A cosmetic change
Like most ALP conferences during the past three decades, the special rules conference held on October 5-6 was a carefully stage managed affair. It was designed to bolster the image of federal Labor leader Simon Crean and to convince voters that the ALP was democratising and differentiating itself from the Coalition.The irony, of course, is that a large number of faction deals were necessary to pull off an impression of a non-factional, unified party.
After the dust has settled, we are not left with much. The main issues expected to cause debate the proportion of union representation at state ALP conferences and refugee policy were both settled in favour of the leadership.
The standardisation of affiliated unions' votes at state conferences (which elect delegates to the ALP national conference) at 50% is a reduction in only three states. It was opposed by a minority, including union militants, in the left faction and a substantial number in the right faction.
Although it is likely that a majority of delegates opposed the motion, it was passed because the left faction bound its members to vote for Crean's compromise.
It would be foolish, however, to assume that this change represents a move away from the integration of the union bureaucracy into the ALP machine. The support offered to the motion by ostensibly left union leaders such as Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Doug Cameron indicates their awareness that the move is essentially cosmetic.
The battle for control within the ALP, as the conference more than amply demonstrated, is not between unionists and MPs, but between different ALP factions. And the factions are held together by career aims, not politics.
The most disappointing aspect of the conference was its complete failure to discuss refugee policy. Although the review that promoted the conference, headed by former NSW premier Neville Wran and former prime minister Bob Hawke, was not designed to discuss policy, Hawke and Wran felt compelled to comment on the party's refugee policy in their report.
Explaining that no policy issue arose more frequently in our discussions with ALP members than refugee policy, Hawke and Wran implied that many blamed the ALP's opportunist inhumanity for the party's defeat in the 2001 federal election. They even recommended a policy: maintaining mandatory detention, while shifting asylum seekers from the Pacific island states to Christmas Island.
The Hawke-Wran proposal would do nothing for asylum seekers. Since the federal government excised Christmas Island from the migration zone, asylum seekers there cannot appeal to Australia's court system against decisions made by the immigration department. They do not have access to the protection of Australian law. The Hawke-Wran Indian Ocean solution is a sick joke.
Members of Labor for Refugees were understandably outraged by this proposal. Since the election, every indicator has shown that most ALP members are unhappy with mandatory detention, and many deeply so. Several state ALP conferences, including Queensland and NSW, have voted to end mandatory detention of asylum seekers, and, consequently, many Labor for Refugees members had felt they were close to a change in party policy.
But then, as it became clear that the Crean leadership faced a revolt at the conference over asylum seeker policy, it announced that the topic was not up for discussion.
In return for abandoning the discussion at the conference, Labor for Refugees leader and NSW Labor Council secretary John Robertson scored a place on a committee to discuss refugee policy, set up by the national executive and chaired by ALP national president Greg Sword (Robertson's initial proposal was for a more progressive committee, set up from the conference. However, this was scuttled by the Labor right which forced Crean to back down to a safer proposal).
Robertson is unlikely to achieve much. Crean has reiterated several times since the conference that mandatory detention is not-negotiable. Another internal committee is unlikely to change his mind.
Indeed, the committee is a sop to distract Labor for Refugees activists from pursuing a more effective strategy: maintaining and increasing mass pressure for policy change through public displays of opposition to mandatory detention.
From Green Left Weekly, October 16, 2002.
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