The return of
The message for young activists on the so-called progressive side of politics is clear: the way ahead is through dishonesty, treachery and cowardice. If they sabotage an organisation, ultimately, they will be rewarded with its leadership. They too, like Mr Rudd, can be the ruler of the ruins.
In the months ahead, I plan to write extensively about the cultural decay of Australia’s oldest political party. Unlike Rudd, if I have criticisms to make, I put my name to them – a vital point of honour. I do not believe in off-the-record mischief and attacking people from behind.
This column, like every one of my columns in The Australian Financial Review for the past six years, has my name on it. It does not seek the snivelling anonymity of a Laurie Oakes leak.
As post-mortems are written on the Rudd-Gillard quagmire, most will focus on personalities and power. But the bigger question lies elsewhere.
How could the party of Chifley and Curtin now be led by the most dishonourable saboteur in its history?
This abomination could only be possible in an organisation stripped of its moral standing and moral compass.
Rudd is part-revenge, part-product of the political environment in which he functions. To understand his leadership, one must first comprehend Labor’s structural decline.
Eight years ago, there was a very good book that chronicled this problem. It was called The Latham Diaries. While criticised at the time, it was actually the first detailed account of Labor’s organisational malaise.
It explained the changing nature of the factional system: how the large, relatively stable left and right-wing blocs of the 1980s had dissolved into a series of bickering sub-factions.
The ALP was no longer a cohesive party, but a loose federation of feudal-style warlords, each practising the politics of self-interested manipulation and treachery.
These smaller groupings, while based on personality and geographic factors, were also underpinned by union control. The Victorian Right, for instance, had broken into a Crean Group, a Conroy Group and “The Shoppies" (MPs chosen by the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association). My book listed 18 sub-factions, with an average membership of just five MPs.
Why did Labor’s caucus fragment so badly? In the 1990s, two factors combined to reshape the party’s structure.
The first was the ACTU’s program of union amalgamations, moving from craft-based representation to an industry-based system. These super-unions had the numerical strength at state Labor conferences to demand upper house spots, while also cutting deals to have union officials preselected for lower house seats.
The second factor arose from the culture of factionalism itself. As grassroots activism declined and the party became an oligarchy, positions of power were viewed as more important than policy positions. Every two-bit apparatchik wanted to be the next Graham Richardson or Robert Ray. These would-be warlords developed power bases at a state level, invariably winning parliamentary seats. Whereas a state branch might have had three or four groups clustered around the new powerbrokers (a manageable number), when multiplied nationally, it produced 18-24 sub-factions jostling for control of federal caucus – a formula for anarchy.
Like an archaeologist digging through the sediment of election results, one can identify each wave of machine men entering Federal Parliament. In 1993, three former state secretaries won seats:
Throughout Labor’s time in opposition, each of the super-unions substantially increased its federal representation. And so the little Richos continued to emerge: in 2004,
One does not need to be an expert in game theory to appreciate the instability of this system. It encourages opportunists to switch from one sub-faction to another, with a single vote changing the internal balance of power. It also legitimises the role of powerbrokers, emboldening them to advance their group’s interests ahead of the party’s.
To maintain the support of their followers, these MPs need to appear influential, immersing themselves in caucus manoeuvring and back-stabbing. Thus they either support the current parliamentary leader (on the basis that he or she shows them sufficient respect) or they are busy organising a coup in favour of someone more pliable.
Under this model, Labor has experienced constant leadership destabilisation. Since 2001, it has changed leaders six times – on average, spinning the revolving door every two years.
If, by some miracle, the party united behind its leader, the warlords would manufacture other areas of dispute. They only survive by notching up power-play victories, by leaking, conniving and undermining.
It’s funny how it happens, but political parties invariably find their natural equilibrium. A chronically divided and dysfunctional outfit such as federal Labor has resurrected a leader in its own image: KRudd.
The Australian Financial Review