Labor 'left' grumbles over Brumby

March 25, 1998
Issue 

By Ben Reid

MELBOURNE — Attempts by the right-dominated leadership of the Victorian ALP resulted in to foist a "star" candidate — former ABC broadcaster Mary Delahunty — onto the suburban state seat of Northcote has produced objections from the Socialist Left faction.

Labor opposition leader and dominant right-wing faction member John Brumby has supported Delahunty's bid as part of his "renewal" campaign for the party. It is also an integral part of a larger campaign to improve Labor's federal and state image before the next round of elections by recruiting high profile candidates.

In Victoria, this has been combined with a factional grab by the ALP right, in alliance with a section of the ALP "left" around state upper house member Theo Theophanous and the former Pledge Group. A number of Socialist Left candidates fear they will lose pre-selection. ALP left-aligned unions have protested and even threatened to withhold funding from the ALP.

The move to impose Delahunty on the seat of Northcote, vacated by former Kirner minister John Thwaites and held by the left for 20 years, has drawn a public response from ALP left leader and federal senator Kim Carr.

Writing in the Melbourne Age, Carr accused Brumby of orchestrating a purge of left MPs and stated that a number of the challenges were motivated by "vindictiveness".

Carr added that the ALP right wants an "opposition that is a pale imitation of a Government that [the electorate] is increasingly sick of".

In reality, Labor's factions lost any ideological basis a long time ago. The Socialist Left and the right both played central roles in Labor governments which attacked living standards and the rights of working people in the 1980s and 1990s. The factions' main role is to act as power bases for individuals seeking parliamentary seats. The real cause of the conflict is not over policy differences but numbers of safe seats.

Carr revealed another cynical rationale for why his faction retains its "left" label when he declared that without a left faction in the ALP, "many Victorians will turn instead to minority parties which they perceive as truly community based".

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