of one's life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In response to his prognosis, Gould took stock. As an inveterate
political communicator, he did so publicly. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He told The Guardian: </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“The moment you enter the death phase it is a different
place. It's more intense, more extraordinary, much more powerful…. When I
thought maybe I've just got a few weeks, I thought ‘God this is what they mean
by the reckoning. I've got to sort all this stuff out in days. Is it possible
to sort out all those things in your past that you'd prefer not to have done’?"</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is fashionable to view political professionals,
particularly those working for the major political parties, as soulless beings
engaged in inherently immoral work. Those on the left are the subject of
particular derision and are generally assumed to be cravenly and routinely sublimating
what political beliefs they do hold in a meaningless and never ending pursuit
of government. Working Dog Productions perfectly synthesised this attitude when
it named its satire of modern Australian politics, <i>“The Hollow Men”</i> after T.S.
Elliot’s despairing lament for the lost souls of Europe’s inter-war years.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gould was a particular target for this kind of moral
disapproval. While Blair’s Press Secretary, Alastair Campbell was a more
prominent hate figure amongst the media for his supposed role in installing
‘spin’ at the heart of the democratic discourse, Gould was accused of a far
greater sin than mere rough political practice. Gould’s purported sin was of
leading the entire Labour Party into a collective act of apostasy against
progressive ideology. As the man who pioneered the regular use of polling and focus
groups by the Labour Party, for many in the UK progressive movement he was considered
the patient zero of The Hollow Man disease. So, faced with the searing honestly of self-reflection
in the face of inescapable death, what was the product of Gould’s reckoning? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gould did not repent and seek forgiveness of those who long
accused him of selling out the party and its ideology. Gould was not a death
bed convert to the righteousness of the causes of the hard left ideologues who
he fought in the name of Labour ‘modernisation’ throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. Instead,
Gould spent last months and weeks of his life revising and expanding his New
Labour history and campaigning manifesto, <i>“The Unfinished Revolution”</i>. In doing
so, he produced what is probably the greatest modern articulation of the philosophical
case for the pursuit of the progressive cause through the democratic process.
It is a compelling justification of the moral value of a life’s work. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“The Unfinished Revolution”</i> begins with a Labour Party that
had turned in on itself and away from the country that it was seeking to govern.
The UK was changing. Throughout the 70s and 80s, the ‘working class’ upon whose
votes the Labour Governments of Attlee and Wilson were founded was shrinking in
absolute terms and in its place, an
expanded middle class was emerging. This new middle class was not hostile to
the goals of the progressive cause. Indeed, their basic ambition of seeking a
better life for themselves and their children than that experienced by their
parents is at the core of the progressive vision. The new middle class was
however less ideological than the working class it was superseding and had
aspirations that were greater than the more immediate, traditional Labour policy
objectives; it was for this emerging demographic that the term ‘aspirational
class’ was first used. Gould was born of this aspirational class and grew up
watching the Labour party first abandon it, and then become actively hostile to
its hopes and interests. With the shrinking electoral clout of the working
class, he understood from early in his career that this was a recipe for
electoral isolation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The nadir of Gould’s career came in the wake of Labour’s
infamous 1983 election loss under Michael Foot. Labour had gone into the
election with a 700 page manifesto promising unilateral nuclear disarmament,
immediate withdrawal from the European Common Market, the nationalisation of
the 25 largest companies in the UK and across the board increases in taxation –
in some instances pushing marginal rates to 93%. Critics derided it as ‘the
longest suicide note in history’ and as a result, Labour’s (already depleted)
vote fell by almost 10% to 27.6%. Labour avoided being overtaken by the
SDP-Liberal Alliance as the major party of the left in the UK by only 2 percentage
points. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The result galvanised Gould’s approach to the progressive
cause. He observed:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Labour (in the 1980s) had not merely stopped listening or
lost touch: it had declared political war on the values, instincts and ethics
of the great majority of decent, hard-working voters. Where were the policies
for my old school-friends – now with families and homes of their own – in a
manifesto advocating increased taxes, immediate withdrawal from the EEC,
unilateral disarmament, a massive extension of public ownership and exchange
and import controls?”</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gould viewed this electoral surrender as a moral failing on
the part of the Labour party. He believed that Labor’s ideological
self-obsession and electoral self-banishment were a betrayal of the very people
the party was setting out to protect:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“The party I loved instinctively was to betray the (middle
classes), its natural supporters: ordinary people with suburban dreams who
worked hard to improve their homes and their lives; to get gradually better
cars, washing machines and televisions; to go on holiday in Spain rather than
Bournemouth. These people wanted sensible, moderate policies which conformed to
their understanding and their daily lives. Labour became a party enslaved by
dogma: .. . It abandoned the centre ground of British politics and camped out
on the margins, forlorn and useless, offering a miasma of extremism, dogmatism,
intolerance and wilful elitism which put the hopes and dreams of ordinary
people last.<br />..<br />I felt humiliated by these (election) defeats, but it wasn’t
me that was hurt: it was the millions of ordinary working people who deserved a
better life, but who were repeatedly let down by progressive parties which
campaigned poorly and did not seem to think that it mattered.”</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This was the context for Gould’s championing of focus
groups. He wanted Labour to listen to
the people and hear how they, and the UK more generally, had changed since the
1950s. Gould insisted that Labour must focus its attentions first on the voting
public, not on its own Talmudic ideological debates. For him, the fount of
political wisdom was not to be found in the dogma of ideology, but in the minds
of the people. Vox populi, vox dei; the voice of the people is the voice of
God.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From this perspective, focus groups were not a shameful
thing to be furtively held in the darkened backrooms of a political party, they
were the equivalent of opening the windows of a shut in Labour party and
letting the sun shine in on the atrophied strategic thinking of those
cloistered inside.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gould didn’t fetish-ise focus groups and he was well aware
of their quantitative limitations. He would have thought the Australian mythos
of ‘focus group driven politics’ laughably reductive. For him, the strength of
focus groups wasn’t that they told you ‘what voters wanted to hear’, rather
that they revealed the complexity of public opinion:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Although their scientific validity is less than that of an
opinion poll, they are in a sense truer because you can talk to people as they
really are, not as abstractions captured in a single moment. You gain access to
real people with ideas and opinions that connect both to the past and to the
future, who do not care much or at all about politics, and who think at one and
the same time at many different levels. The complexity of public opinion
reflects the complexity of politics; people have paradoxical views and opinions
that cannot be reduced to easy choices or one-dimensional solutions.. a focus
group is a place where you can dig beneath the surface and feel the forces
gathering below.”</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gould also recognised that there were dangers associated
with the pendulum swinging too far away from principle and towards populist
driven policy making. However his fundamental point was that there is nothing
morally impure about listening to the electorate, rather, in a democractic
system of Government it was a moral imperative. Gould explained the balancing
act thus:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Focus groups do not of necessity involve dilution of
principle or compromise – to say that implies that the voters are fools, which
they are not. They want politicians who are tough, honest and courageous, and
who govern with principle… But they also want to be heard. Of course, governing
with principle and yet in a continuous dialogue with the voters is complicated.
But modern politics is complicated. The electorate is more demanding and is
right to be so. It is up to us to meet the new challenge.”</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This was Gould’s ultimate goal, to give Labour the tools it
needed to respond to this challenge and to become an outward looking vehicle
for achieving democratic progressive change. History shows that he succeeded
beyond his wildest political fantasies.
Between 1983 and 1997, when the Blair Government was triumphantly
elected, Labour increased its net Parliamentary representation by 323 seats,
turning a 144 seat loss into a 179 seat majority. The vast bulk of this
increase in support came from the middle classes that it had been Gould’s
mission to re-engage and that sustained more than a decade of Labour Government.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The importance of building the foundations for long-term
government was Gould’s second great passion and the source of the title of his
book. Gould understood, as the ideological zealots to his left did not, that
achieving lasting change in a modern democracy requires time to build support
not just in the progressive movement, but also in the broader community. Gould
saw Labour’s task as not just winning elections, but ‘winning centuries’:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“This is the test by
which the New Labour government should be judged. .. If a progressive coalition
can govern Britain for a majority of the time then more poverty will be removed
and more real change implemented than could ever be achieved by short, sharp,
occasional spasms of radicalism. Lasting change can only happen over time, as
part of a progressive project for government. .. We need a new long-term
radicalism, to ensure that progressive instincts become rooted in the
institutions of the nation, just as conservative instincts were in the past.” </blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A decade of New Labour government shows the fruits of
Gould’s approach. Between 1997 and 2008, Labour changed the terms of the
political debate in the United Kingdom. The political centre shifted decisively
to the Left. On issues like the NHS, the minimum wage, anti-poverty programs,
climate change policy and gay rights, the Tories were forced to adopt positions
that a decade before would have been unimaginable. No Tory leader would risk
entering an election on a platform of dismantling the NHS, as John Major did in
1997. In a non-trivial sense, the forced evolution of the Tories from the party
of Margaret Thatcher to the party of David Cameron was one of the most enduring
achievements of New Labour. It was New Labour’s patient management of reform
and its enduring electoral success that created a political environment in
which a subsequent Tory government was prevented from rolling back the bulk of
the Labour policy agenda.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was while observing these early years of the Cameron
Government that Gould sat down to record the reckoning of his political career.
Reading the expanded sections of “The Unfinished Revolution”, Gould’s anxiety
that the lessons of Labour’s period in opposition in the 1980s and 90s are not
forgotten as the party begins its first spell in opposition in the 21st century.
Gould, the great political listener, is asking for the MPs and advisors who are
currently in the position that he was in 20 years ago to listen to his life’s
political experience:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I have written this analysis now because I believe I have a
responsibility to do so, and because this is a part of the story not yet told.
It was written initially for the next generation of Labour (and not so Labour)
supporters who grew up with New Labour but who may not feel they fully
understand it, and may perhaps have lost faith in it. It is, I suppose, a
letter from my generation to theirs. I want people to know what has been
achieved, and what can be achieved again. The revolution is never finished."</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The product of Gould’s life reckoning deserves to be widely
read and reflected on by those on the centre left in Australia. All too
frequently, those who locate themselves on the right wing of the Labor Party,
being biased towards practical thought rather than ideological introspection to
begin with, abandon the debate over the philosophical meaning of the
progressive movement to those on our left. This failure to articulate what we
really stand for is what leaves us open to the <i>"Hollowman"</i> charge. <i>“The
Unfinished Revolution”</i> rebuts this charge by articulating what we all instinctively
understand: that clinging to ideology both blinds us to the realities of policy
making in an ever changing world and betrays the political mission of the progressive
cause. More than this though, Gould makes it clear that despite the derision and
moral judgement that is frequently heaped upon us, the centre left’s approach
policy and politics is not a function of our moral failings, but of our moral
maturity. While his death it a tragic loss for the progressive movement the
world over, it is satisfying to think that he was able to contemplate the end
of his life confident in the contribution he made to the cause and knowing that
he has left a rich legacy of political insight for the generations who follow
him.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926106536211619601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705251709323134539.post-17513323053390578122012-04-14T12:09:00.000+10:002012-04-17T11:42:30.057+10:00The Labor - Greens Electoral Dynamic in the Post Brown EraThe unexpected timing of Bob Brown's resignation has triggered off a slew of commentary about what the former Greens' Leader's departure will mean for the future of The Greens.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For his own part, Brown was unequivocal. At his resignation press conference, he <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-13/bob-brown-resigns-as-greens-leader/3948496">repeated</a> his oft stated claim that regardless of his involvement, it was The Greens destiny to replace Labor as the governing political party of the Left in Australia: </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The Greens are on trajectory to become a future government. Our job isn't to make the so-and-sos honest - it's to replace them".</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Looking at the big picture, rather than the personality driven analysis that is predominating in the wash up of Brown's decision, is this a realistic ambition? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While people often discuss rise of the The Greens as an unprecedented challenge to the viability of the ALP, over the course of Labor's history, groups both within the Labor movement (eg the Socialist Leagues, the Industrial Workers of the World, the One Big Unionists) and outside the ALP (eg Lang Labor, the Communist Party) have frequently emerged to challenge Labor from the left. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
History shows that while these left wing
challenger groups have been able to divide the progressive vote and damage the electability of the ALP, there is a hard ceiling on the growth of their vote. This suggests that while The
Greens may be able to woo voters within ideologically sympathetic geographic
enclaves, they are unlikely to grow their level of electoral support beyond
around 15% of the national vote (the level achieved by Lang Labor at the peak of its appeal) without significantly moderating their agenda
and broadening their electoral appeal. An examination of national Australian polling and State level electoral
data over the past decade provides substantial empirical support for this view. This direct evidence is further supported by what little public evidence there is of the attitudes of potential left wing voters with those of Greens' candidates. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this context, while the departure of Bob Brown is no doubt a significant contemporary political event, in the long run, it does not seem likely to alter the broader structural obstacles to The Greens becoming a Party of government.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h3>
<o:p><b>The Polling and Electoral Evidence</b></o:p></h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Peter Brent, a well known scion of the psephological
blogosphere under his pseudonym, Mumble, recently compared a time series of ten
years of Labor and Greens poll and election results and <a href="http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/greens_and_labor_support">noted </a>that:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<i>“Since late 2001, Greens have tended to do well in the polls when Labor
has done badly .. The Greens feed on dissatisfaction with the ALP from (in
crude terms) “the left”. Their chances of winning more lower house seats at the
next election largely depend on how badly the ALP does.”</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As such, the data show that in 2001 when September 11 and
the Tampa saw Labor’s vote crash, the Greens’ vote spiked by 5 percentage
points. In contrast, in 2007, when Kevin07 had Labor ascendant, the Greens’
vote increased only 1 percentage point on their 2004 result. The pattern continued
in the 2010 election, when a calamitous election campaign marred by internal
Labor recriminations led to the Greens’ vote jumping 4 percentage points to
around 13% of the national vote (11.76% in the House of Representatives and
13.11% in the Senate).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, it is
important to note that while The Greens’ vote tends to increase when Labor’s
vote falls, <b>this relationship is not linear</b>. More often, only a small
proportion of the fall in Labor’s support transfers into increased support for
The Greens. Significantly,
despite widespread dissatisfaction
with the Gillard government, unparalleled prominence of Greens’ spokesmen in
the hung parliament and major wins on their key policy issues, the Greens’
surveyed level of support has barely increased at all since the 2010 election,
bouncing between 12 and 15%.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead, as can be
seen from the work of another online psephologist, Scott Steel, AKA Possum’s Pollytics, by examining a
weighted aggregation of major pollsters as at 28 September 2011 (around Labor’s
nadir), it can be seen that while Labor’s Primary support had fallen by 9.7
percentage points since the 2010 election, the Greens’ primary support had
<a href="http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2011/09/28/wipeout/">increased by only 0.6 percentage points</a>.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"> </span></span><br />
<i><u><br /></u></i><br />
<i><u>For
every ten primary votes that had left Labor since the 2010 election, only one had gone
to the Greens and five had gone to the Tony Abbott led Liberal Party.</u></i><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Similar patterns can be observed in the recent Victorian,
New South Wales and Queensland State elections. In Victoria, despite a major
Greens’ campaign to build on their record 2010 Federal Election result by
electing a number of lower house MPs in inner city Melbourne electorates, The
Greens’ primary vote increased by only 1.17 percentage points to 11.21% of the
state wide result, a result that failed to produce a single lower house seat. Meanwhile,
Labor’s primary vote had fallen by 6.81 percentage points on a statewide basis,
more than half of which was picked up by the Liberal and National parties. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The 2011 New South
Wales state election result told a particularly damning story of the limits of The
Greens’ electoral appeal. Despite confronting what was universally regarded as
a historically incompetent State Labor Government and an utterly demoralised
Labor organisation, The Greens were only able to increase its Primary vote by 1.33
percentage points (to 10.3%) in the face of a 13.43 percentage point fall in
Labor’s primary vote. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tellingly, as ABC elections analyst Antony Green subsequently
<a href="http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2011/11/does-it-matter-if-the-greens-do-not-direct-preferences-to-labor.html">noted</a>, The Greens were not able to capitalise on the collapse of the Labor
Primary in Labor held seats:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<i>“There was a swathe of inner-city seats such as Coogee and Heffron
where a collapse in Labor’s first preference vote could have put the Greens
into second place. Instead the Green vote was static and all the change in vote
was from Labor to Liberal. Even in the one seat the Greens did win, Balmain,
the victory came about entirely because Labor’s collapse in support was so
large that Labor fell to third place”</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ultimately, even left
leaning former Labor voters who had given up on the ALP in disgust, chose to
vote for the Liberal party rather than elect Greens MPs to replace sitting
Labor Members. Across the state, ten
times as many voters left Labor for the Liberal Party, who increased their
primary support by a total of 11.64 percentage points. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A similar pattern can be seen in the most recent Queensland election in
which a swing against the Labor Party of 15.4 percentage points (leaving a
primary vote of just 26.8%) was accompanied by a <i>fall </i>in The Greens primary vote of<i> </i>1.2 percentage points (to a primary of just 7.2%).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
In total, across the Victorian, New South Wales and Queensland election results and polling since the 2010 Federal election, <i><u>Labor has lost an average of 11.33 percentage points of primary support while the Greens have increased their primary support by an average of only 0.475 percentage points.</u></i><br />
<i><u><br /></u></i></div>
<h3>
<b>The Disconnect Between Left Wing Voters and Green Candidates</b></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Observers should not be under any illusions as to the breadth of the electoral appeal of The Greens’ agenda. The ANU’s Australian Electoral Study has <a href="http://aes.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/Trends%20in%20Australian%20Political%20Opinion.pdf">found</a> that on a left-right scale running from 0 (far left) to 10 (far right) while voters on average place themselves in the centre of the scale, at 5.03, they place the Greens on average at 3.3; significantly more left wing than the mean voter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Older, but more granular academic research shows that the attitudes of Greens candidates on specific policy issues are substantially to the left of the views of not only the broader electorate, but even of those of self-identified Labor voters (Betts, K. (2004), “PEOPLE AND PARLIAMENTARIANS: THE GREAT DIVIDE”, People and Place, vol. 12, no. 2, 64). For example, given a choice between reducing taxes or spending more on social services, 93% of Greens candidates favoured spending more on social services. Labor voters, however, were split fairly evenly, with roughly a third favouring reduced taxes, a third favouring more social services, and a third indicating no real preference. Similarly, only 26.5% of Greens candidates agreed or strongly disagreed with the statement that high income tax makes people less willing to work hard, while in contrast 66.6% of Labor voters did so. While this research is more than a decade old and this ideological gulf may have moderated in the intervening years, this data is consistent with the apparent ceiling on The Greens vote, even in the most fortuitous of electoral environments, revealed by recent polling and electoral data.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h3>
<b>The Strategic Implications for the Labor - Greens Relationship</b></h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The lesson from this data is clear. Labor should recognise this electoral disconnect and not embrace the ideologically limited electoral agenda of The Greens. Ideological isolation is a particular risk in a situation in which Labor is confronted by a left wing movement that is active electorally. Labor can never be ‘more left’ than The Greens on totemic ideological issues. No matter how far Labor moves to the left, The Greens will always be able to move further across themselves, continuing to harvest the votes of those who are motivated by left wing orthodoxy. However, by engaging in an ideological bidding war with a party who is pitching to only a narrow segment of the voting population, Labor can very easily lose the votes of the vast majority of voters who are not motivated by these issues, driving them into the camp of the conservatives.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
In response to the increasing prominence (if not electoral success) of The Greens, Labor
must explicitly reaffirm its philosophy of seeking office in its own right, with
all of the tactical implications that entails. There is certainly widespread
dysfunction in the modern ALP, however the dysfunction is not the instinct to
retain government. To this end, Labor
must make the moral case for electoralism as the least-worst hope for the
progressive movement. By focusing on remaining relevant to the interests, hopes
and dreams of the majority of Australian voters, much can be achieved through
the use of Government to achieve incremental progressive reform. Moreover, history
has repeatedly taught that when ideology has drawn Labor’s focus away from the
need to obtain majority support, the progressive movement has achieved nothing in
the face of long term conservative governments. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As the former UK Labour leader,
Hugh Gaitskell has warned progressives:<i>“we
can never go farther than we can persuade at least half of the people to go.”</i></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926106536211619601noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705251709323134539.post-31067490977248929802012-04-11T11:26:00.000+10:002013-04-05T11:38:27.060+11:00The 8000 and Beyond - Modernising ALP Membership to Grow the Party's Membership Base<u><b>Summary</b></u><br />
<br />
A common complaint about the current organisational state of the ALP is that the party is unable to effectively attract and retain members. While there are legitimate disagreements about the causes of this situation, most observers now agree that "something must be done" to address this situation. <br />
<br />
For the most part, the "something" that Party Members currently believe must be done is the re-empowerment of members through organisational reforms designed to decentralise control over the development of party policy and the election of party office bearers. Knowing that many around them have been driven away by the experience of branch meetings and policy committees, they argue that if the Party makes the rewards of membership more 'meaningful' and the returns of investing time in the party more tangible, the members will return. This "<a href="http://www.alp.org.au/getattachment/3350e9d4-ac61-47e9-8c7e-dbcaea7d628c/our-platform/">Community Organising Model</a>" of growing Labor's membership has been endorsed by both the Prime Minister and the 2011 National Conference and is the key strategy that the Party is implementing in pursuit of Prime Minister Gillard's target of growing Labor's membership by <a href="http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/transcript-press-conference-canberra-19">8000 members</a> in 2012.<br />
<br />
Implicit in this argument (and a major theme of Chapter Five of the <a href="http://www.alp.org.au/getattachment/3cf99afc-d393-4be3-b33c-7afbd6235ccc/review2010/">2011 National Review</a>) is an appeal to history; Labor was last an effective mass membership party in the 1960s and 70s, therefore changing the Party's organisational structures to look more like they did in the past will recapture this lost golden age.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, I don't think it will work.<br />
<br />
The problem with this model is that by looking inwards, to the experience of current members for solutions, it ignores the primary cause of Labor's membership decline; the broader structural decline in mass member organisation participation rates in general in Western societies over the past 40 years.<br />
<br />
As the <a href="http://www.alp.org.au/getattachment/3cf99afc-d393-4be3-b33c-7afbd6235ccc/review2010/">2011 National Review</a> itself noted:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Deeper cultural changes have also been at work. This is reflected in declining membership of churches and community groups as well as political parties. These changes are extensively documented and proceed at a different pace in different societies. In other words the problems faced by Australian Labor are not unique. They are common to most traditional political parties in western societies in the postindustrial era.</blockquote>
Modern examples of modern mass-membership organisations built on high levels of individual engagement and commitment from empowered members (ie those employing a Community Organising Model) are difficult to find. Whether it is because of changing work arrangements or greater competition from a wider range of leisure time pursuits or something else altogether, people simply do not want to invest large amounts of their time in the traditional functions of a mass membership political party.<br />
<i><br /></i>
The men and women of the dedication and zeal of those who founded and grew the ALP through relentless local organising in the first half of the 20th century would not be able to replicate the feat in the 21st century. The world has moved on from this model of organisation and onto new forms of collective action<br />
<br />
<i>The old model of a mass membership political party is dead</i>.<br />
<br />
In this context, an approach that focused only on making Labor membership 'richer' or more rewarding for those who make significant commitments to the Party is unlikely to substantially increase the number of Party Members. At the same time, such an approach would give more control over the direction of the party to a currently narrow membership base - potentially making attracting new members even more difficult. In short the Community Organising Model has the potential to be both ineffective and counter productive.<br />
<br />
Instead, of looking to the past, we need to adapt to new realities. The question we need to be asking is not what current Labor Members want from the ALP, but instead what Labor supporters currently <i>outside the party </i>want of the ALP. We need to be asking what Labor Membership needs to look like to attract new members in the 21st century.<br />
<br />
Given that the structural challenges to membership organisations are not unique to the ALP, when responding to these cultural changes the party would be best served by looking not inwards or to the past for solutions, but outwards to the contemporary practices of the modern membership organisations that are thriving in this new environment. Labor needs to look to the membership innovations developed by successful modern organisations and it needs to adapt these to Labor's mission.<br />
<br />
An examination of the peer groups that are currently out-competing the ALP for citizens' time and money (eg single issue groups, campaigning groups and sporting clubs) shows that the most successful groups:<br />
<ul>
<li>Are structured to allow supporters the flexibility to determine their own level of engagement;</li>
<li>Make joining extremely easy (and often costless) and then create numerous avenues for converting latent or 'shallow' engagement into more valuable campaign contributions on an ad hoc basis.</li>
</ul>
Labor needs to make membership more relevant to the differing needs of individuals in modern society. Labor needs to create a membership structure that accommodates <i>both</i> the declining number of people who want the traditional, time intensive experience of a mass membership political party <i>and </i>the growing group who prefer the shallow, ad hoc engagement that is the new norm. The concept of a one size fits all notion of party membership needs to end. In short, to grow the membership of the ALP in the 21st century, the party must change what it means to be a Labor member.<br />
<br />
Below the fold: <u>The Detail - The Numbers, The Response to Date and Benchmarking Against Best Practice and What Needs to be Done</u><br />
<br />
<u><b></b></u><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<u>The Numbers</u><br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.alp.org.au/getattachment/3cf99afc-d393-4be3-b33c-7afbd6235ccc/review2010/">2010 ALP National Review</a> graphically illustrated the decline in both the total membership of the ALP and even more precipitously, in the number of ALP branches across the country:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbLYe_XOsMzC-D-MAesMkkH8sAPOYvKklN5TWbBHhDN5PeSb-K0thTWjCOhJ_jGUSRsIUN-X2vfp65YExj_P7JBbu-Y5KbYzj-CePtysxFyDUE5eTxLOlMMK6LOPDL-1cdE5oC80HCxt2y/s1600/Membership.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbLYe_XOsMzC-D-MAesMkkH8sAPOYvKklN5TWbBHhDN5PeSb-K0thTWjCOhJ_jGUSRsIUN-X2vfp65YExj_P7JBbu-Y5KbYzj-CePtysxFyDUE5eTxLOlMMK6LOPDL-1cdE5oC80HCxt2y/s400/Membership.JPG" height="400" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Evaluating this data, the Review Committee noted that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Structurally.. the Party is in decline. Membership has continued to fall, and while it has stabilised in some states, it has done so because it has reached ‘ground water’. In some of the larger states the Party continues to haemorrhage members. In NSW alone, more than 100 branches have closed in the last ten years. The Labor Party now faces a crisis in membership.</blockquote>
<u>The Response To Date</u><br />
<br />
In response to this membership crisis, Prime Minister Gillard <a href="http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/transcript-press-conference-canberra-19">challenged</a> the party to grow its membership by 8000 members in 2012, saying that <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3319792.htm">the way to achieve this</a> was to:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
offer a richer experience for members of our Labor Party, including by giving them more opportunities to have a say, and a direct vote in important decisions.</blockquote>
While many have been sceptical about whether this goal is achievable, it should be noted that it is a decidedly modest objective. By comparison, after the UK Labour Party's 2010 election loss, its new Leader, Ed Miliband committed to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/29/ed-miliband-grassroots-activisim">effectively doubling</a> UK Labour's membership from its post election position of 180,000. While this may sound ambitious to to Australian ears, it should be remembered that in the first 30 months of Tony Blair's leadership, the New Labour reforms grew the membership of the UK Labour Party by more then 200,000 members, increasing total membership to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/labours-rank-and-file-army-swells-to-400000-1281532.html">over 400,000 in 1997</a>. In this context, a membership growth target of 8000 is modest indeed.<br />
<br />
Despite this, the 2011 National Conference duly <a href="http://www.alp.org.au/getattachment/3350e9d4-ac61-47e9-8c7e-dbcaea7d628c/our-platform/">accepted</a> the PM's challenge of growing the Party's membership by 8000 (at 10a) and encouraged State and Territory branches to pursue the goal by:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
implement(ing) a community organising model to empower members and supporters to recruit, organise and campaign locally.</blockquote>
However, it's unclear that the majority of Australians actually want to be involved in local organising and political campaigning. In fact, it is striking reading Chapter 5 of the 2011 National Review how little emphasis is placed on those currently <i>outside </i>the party. While there is much discussion of the views of current ALP members, the report does not ask the fundamental question of what those who vote Labor but are not members want from a political party and what membership would need to look like in order to encourage them to join. In fact, if you look at the kinds of organisations that Australians <i>are </i>joining today, it is clear that rather than local organising and political campaigning, more Australians prefer platforms for online and ad hoc political engagement.<br />
<br />
<u>Benchmarking against Best Practice - The Membership Structures of Successful Modern Mass Membership Organisations</u><br />
<br />
The 2010 National Review recognises that<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Public estimates now put the number of members of third party campaign organisations (eg Get Up! etc) at ten times the size of the Labor Party.</blockquote>
These organisations employ membership structures that are dramatically different to those of the ALP. In particular, these organisations make joining extremely easy (and often costless) and then create numerous avenues for converting latent or 'shallow' engagement into more valuable campaign contributions on an ad hoc, often issue centric basis.<br />
<br />
For example, Get Up! is <a href="http://www.getup.org.au/">free to join</a> (all it costs is an email address) and as a result has unsurprisingly signed up close to 600,000 members. This membership base is clearly different from that of traditional political parties. Members doesn't engage in ongoing policy development, organisational meetings, campaigning or recruitment. However, Get Up activates this latent membership on an ad hoc, issue centric basis; seeking donations and online campaigning support from its members at strategically significant times.<br />
<br />
Similarly, Greenpeace doesn't appear to charge membership fees as such (please correct me if I'm missing something here), but claims to <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/en/about/faq/#abt_gp_q4">have</a> <i>"around 70,000 generous financial supporters in Australia, who give regularly or on one-off occasions.</i>" The traditional organisational and governance functions of the organisation are performed by a much smaller <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/en/about/how-is-greenpeace-structured/general-assembly-member-roles/">General Assembly </a> comprised of members elected by existing Assembly members.<br />
<br />
This easy to join/ad hoc engagement model is also increasingly common internationally. For instance, it is free to register become a Democrat in <a href="http://www.cadem.org/action/signup">California</a> (in fact only 1300 Registered Democrats in the state have <a href="http://www.cadem.org/action/action/page?id=0010">signed up to make regular contributions</a> of a kind that look like a membership fee), but there are multiple ways of scaling up member involvement around candidate or issue specific campaigns.<br />
<br />
Similarly, the UK Labour Party, (which has recruited <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/04/labour-party-members-world">50,000 new members</a> since the election of the Cameron Government), has a number of extremely low cost membership entry points including a first year introductory membership rate of <a href="https://secure2.labour.org.uk/join/">1 pound</a> for anyone under 27 and an ongoing 12 pound rate for under 27s after that. On top of this there have been <a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_470523811"></span>calls for reform<span id="goog_470523812"></span></a> to move all membership rates to 1 pound.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFrqdNjfooJv8u2Em-nfmLVE9fFQ8njW4FbrywgXGbuwWr02yMJ-v9LSO6IJeSFISaaS9Nvwn8_EwEQx0DxmkK2Nlv9eVy1yfosf9shCuuoLzD5AHn9RL8BrGL0E5lI1mioXlsL4x0FGB6/s1600/UK+Labour.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFrqdNjfooJv8u2Em-nfmLVE9fFQ8njW4FbrywgXGbuwWr02yMJ-v9LSO6IJeSFISaaS9Nvwn8_EwEQx0DxmkK2Nlv9eVy1yfosf9shCuuoLzD5AHn9RL8BrGL0E5lI1mioXlsL4x0FGB6/s400/UK+Labour.JPG" height="145" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
UK Labour also has a number of other membership innovations that are not offered by the ALP. An introductory membership rate of half the standard rate for new members recruited by a local branch. A monthly payment option for membership.<br />
<br />
And an optional progressive membership rate for those on higher incomes starting at about A$66 and rising to A$200 (significantly less than Australian equivalents).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTqJeJC-pd143uhSNb53XXstJOuPqDGwNO3TUpAshbIpP8PC8qYOzU102aorKBLby8iXtLp3Os5O4najj0lewvp1iPjFa3IR-QNUfeDbQzex-kTl1x3nrkbnir87HW3eqERnHbqbmJpZuY/s1600/UK+Labour+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTqJeJC-pd143uhSNb53XXstJOuPqDGwNO3TUpAshbIpP8PC8qYOzU102aorKBLby8iXtLp3Os5O4najj0lewvp1iPjFa3IR-QNUfeDbQzex-kTl1x3nrkbnir87HW3eqERnHbqbmJpZuY/s400/UK+Labour+2.JPG" height="323" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
(It's unclear to me whether this suggested monthly payment is actually mandatory but I'm happy to be corrected about this).<br />
<br />
This is also the model employed by the rapidly growing Canadian <a href="https://secure.ndp.ca/membership_e.php">New Democratic Party</a>, which sets compulsory membership fees at just $25 a year, then suggests additional voluntary donations from members.<br />
<br />
Similar membership innovations can be seen in other successful non-political membership groups. It's now the norm for football clubs to allow supporters to tailor their level of commitment to the club through different tiers of membership. The Collingwood Football Club has been able to grow its membership to 71,516 in 2011 by using many <a href="http://membership.collingwoodfc.com.au/help-me-choose">different membership structures</a> designed to bring supporters of differing levels of commitment into the club. Collingwood has memberships based on member characteristics (eg adult, junior, family, concession), scope of member commitment (eg 3 game, 11 game, 17 game, interstate memberships), and degree of commitment (eg General Admin, Reserved Seating, MCG Legends). These different forms of membership range in cost from $85 for the lowest level, 3 match membership to between $330-$740 for all 17 games. On top of this, all members are given any other ways to contribute and participate in the club - through supporter clubs, social club, and individual player sponsorships etc.<br />
<br />
What all of these organisations have in common is that they are responsive to differing levels of member commitment - especially at the lowest levels of commitment. They make getting your foot in the door of the organisation extremely easy (through free, low cost, de-featured or introductory membership classes). Their membership structure then provides avenues for those who want to make a greater commitment to the organisation with many opportunities to do so (through 'premium' membership options etc) and through mechanisms to leverage the engagement of a large, but latent membership on an ad hoc, issue-centric basis.<br />
<br />
It doesn't quite have the romance of solidarity, but it works in the modern environment.<br />
<br />
<u>Benchmarking Against Best Practice - Labor's Current Membership Structure </u><br />
<br />
In contrast to this membership innovation from peer organisations, Labor's membership structure has been basically static for the better part of a century.<br />
<br />
As the 2011 National Review noted:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Labor’s structures and practices are largely drawn from the time of the Party’s formation 120 years ago"</blockquote>
While membership structures differ from state to state, there has been very little observable innovation in membership fees, structure or payment options. There are no monthly payment options, few multi-year payment options, no family discounts, no introductory membership offers, no discounts for members who refer friends, no junior memberships, no gradations of membership at all really.<br />
<br />
Further, to take just three states as examples - membership fees are <u>very expensive:</u><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.vic.alp.org.au/get-involved/join-labor/new-membership/">Victorian ALP</a><br />
<br />
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<br />
<a href="http://www.nswalp.com/get-active/join-labor/membership-type/">NSW ALP</a><br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.actlabor.org.au/join/join-the-alp">ACT Labor</a><br />
<br />
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<br />
In fact, other than in the ACT, Labor's membership fees are both absolutely higher and increase more rapidly with income than those of <a href="https://vic.greens.org.au/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=46">The Greens</a>:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXk6iTzTN4nNLDTXelAK9FDazUHzdjrdEUR0KHMqAU0vXlwHZo7iMdXTyEIN7OFS_ypT2bMw_GTmQCRx6q6weMz4PM9ohFV2Ym2BPuWt8hWxaDx6EIDNXJzVnmc_tSygFlIa8xY5VQQV1n/s1600/Greens+Membership.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXk6iTzTN4nNLDTXelAK9FDazUHzdjrdEUR0KHMqAU0vXlwHZo7iMdXTyEIN7OFS_ypT2bMw_GTmQCRx6q6weMz4PM9ohFV2Ym2BPuWt8hWxaDx6EIDNXJzVnmc_tSygFlIa8xY5VQQV1n/s640/Greens+Membership.JPG" height="139" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Further, joining the ALP is not easy. While most states allow members to joins a "Central Branch" without voting rights in any party forums over the Internet, in order to be entitled to vote in any party election a prospective member needs to have their membership approved by both a local branch and State Head Office. Relative to its peer organisations, barriers to entry to membership of the Labor Party are very high.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Modernising Labor's Membership - What Needs to be Done </b><br />
<br />
On this basis, there are three things that the ALP needs to do to grow its membership base:<br />
<ol>
<li>Reduce Membership Fees</li>
<li>Reduce Barriers to Entry to the Party</li>
<li>Cater to Differing Levels of Engagement - Particularly Shallow Engagement</li>
</ol>
<i><u>Reduce Membership Fees</u></i><br />
<br />
The easiest reform that the Party can undertake to grow its membership is to reduce its membership fees.<br />
<br />
The 2011 National Conference recognised this need to some extent, <a href="http://www.alp.org.au/getattachment/3350e9d4-ac61-47e9-8c7e-dbcaea7d628c/our-platform/">resolving to</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
10 (b) Reduce excessive membership fees </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In some State and Territory branches, membership fees are higher than for comparable organisations. This discourages the involvement of young people and low-wage workers.<br />
National Conference therefore encourages state and territory branches to: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(i) review their membership fees<br />
(ii) consider offering discounts for Young Labor members and affiliated union members, where<br />
they do not already do so.</blockquote>
However, it should be noted that in contrast to the emphasis of this motion, the area in which membership fees are currently the greatest obstacle to participation in the party is not with respect to low wage workers, but rather, for young professionals. It is difficult to see how a young professional on $70,000 a year would see value in spending over $200 a year on Labor membership (almost twice the fees of the Greens at this income level). While they may have a greater capacity to pay than low wage workers, they obtain no greater value from membership (arguably they receive less as professional work hours make it more difficult for them to participate in the Party's antiquated branch meetings). This disincentive to professional membership of the ALP may be a large part of the cause for the decline in the proportion of Labor Ministerial staffers who are members of the Labor Party.<br />
<br />
It's also worth considering that reducing Membership fees as part of an effort to grow the party's membership base may in fact improve the Party's financial position. The marginal cost of additional members to the Party in terms of additional administrative costs is relatively low. Further, given the broader societal trends militating against time intensive involvement in political parties, it's likely that there is both a high elasticity of demand for Labor membership amongst time poor supporters and a pent up demand for low cost engagement with the ALP. A significant, across the board reduction in ALP membership rates accompanied by an active recruiting campaign (eg "We're Changing, be a Part of the Change") could easily net the party enough new members to recoup any reduction in individual fees.<br />
<br />
<i><u>Reduce Barriers to Entry To the Party</u></i><br />
<br />
More broadly than simply reducing fees, the Labor Party needs to address the myriad of niggly things that make joining the party a painful experience. Since at least the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Dreyfus">Dreyfus Report</a> in 1998, the party has responded to branch stacking by continually increasing the administrative hurdles to joining the Party. It is no overstatement to say that the administrative structures of the ALP are currently more focused on keeping people out of the ALP than letting them in.<br />
<br />
The Labor Party needs to create categories of membership with low barriers to entry. Cheap, easy to join memberships that interested, but not committed Labor supporters can join. To this end, <i>an Online Membership should be created</i> with a flat membership fee of $20. These members should not be entitled to vote in branch, local party or preselection ballots, but they could be entitled to vote for directly elected party positions (eg National President). This would create an easy to join category of Labor membership with meaningful rights without disempowering existing full members or upsetting the delicate balance of power in the branches.<br />
<br />
<i><u>Cater for Different Levels of Commitment </u></i><br />
<br />
As UK Labour's Refounding Labour project has <a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/consultation-launched-aimed-at-refounding-labour---hain">noted</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“The Labour Party's basic structure is essentially that adopted in 1918. In today's much more diffuse, individualist political culture, how can we maximise the potential for participation by 'Labour Supporters' - those who would not join the Party, but who could be mobilised to back and work for us? How do we manage this in a way that does not undermine the rights of 'full' members?</blockquote>
I've already discussed two ways that the ALP could go about harnessing and mobilising Labor Supporters on this blog (ie an Online Membership category and Online <a href="http://modernisinglabor.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/making-online-branches-work-making.html">Policy Action Caucuses</a>) but more important than specific ideas is the general philosophy. Labor needs start thinking about Membership with the primary objective of bringing people into the party, not keeping people out. This post has used the practices of other successful membership based organisations to deduce the things that people people look for in an membership organisation in a modern society. However, there's no substitute for direct research. This means undertaking market research of Labor supporters with the objective of understanding how the membership experience needs to change to encourage people to join the Party. The exit surveys of departing members agreed to by National Conference may be an important step in this regard.<br />
<br />
<u>A Final Note - on the Direct Election of Parliamentary Leaders</u><br />
<br />
It's difficult to write about growing the membership of the ALP without addressing <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/alp-looks-to-direct-election-of-party-head-20120319-1vftm.html">the increasingly popular proposal </a> of giving Labor members a say over the election of the Parliamentary Leader of the Labor Party as a way to attract members. It's fairly clear from Canadian and UK evidence, that when combined with a low cost membership option, direct election of party leaders drives significant membership growth. During the last leadership ballot of the Canadian New Democratic Party, the party was able to <a href="http://forums.canadiancontent.net/canadian-politics/104595-ndp-membership-climbs-over-50-a.html">increase its membership by 50%</a> to <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/02/21/pol-ndp-membership-numbers.html">almost 130,000</a> through leadership candidates actively recruiting members.<br />
<br />
There are I think three issues associated with this proposal that have not yet been adequately addressed by its proponents:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Direct Election of party leaders brings significant organisational costs as well as membership growth benefits. As the experience of the Australian Democrats shows, when there is a disconnect between the party membership and the MPs who have to work together on a daily basis, damaging instability can emerge between the directly elected leader and the party caucus.</li>
<li>Direct Election of leaders is really more of an example of leveraging ad hoc participation around a topical issue rather than a Community Organising Model. In this respect, there may be other ways to harness this ad hoc enthusiasm that do not have the same organisational costs (eg through Online Policy Action Caucuses). </li>
<li>It should also be noted that many who advocate direct election of the Parliamentary Leader by the membership also advocated the introduction of open primary systems - a proposal that effectively undermines the value of membership by giving non-Members an equal say on the selection of ALP candidates. I haven't seen this contradiction acknowledged or addressed by the proponents yet.</li>
</ol>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02926106536211619601noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705251709323134539.post-12593954084567254922012-04-03T13:06:00.003+10:002013-03-20T15:06:49.473+11:00Making Online Branches Work - Making Labor a Platform for Progressive Organising"The Internet" has long been held out as panacea for Labor's moribund membership structure. However, efforts to increase membership engagement online have comprehensively failed in practice over the past decade.The mistake that the party has made during this period has been to take a technology driven, "Build it and they will come" approach to promoting online engagement. When the Party gets serious about realising the potential of the internet as a platform for organising, campaigning and fundraising, it needs to start putting people, not technology, at the centre of its online strategy.<br />
<br />
In the simplest terms, this means spending more money on people - online organisers and community managers - than on technology platforms. But in the larger sense, it means designing an architecture for participation for members and prospective members. This will mean asking some basic questions about people's incentives - about why and how people want to engage with the Party online.<br />
<br />
My view is that if we look at campaigns that have successfully mobilised online engagement, people are now far more predisposed to organising around issues rather than party or ideology. Further, they are cynical about their ability to be 'heard' within a traditional party structure and want to be given the ability to directly influence outcomes through their online activities without being subject to hierarchical control. <br />
<br />
I believe there's a way to balance these desires against the organisational needs of the parliamentary Party by adapting the Policy Action Caucus ('PAC') structure agreed to at National Conference as a vehicle for online engagement. Consider this proposal:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Full ALP members are entitled to establish online PACs around specific policy issues (eg "Labor for Ethical Live Cattle Exports", "Labor for Equal Marriage" etc) if they are able to initially sign up at least 50 Full Members to the group;</li>
<li>A subordinate class of Membership is created that allows individuals to join not the ALP proper, but a specific PAC for a nominal fee (eg $20);</li>
<li>PACs are given the right to move a platform amendment at ALP Conference if they can sign up at least say, 5000 members to their cause (subordinate or full ALP members) and agree a specific motion within the group;</li>
</ul>
<br />
Such a proposal would give ALP members and prospective members a strong incentive to engage in online organising (ie the potential to have their issue debated in a high profile forum at ALP conference and to influence policy makers) whilst also ensuring that existing party structures remained intact and the organisation proper retained ultimate control over the policy of the Party. It would open the party up to members of the community who may never have previously considered joining the ALP or direct political involvement of any kind (imagine the people a "Labor for NDIS" group could bring in). It would entice many fellow travellers to engage with the ALP, without requiring them to make the initial commitment required to become a full member - creating a large target pool of prospective members for the party's recruitment activities. It would create communities of interest that could engage in real world organising activities (eg you could imagine PACs arranging to staff the voting booths of MPs who agree to champion their issues). It would create a powerful micro-donations fundraising structure for the party to reduce the need for large scale donations. Ultimately, it would make Labor the primary platform for progressive organising once again. <br />
<br />
All it would take is for the ALP to devolve a small amount of control over the policy agenda (not even control over decision making!) to the membership.<br />
<br />
<div>
<u>Background</u></div>
<div>
<br />
As far back as 2002, the <a href="http://australianpolitics.com/parties/alp/02-08-09_hawke-wran-review.pdf">Hawke/Wrann Review</a> stated that it was desirable to <i>“broaden the basis of membership activity, capacity for involvement in policy formulation”</i> through online engagement. The review recognised that it was unhealthy that <i>“vigorous debate on controversial issues is being avoided for the sake of a purely cosmetic unity”</i> and stated that <i>“Alternative processes must be sought to promote input from more sectors of the Party”</i>.<br />
<br />
In this regard the Review recommended the exploration of the formation of policy branches and online branches, noting:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“It may be possible to extend this concept to online branches, which are run nationally, and which encourage people to join the appropriate State branch. With such a scheme, it would be possible to offer online members the opportunity to belong to, and participate in, online policy forums. Again, it is not clear what the best way to do this is, and one of the first tasks of online branches would be to determine the rules for engagement and mechanisms to avoid online discussions becoming dominated by particular individuals”.</i></blockquote>
<br />
The intent behind this recommendation was admirable - as much for its humility about what it didn't know as for its optimism about what could be achieved. Unfortunately, in the decade since, little progress has been made in realising this vision. There are no "online branches", "online policy forums" or meaningful ways for members or prospective members to become "involved in policy formulation online".<br />
<br />
The tragedy of this situation is that it is not for a lack of attention from the Party. As the the <a href="http://www.alp.org.au/getattachment/3cf99afc-d393-4be3-b33c-7afbd6235ccc/review2010/">2010 National Review</a> recognises, the Party has invested enormous sums at both State and Federal levels to roll out infrastructure for online engagement:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
9.4 Recently the Party has begun investing in a new infrastructure to facilitate this. The new LaborConnect function as part of www.alp.org.au is powered by Australian developed software ‘Community Engine’. This function enables Labor supporters to comment on articles, join affinity groups and participate in online discussions on policies or campaigns. The potential for this tool to be expanded and used to assist party building activities should be obvious. Further resourcing of this area should be considered by the Party nationally. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
9.5 The creation of the online ‘Think Tank’ function on www.alp.org.au has also assisted with feedback from members and supporters. This Review was the first major Party consultation to have benefited from the new function. Over 3500 members and supporters participated, the largest single interaction during the Review process. The ability to post brief, targeted contributions seems to have inspired many people to participate.</blockquote>
<br />
The Party has built world class platforms for ALP members and prospective members to engage with the Party and each other over the preceding two years. But when you log onto these platforms, you can see the digital tumbleweeds everywhere you look. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The two most popular groups on LaborConnect, the <a href="http://connect.alp.org.au/groups/the_the_labor_environment_action_network/">Labor Environment Action Network</a> and <a href="http://connect.alp.org.au/groups/australian_young_labor/">Young Labor</a>, have both had only one wall post from users in 2012.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_VUa2Qgy-sBlecMSodZl9L1jAQxNIPWoZpekrVnrOLrbsE_yisUpYNnAsWWMfN6Y3rlTKVb6IDzu2TZcME4RaOcrjCAdFUdWihSDPObG-Z0dcJUAZTlVT9f1-ul5LbcwJuBwDYF3tOqXM/s1600/LEAN.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_VUa2Qgy-sBlecMSodZl9L1jAQxNIPWoZpekrVnrOLrbsE_yisUpYNnAsWWMfN6Y3rlTKVb6IDzu2TZcME4RaOcrjCAdFUdWihSDPObG-Z0dcJUAZTlVT9f1-ul5LbcwJuBwDYF3tOqXM/s320/LEAN.JPG" /></a></div>
<br />
The <a href="http://thinktank.alp.org.au/issues/">Labor ThinkTank</a> which is designed to capture policy contributions from members hasn't had a new 'issue' added since October 2011.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK8tEeEr1PiyxLQSbssBpY5fvkjFJXYuJ7kP5U1whHelp8NY7ArinJ_eqMnuYDPotbfGBIRdpgTfRDHWfZA48VIZaU65PG3XBNfNtQiD5ut7eke9FF0b__RDmv5LqajycDTATATjsaElTQ/s1600/Think+Tank.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK8tEeEr1PiyxLQSbssBpY5fvkjFJXYuJ7kP5U1whHelp8NY7ArinJ_eqMnuYDPotbfGBIRdpgTfRDHWfZA48VIZaU65PG3XBNfNtQiD5ut7eke9FF0b__RDmv5LqajycDTATATjsaElTQ/s320/Think+Tank.JPG" /></a></div>
Even worse, it's not clear that there's ever been a real world <a href="http://connect.alp.org.au/events/">event</a> organised by a user through the site.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyZR1Tx9HbTMMYNSC3HAqNjl0xUqFdE6y6NnCrhdvdoqjfcZxVAl0dxBDYrOW6AXHeP2Fhobf1zdSmnL8YBu6bU-v2n1ztrXiPpyGRunVbPc03Up9DPFHObayqOw1mfggoR38nhEAjlhLt/s1600/Events.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyZR1Tx9HbTMMYNSC3HAqNjl0xUqFdE6y6NnCrhdvdoqjfcZxVAl0dxBDYrOW6AXHeP2Fhobf1zdSmnL8YBu6bU-v2n1ztrXiPpyGRunVbPc03Up9DPFHObayqOw1mfggoR38nhEAjlhLt/s320/Events.JPG" /></a></div>
A new Party member joining LaborConnect to interact with the Party and other members is in for a frustrating experience. There's literally nobody there to interact with.<br />
<br />
Despite this demonstrable failure, the 2010 National Review recommended that further Party resources should be spent expanding these platforms. In addition, US based vendors have been hovering trying to gull the Party into <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/03/22/alp-considering-jumping-on-bamas-tech-bandwagon/">investing even more money</a> on new campaigning platforms. Even Laurie Oakes <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/its-time-labor-took-a-hard-look-at-itself/story-e6frezz0-1226314756207">was at it</a> on the weekend, insisting that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Gillard and ALP national secretary George Wright should immediately send a team to study the Obama operation".</blockquote>
Frankly, the Party shouldn't spend another cent on online infrastructure, study tours or high priced American consultants until it learns the basics of online organising. In this respect, lesson number one needs to be: Online Organising is about People, not Technology.<br />
<br />
Technology might provide people with a new and easier way of engaging with each other - but it won't give them a reason or an incentive to engage with others. As the geeks have been saying for more than a decade now, regardless of the technology, online communications is <a href="http://www.cluetrain.com/book/markets.html">a conversation</a>. Unless your online engagement is able to satisfy the basic prerequisites of a conversation between two people, you won't even be able to start building an online community. <br />
<br />
What are the basic prerequisites of a conversation?</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>At least two people at the same place at the same time;</li>
<li>At least two people with a shared interest;</li>
<li>At least two people with a reason to talk about the shared interest.</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
Labor's online engagement fails these requirements at every step. There are not enough ALP members online at LaborConnect at any time to sustain a conversation and even if there were, there would be no reason for members to talk to each other. Ultimately, because LaborConnect is completely isolated from both the organisational and policy making functions of the ALP, there's nothing you can do there that you couldn't do much more enjoyably on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or the local pub. Online members are just as disenfranchised from the mechanisms of power of the party as any other member. In essence, many of the same obstacles things that make attending branch meetings unappealing to people apply equally to the Party's online engagement.<br />
<br />
<u>A Better Idea - Online Policy Action Caucuses</u><br />
<br />
There's good news and bad news about what the ALP needs to do to promote genuine online engagement. The good news is that it won't cost the Party another cent in IT infrastructure and the party has already agreed to creating the structures that could support it. The bad news is that is requires the ALP to devolve some degree of control over the policy agenda (but not decision making) to online members - something that in the past, the Party has found to be even more difficult.<br />
<br />
<u>Policy Action Caucuses</u><br />
<br />
The 2011 National Conference resolved in the <a href="http://www.alp.org.au/getattachment/3350e9d4-ac61-47e9-8c7e-dbcaea7d628c/our-platform/">Grass Roots Policy Structures</a> chapter to both establish a National Online Policy Branch and a new policy structure called Policy Action Caucuses: <br />
<br />
<b>17 - Grass roots policy structures </b></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(a) The National Secretariat should establish a National Online Policy Branch. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(b) Attendance at the National Online Policy Branch does not satisfy attendance requirements for voting in Party elections, unless a state or territory branch’s rules expressly provide that it does. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(c) State and territory branches must investigate new grass-roots policy structures. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(d) State and territory branches are encouraged to provide for the establishment of a ‘Labor Policy Action Caucus’ or ‘Labor PAC’ where a group has: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(i) thirty financial Party members (or some other number as determined by the relevant state and territory branch) </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(ii) a patron from both the state and federal parliamentary caucuses, unless otherwise determined by its Administrative Committee </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(iii) a statement of its name, objectives and rules, approved by its Administrative Committee.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(e) Labor PACs should enjoy the same level of support from state and territory branch offices that constituent units enjoy in that state or territory. In particular, they should be permitted to: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(i) promote policy forums in Party publications and bulletins </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(ii) put motions directly to Party conferences, the National Policy Forum, and state and territory branch policy committees </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(iii) convene meetings and functions. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(f) Labor PACs should in no way supplant local branches, many of which continue to provide Labor with a vital link to their communities. Rather, Labor PACs should be a complementary initiative. No powers or resources should be given to Labor PACs that are not also given to local branches. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(g) Party officials should support these new arrangements. As PACs mature and become part of the party’s structures, party officials should: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(i) list Labor PACs on application forms for membership (so new members can sign up to them immediately) </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(ii) provide administrative support for elections and the maintenance of membership lists, as they do for local branches. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(h) The administrative, financial and fundraising regimes that govern Labor PACs should be determined by each state and territory branch.</blockquote>
<div>
<br />
The idea of providing an outlet for membership engagement on an issue specific basis is a good one that would better allow the ALP to compete with competitor political groups organised on this basis (eg single issue groups like Amnesty, Greenpeace etc and multi-issue campaigning organisations like Get Up!). For better or for worse, the potency of broad ideology as a focal point for motivating political organising has been in decline for at least the past 30 years. PAC style party structures to enable issue based engagement is a sensible response to these changes. <br />
<br />
However, while these proposals are well intentioned, as currently defined they are unlikely to succeed for many of the same reasons as outlined above. By folding PACs into the existing organisational hierarchy they fail to address the lack of incentives for members to participate in these structures.<br />
<br />
<u>Making Policy Action Caucuses Work - Decentralising and Taking Them Online</u><br />
<br />
In order to make PACs work, they need to be taken out of the party hierarchy and given the ability to directly achieve outcomes without the fiat of the Party organisation. Both the organisers of PACs and their members need to be given both individual agency to organise in the advancement of their issues and a genuine incentive to do so. Merging the PAC concept with the National Online Policy Branch and then linking these structures directly with the floor of National/State Conferences has the potential to create a workable model that creates real incentives for members to engage online and organise. <br />
<br />
The characteristics of such a model might be:<br />
<ul>
<li>Full ALP members are entitled to establish online PACs around specific policy issues (eg "Labor for Ethical Live Cattle Exports", "Labor for Equal Marriage" etc) if they are able to initially sign up at least 50 Full Members to the group;</li>
<li>A subordinate class of Membership is created that allows individuals to join not the ALP proper, but a specific PAC for a nominal fee (eg $20);</li>
<li>PACs are given the right to move a platform amendment at State or National ALP Conference if they can sign up at least say, 5000 members to their cause (subordinate or full ALP members) and agree a specific motion within the group;</li>
</ul>
<u>Benefits</u><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>Membership Benefits</i> - This proposal would dramatically increase the incentives for individuals to engage with the ALP and ultimately to become members. Creating an issue-based, subordinate category of ALP membership will lower the barriers to entry to the Party for prospective members. It provides a new way of channel for participating in the ALP for individuals who are passionate about a particular issue and are sympathetic to the ALP, but may not yet ready to join the ALP. The structure of this proposal also creates incentives for ALP members to go out into the community and recruit those with an interest in the issue in question to further the objectives of the PAC. This pool of individuals who take the initial step of signing up for a subordinate membership would also be fertile ground for ALP organisers seeking to encourage people to take the next step and become full members. It would be a tangible organisational step towards achieving the target of adding 8000 new members to the ALP. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><i>Campaigning Benefits</i> - A major benefit of this proposal is that it creates a platform for organising that PACs are free to do with what they wish. Given the incentives for growing the size of the PACs, recruiting activity would be an obvious focus. But it's likely that PACs would also undertake further organisational activities designed to increase the chances of their motion being accepted by Conference and ultimately implemented by a Labor Government. For instance, you could easily imagine PACs organising campaign volunteers to assist MPs who had committed to supporting and speaking in favour of their motions. If a PACs motion had been adopted by the ALP at a party conference, you could equally see PACs organising general ALP campaign volunteers (ie for shopping centre stall, handing out how to votes, door knocking etc) in the name of ensuring the election of a Labor government to actually implement the policy. Consider the support that a Labor for NDIS group would provide the party in the lead up to the next election had Conference accepted a PAC motion to implement a NDIS. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><i>Fundraising Benefits</i> - The creation of subordinate memberships would obviously create a new and potentially lucrative source of small scale fundraising for the party (on the figures above, by the time a PAC motion reached conference floor it would have raised $100k for the Party in memberships alone). In addition, by creating a motivated and engaged pool of members and supporters, the PACs would also represent a promising group to target to seek online micro-donations. Again, once a PAC's motion has been adopted by Party Conference, all members of the PAC will have a strong incentive to contribute to the election of a Labor government to implement their motion.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<u>Issues</u></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>Media Management</i> - The most obvious challenge posed by this proposal is that it would break every rule of modern media management. By creating nodes of organisational activity outside the direct hierarchical control of the party the party the Party obviously cedes some degree of control over its ability to set the media message of the day - particularly during National Conference. Frankly however, in the new media environment, the ability of any one actor to control the public agenda for anything more than a news cycle is already dissipating. Relinquishing some degree of control is unavoidable if members are to be given an incentive to engage in organising activities of their own accord. Further, forcing the Parliamentary party to argue the case for why the Party ultimately is or is not accepting a position being advocated by a PAC would be a useful communication discipline. It would remind the Party of the need to constantly explain itself to the public and to demonstrate how its actions are consistent with its values instead of resolving internal conflicts behind closed doors and without explanation. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><i>Conflict Between PACs</i> - Another obvious objection to such an arrangement is that PACs will inevitably be established with objectives that are in direct conflict with each other - the obvious one that comes to mind would be a Labor for Forrests PAC and a Labor for Forrestry Jobs PAC. Again, many in the Party will be uncomfortable with this kind of open policy conflict in the Party. However, as discussed above, forcing the Party to have these policy debate publicly will improve the quality of the Parliamentary party's communication with the general public by acting as a constant reminder to make a persuasive case publicly. Further, competition between PACs would act as a useful motivation for the PACs themselves - providing further incentive for the groups' recruiting, fundraising and organisational activities within the party.</li>
</ul>
While a change of this nature will inevitably bring with it a number of challenges for the Party, on balance the benefits that it would bring in the form of a growing and re-energised membership would far outweigh the costs.<br />
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</u></div>
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<u>One More Thing</u><br />
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Finally, for the online PACs proposal to be truly effective, the Party needs to employ some organisers tasked exclusively with performing the old fashioned (and largely forgotten) functions of organising in the online environment. Organisers who are able to perform the Community Manager function that every Australian corporate with any kind of online presence now has as a matter of course. Organisers who are able help those setting up PACs with training about online coms and outreach. Organisers who are able to put promising PAC organisers in touch with the relevant Ministers and their staffs. Organisers who are able to identify the most active and promising members of PACs and try to encourage them to take the next step and join the Party proper. Organisers who are able to help educate PAC members about the policy making processes of the ALP and how they can participate in them and influence outcomes on their areas of policy focus.</div>
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