Doug Cameron's speech on the future of the Australian Labor Party

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 12 years ago

Doug Cameron's speech on the future of the Australian Labor Party

By Doug Cameron

Firstly let me acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Cadigal people, and their elders past and present.

Predicting the future of the Labor Party is an extremely difficult task; it requires some heroic assumptions and a knowledge of the arcane and bewildering power relationships within the Party. It is a hazardous undertaking.

To appreciate where the future of Labor might lie requires an understanding of its history, along with the political, economic and cultural changes affecting contemporary Australia.

I do not have time to critically analyse or do justice to these issues in the short time available to me.

Many acres of trees have died to produce the paper that bears the analysis of Labor's future; written by its friends and foes alike. I'm sure that most of you are familiar with the debate.

My own view, is that the Party's future is depends largely on its ability to articulate a vision, a clear purpose, and a program that has at its core the desire to build a good society, the features of which resonate with the better nature of the Australian community.

What do I mean when I talk about a good society?

In a great publication from the UK progressive group Compass, called The Good Society they put forward the challenge. They say in that report:

"We are losing the ability to imagine different ways of living. This is fatal to the future of our society. Every stage of progress starts as someone's dream."

I believe in this country we should take this as a timely warning.

Advertisement

Last weekend, the Chifley Research Centre, Labor's national think-tank released a major report on Progressive Values in Australia. That report went to the core of the alienation people are feeling in Australian society today. Looking at people across the political spectrum they asked people if over the last 20 years they felt we had grown more or less materially wealthier, whether our emotional wellbeing had improved, and whether we were happier.

All simple questions, but the results were stark.

  • 51 per cent of people believed we were materially better off than 20 years ago, BUT

  • Only 12 per cent believed emotional wellbeing had improved, and

  • Only 13 per cent believed overall happiness had improved.

What Labor needs to understand, is that if we don't deliver on the bread and butter issues that Labor supporters want delivery on, then we can kiss goodbye to a carbon price, we can kiss goodbye to decent treatment of asylum seekers and we can kiss goodbye to government for a long time to come.

...and the findings were very similar whether people voted Labor, Liberal or for a minor party.

Stark findings about how people actually feel about the world and society they live in.

We are, as a society and as people involved in politics, completely disengaged from these issues.

What federal Labor or Liberal policy can you point to that responds to the challenge of these findings?

We need to start imagining a response. We need to start re-imagining politics to match what people are experiencing.

What is a good society?

We need a vision for a better life in this country.

And that vision needs to be at the core of a renewed Labor agenda.

We know that material prosperity has not brought increased satisfaction with life and that communities and families continue to feel exposed and isolated.

Economic growth does not equal human happiness.

But we can imagine and start to build a Good Society here, using the tools that we have available, and reclaiming some of the tools from our past.

I believe that the combination of active government and a rejuvenated and politicised civil society can form the basis for a good society.

To start that, I believe we need a new social contract built around a stable and prosperous, broad based economy, one with full employment, decent living wages and rights at work and one built on environmentally sustainable policies.

A good society would deliver affordable housing, whether buying or renting a home, a health system accessible to everyone regardless of economic circumstance.

An education system underpinned by world class public schools staffed by well resourced and well paid teaching professionals whoses contribution to society is recognized.

It would be about creating a generous provision for disability, maternity leave and retirement.

It would mean free access to higher education and vocational training for any qualified applicant.

The good society would be about public safety where one doesn't have to live in a gated community to feel secure, and where one could walk down the street of any city or town without fear of being mugged, assaulted, or worse.

It would mean rigorous protection of the environment under a regime that is more concerned about the condition of our forests, our earth, our air and our waters than about pollution in the name of corporate profit.

It would mean international engagement on poverty, fair trade, peace, nuclear disarmament and the development of strong checks and balances on global capital.

This can only be achieved by an informed debate on whether the massive financial benefits from the mining boom lines the pockets of super rich mining executives or is used in the national interest to build a good society.

3 It would also, critically, be about us engaging with people through the community and not just through television interviews and media releases.

In this day and age, we need to reclaim a sense of community and empowerment for people. That has to start and finish with our ability to organise with people in their local communities.

These are challenges that need to be addressed by Federal and state Labor.

The Labor Story

For over 100 years, it was always clear what Labor stood for. It always had a clear sense of purpose that was rooted in its origins; and this purpose was understood by the Australian people and was embraced by those among the working class who Labor saw as its base.

The Party was established as a result of the trade union movement recognising the limitations of industrial action and the need to develop a strong parliamentary voice to counter institutional and political opposition from the owners of capital.

The social and economic circumstances of today are much different to that of the 1890s.

But the character of institutional and political opposition to Labor is no less fierce and would be recognisable to someone living a hundred years ago.

Witness the ferocity of the attacks on the redistributive ambitions of the mineral resources rent tax and the complete lack of principle among the rent-seekers and vested interests who oppose the imposition of a price on greenhouse gas emissions.

In the next year or so, overcoming the politics of fear and disinformation on climate change and mining taxation will be fundamental to the short term political future of the Party.

This is a challenge we should embrace with courage, conviction and energy.

In the longer term, there are fundamental changes that must be made to how the Party conducts itself.

Firstly, the surgeon's knife needs to be taken to the Party's internal structures and how it governs itself.

Secondly, there needs to be a fundamental re-thinking of how the Party engages with the electorate.

I will deal with each of these challenges in turn.

Let me put some context on our present travails.

Labor's credibility has been seriously damaged by the change of leadership last year and the parliamentary leadership walking away from our stated determination to tackle climate change by pricing carbon.

We are paying a price, if the polls are correct, that is unprecedented for a government in office for a mere three-and-a-half years.

The recent Newspoll has the ALP's primary vote at 33% this represents a loss of 10.4% or almost 1.3 million primary votes on 2007.

The message is very clear; Labor must change, Labor must not squander the opportunity it was given in 2007 to undo the social damage and economic neglect of 12 years of Howard's wrong headed ideology.

Internal Reform

The basis of the internal reforms necessary to democratise the Party, extend its appeal and its membership base is outlined in two documents a decade apart:

The report of the 2002 Hawke/Wran National Committee of Review;

The Bracks/Faulkner/Carr 2010 National Review report.

When Bob Hawke and Neville Wran released their report in 2002, it was accompanied by a statement that said, among other things:

"The recommendations are geared towards making the Party more participatory and democratic, more attractive to potential members, and more in step with the attitudes and aspirations of the Australian electorate."

The body of the report made clear the will of the rank and file and the challenge facing the Party in these terms:

"The Australian Labor Party must take the opportunity presented by this review process to reform itself.

"The National Committee of Review strongly believes the recommendations contained in this report will contribute to a more dynamic, modern and relevant Labor Party. We have been encouraged and inspired by the contribution of the Party's rank and file to the review process. What is needed now is the political will to implement these reforms. The task is urgent and must be quickly resolved."

Amongst a number of core elements identified by the Hawke-Wran inquiry as essential, unchanging and unchangeable elements of Labor philosophy was the following:

"Belief in and assistance for an enlarged Australian population, through appropriate family support and further migration, including a substantial intake of genuine refugees":

"An unqualified opposition to discrimination based on race, colour, creed or gender"

"The right of workers' to organise and bargain collectively"

Sadly, the recommendations of the 2002 review were not given the serious consideration they deserved and the Party is paying the price for that lack of consideration.

This brings me to the Report by Steve Bracks, John Faulkner and Bob Carr arising from the 2010 National Review.

It is hard to over-emphasise just how important it is that the recommendations in the report are acted upon and implemented as a matter of urgency.

I cannot ignore the fact that there are powerful groups in the Party that are opposed to the changes recommended in the report.

The iron law of oligarchy is alive and well in the Labor Party.

The review acknowledges the union movement as the "bedrock" of the ALP.

The direct affiliation of trade unions to the ALP makes it unique among progressive and social democratic parties throughout the world.

It is a direct link to the largest progressive non-government organisation in the country.

If the right-wing talking heads are to believed, the union link is a handicap for the Party.

On the contrary, the union movement is a source of innovation and strength for the Party.

The debates and struggles of the union movement are the debates and struggles of the Party because they are the debates and struggles of working people.

As the report makes clear, maintaining a modern link with the union movement is vital to Labor's success in the future.

The review acknowledges that Party membership is rapidly declining, it is rapidly ageing and those that remain are increasingly disillusioned. As the report says:

"Fundamentally, the Review Committee accepts the view put to it by a member in Hobart: 'It's about respect: respect the members and the members will be there'".

While it would be unrealistic to expect the Party to replicate the sort of Party-building activities that featured in Party life in decades past, it is a fact that over-emphasis on centralised message control, opinion-polling and the cost of modern campaigning has meant that resources for grass-roots Party building have been unavailable, or worse, simply withheld.

The 2010 Review report makes some very good recommendations on Party building that would see new resources directed to real growth in membership among progressive members of the community.

The report acknowledges that more members means nothing in the absence of a program of training and political skills development designed to help members build Labor's presence in local communities, genuinely tap into the enthusiasm of our base of supporters and put the Party on a much firmer organisational footing than it is on.

We should also acknowleged that these are not revolutionary views, they are in fact basic progressive politics.

  • In the US, president Obama embraced community organising and has created a whole machinery around it call "Organizing for America"

  • In the UK, Ed Miliband and David Miliband are training 10,000 community organisers to take the message against cutbacks to local communities and to empower them to defend their local services

With such good examples we have to conclude that resistance to organising has other motives inside the ALP.

Perhaps Eddie Obeid thinks he knows better than Ed Miliband?

We have to therefore conclude that it is entrenched power that is standing in the way of this and other reforms.

The Hawke-Wran review made substantive recommendations concerning the structure of the National conference and recommended direct election by the rank and file of a component of it.

Despite its prominence, this important democratic reform was drowned at birth by those in the Party who already largely control the composition of the conference. Once again, the 2010 Review recommends its adoption.

It should be adopted if members of the Party are to have any real voice in the peak policy making body of the Party.

Another recommendation of the 2002 Review was the direct election of the Party president who would in effect represent the interests of the rank and file at the highest levels of the Party.

In a bizarre twist, this was only accepted by the National Conference on the basis of a rotating annual presidency with no voting rights on the National Executive.

While the operation was a success, the patient died.

To undo this travesty, the 2010 report recommends direct election of the Party president, along with two vice-presidents, all for a three year term and all with voting rights on the National Executive in recognition of their role as advocates for the interests of members.

Furthermore, the process should be replicated by the State and Territory branches.

The 2010 Review recommends a number of other measures which, if adopted, will in my view lead to a broadening of participation, Party democracy and ultimately, a good measure of renewal.

  • That affiliated unions ask their members to opt in to Party involvement through participation in preselection or primary ballots, or representing their union at Party conferences.

  • That intervention in Party preselections by the National Executive be confined to a last resort and only then, in exceptional circumstances.

  • That the Party implement a phase in of primaries for the selection of candidates in which local Party members, members of unions in the electorate and registered Labor supporters in the community get to vote in the selection of the Labor candidate.

  • That the Party institute a national community dialogue program to facilitate discussion between the Party, community organisations and community leaders at both the membership and parliamentary level.

  • That the Party begin the process of affiliating on a formal basis with like-minded organisations in addition to trade unions and that Labor campaigning groups such as Rainbow Labor and the Labor Environment Action Network be granted delegate entitlements at Party conferences and policy committees.

  • That the national and state Labor Advisory Committees be expanded to include a Campaigns and Growth Forum to connect the Party, affiliated unions and the Parliamentary Labor Parties in a more meaningful dialogue and shared challenges and opportunities.

Failure to make the key structural changes that empower the Party membership, grow the membership, deepen our connection with the community, and open the Party up to greater participation will result in further decline and a reduced capacity to effectively campaign and form government.

Charismatic leadership, spin, focus groups and polling cannot be a substitute for a vision to build a good society.

What happens inside Labor impacts on everyone involved in progressive politics, and indeed everyone in the nation.

At the level of the Federal Parliamentary Party, I have already called for reform. I am a supporter of Caucus having the right to elect ministers from its ranks.

It was a mistake to diminish the rights of caucus and centralise power in the leader. This is not only a breach of Party rules; it is undemocratic and stifles debate and the development of ideas.

Factions must once again, as they did in the reform era of the 80s, play a far more sophisticated and creative role in the formation of policy.

They should be a venue for debate and discussion on key policy questions, rather than the executive recruitment and preferment agencies they've become.

Ministers should be more accountable to the Caucus and the Party at large. As the 2010 Review report points out, Labor Ministers hold office to implement Labor policy and that is the benchmark against which their performance should be measured.

The caucus also has a responsibility to drive the policy and decisions carried by the national conference. More critical analysis of ministerial briefs and policy is essential to ensure a more democratic and informed policy agenda.

I am on the record as supporting changes to the principles of Caucus solidarity.

I support moving toward a system similar to the three-line whip that exists in the British Labour Party; rather than the rigid system we have which in my view is hindering Labor MPs' capacity to fully engage with their modern, diverse electorates in the battleground of ideas and values. Diversity is a strength, not a weakness.

Unfortunately, I seem to be in a minority of one on this position.

Change should not be considered in isolation from a serious review of key policy areas.

The Party must embrace clear-headed debate over a number of policy issues that inhibit our capacity to reach out to the community as a Party of the people.

My experience of 27 years as an official at the AMWU taught me a very important thing about satisfying the base.

The AMWU isn't the SDA.

The AMWU holds social policy positions that are supported by the majority of its rank and file and which are in every respect the essence of progressive politics.

For example, the AMWU supports same-sex marriage. The AMWU supports taking action on climate change by pricing carbon. The AMWU is explicitly and proudly anti-nuclear and has been for a long time. The AMWU practices in its outlook and policy the principles of first-wave feminism. 8

So why do manufacturing workers, many of whom might actually live in the Lindsay of the Labor Right's imagination, support these things?

Because the union delivers on the bread and butter issues of wages, working conditions, job security, superannuation and all of the things that if you deliver on them, the members will support progressive policy on "non-industrial" issues.

What Labor needs to understand, is that if we don't deliver on the bread and butter issues that Labor supporters want delivery on, then we can kiss goodbye to a carbon price, we can kiss goodbye to decent treatment of asylum seekers and we can kiss goodbye to government for a long time to come.

It has long been my view that, for example, orthodox free trade policy, and neo-liberal economic orthodoxy in general alienates Labor's base. This alienation leaves little room for progressive social policy and very little forgiveness for hard, but essential reforms like pricing carbon emissions.

Nowhere is this clearer than on trade policy.

I get emails every week from working people who tell me that having seen free trade policies destroy manufacturing jobs, they are not about to support a carbon tax.

As Dani Rodrik, a prominent trade economist at Harvard has noted:

"You scratch the surface of most industries that are successful in developing export capacity anywhere in the world and you will invariably find a combination of market forces and government forces at play"

Professor Rodrik has argued that the focus should not be on simply cutting tariffs and eliminating other barriers, but on offsetting the negative effect on wages and jobs.

But what Labor has seemed intent on doing is burning our political capital implementing the other side's agenda of unilateral trade disarmament and we end up with no political capital left for our own agenda.

And we look like we're about to do it again on the question of regulating the finance industry.

Despite all the evidence that the global financial crisis was as much a failure of government as anything else, particularly in the US where the contagion began, there doesn't appear to be any appetite for reform.

The same people who were responsible for the GFC, some of whom ought to be behind bars, are back doing exactly what they were doing before 2007 and paying themselves huge bonuses for doing it.

Amid the rush back to pre-2007 policy settings it is hard to be heard on the need for checks and balances on financial markets like a Tobin Tax on financial transactions.

We are back to replaying our obsessions with what corrupt ratings agencies think of our budget bottom line, rather than actually taking our vision of a good society to the electorate.

By delivering on the bread and butter issues; great public education and health, fair industrial relations and job security, a decent welfare system and affordable housing - Labor can not only retain the support of its base, but it can have the room we need to reach out to allies on the left and deliver an even better society.

By imagining a Good Society, we may then be able to take those first steps towards a better society.

To do otherwise normalises the idea that progressive politics is merely something that is a marginal concern and that the only legitimate politics is to pitch to the right.

We can't pander to our opponents' base and expect our own base to stay intact. We may well hold Lindsay, but Tony Abbott will be Prime Minister.

The future is in our hands. No political party has an automatic right to an existence.

Longevity requires flexibility, the courage to change and the capacity to develop progressive policies that resonate within the community.

Loading

Longevity requires Labor to be actively building the good society this is how we started and it is integral to our political future.

This is a copy of a speech on the future of the Australian Labor Party given by Doug Cameron at the Gaelic Club in Sydney on Friday, May 6, 2011.

Most Viewed in Politics

Loading