Australian Labor Party

Australian Labor Party
The Party for all Australians

Monday 7 April 2014

The ALP becomes its own worst enemy in WA Senate shambles

The ALP becomes its own worst enemy in WA Senate shambles







The ALP becomes its own worst enemy in WA Senate shambles




The only surprising factor in the stories regarding Joe
Bullock, who held the number one position on the ALP Senate ticket at
Saturday’s Western Australian Senate byelection, was that they took so
long…












Factional dealings saw Labor senator Louise Pratt demoted in
favour of conservative union heavyweight Joe Bullock in the ALP’s WA
Senate ticket.
AAP/Alan Porritt





The only surprising factor in the stories
regarding Joe Bullock, who held the number one position on the ALP
Senate ticket at Saturday’s Western Australian Senate byelection, was
that they took so long to break into wide circulation.




Bullock, who was elected
to the Senate on Saturday, managed to gain pole position on the ALP
ticket around a year ago, in the lead-up to the September 2013 federal
election.




As part of a deal which saw left candidate Simone McGurk from Unions WA (the state version of the Australian Council of Trade Unions) gain pre-selection
for the state seat of Fremantle, Bullock, from the right-wing Shop
Distributive and Allied Employees' Association (SDA), was able to
leap-frog incumbent senator Louise Pratt, who is backed by the
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union.




Pratt took the number one position in 2007, which resulted in then-senator Ruth Webber losing her seat. Her fate in the byelection is unclear as counting continues.



As a result of the deal, senator Mark Bishop, a former ally of Bullock’s and the traditional SDA candidate, did not seek pre-selection in 2013, having correctly viewed a third ALP seat as being unwinnable.



Pratt made her disappointment with the demotion known when she released the following post, which remains on Facebook:





Facebook

Click to enlarge


While the deal gained notice in February 2012 during the
pre-selection process for the 2013 state election – and again in April
2013 when the WA candidates for the federal Senate were finalised – it
remained a relatively low-key story. And it would have remained so, if
not for the need to hold a new Senate election in Western Australia.




As the weekend’s results show, as long as the ALP allows union
heavyweights to dominate the pre-selection process and nominate
candidates at odds with the views of the general membership – and in
this case, all left-leaning progressives in the electorate – they will
continue to alienate voters.




Senators on the hustings



Senate positions are often provided to heavyweights in both major
parties. They are able to focus on internal party politics and policy
rather than the constituency work required by members of the House of
Representatives.




Ordinarily, Senate candidates don’t attract much attention in
election campaigns, unless they hold a ministry or shadow ministry
position. But ALP apparatchiks must have had their hearts in their
mouths ever since the possibility of a re-election for six Western
Australian Senate position was raised. They knew what an electoral
liability Bullock could be.




Pratt, however, has a relatively high profile in many segments of the
Western Australian electorate as a result of her time in state
parliament. She has a strong personal following due to her support for same-sex marriage and her calls for action on climate change.




While Pratt, who holds her own when dealing with media, was seen out
and about on the hustings, The West Australian newspaper had to lure out Bullock, who managed to keep a very low profile during the first weeks of the campaign.




However, the focus shifted to Bullock in the last two weeks of the
campaign as details of his conviction for unlawful assault in 1996 were revealed. This was followed by the release of a recording of a Q&A session after a speech to the Dawson Society, a Christian group, in November last year.




The recording highlighted Bullock’s socially conservative views, his
general disdain for progressives within the ALP and his sympathies with
his old university friend Tony Abbott, whom he claimed had the potential to be a “very good prime minister”.




Bullock was also forced to front the media to apologise for comments he made about Pratt’s sexuality (she is openly gay) with Pratt by his side.



Bullock’s views no surprise to the ALP



Going into this election, the ALP was unable to offer the electorate
anything by way of new policies or funding as the results of the Senate
re-election would not lead to their winning government or even gaining
the balance of power in the Senate. As a result, the ALP encouraged
voters to consider the election as a referendum on the Abbott government.




The ALP can’t be held be responsible for flight MH370 dominating the news, the Greens using Scott Ludlam’s viral speech in the Senate as a springboard for a strong campaign, or Clive Palmer’s spending spree. But they have no-one to blame but themselves for the Bullock debacle.



On Saturday, the lack of trust
with which Bullock is viewed internally was on display. Suggestions
that he couldn’t be relied upon not to jump ship once in the Senate and
could turn independent at some point during his six year term were
raised.




The counting so far shows the ALP’s primary vote has dipped by 4.8%
from its September 2013 result to 21.8%. Pratt did manage to put a bit
of pressure back on Bullock when he was forced to wait while she voted below the line, preferencing herself first.




If Pratt does manage to get over the line, it will likely be as a
result of her own personal following among ALP voters who voted below
the line and the preferences of a number of left-leaning minor parties,
who positioned her well above the other ALP and Liberal candidates.




Bill Shorten should use the ALP’s poor results in Western Australia as a starting point for serious reform within the party.
AAP/Tim Clarke



Reform or wither



Union power over pre-selection can be limited. John Smith was able to
instigate reform in the British Labour Party, introducing the One Member One Vote method to determine pre-selection in 1993, thereby reducing the power of the unions.




The ALP threw away the opportunity for reform when they failed to implement in full the 2010 Bracks-Faulkner-Carr Review
recommendation of a tiered system of party primaries for the selection
of candidates, which would have limited the influence of unions.




Paul Howes,
the high-profile former boss of the Australian Workers' Union, gifted
the ALP an opportunity with his recent comments that the relationship
between the ALP and unions should be severed as it was damaging both
parties.




Former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke lent strength to the idea that the relationship needs to be reviewed on the weekend, as did former Labor senator Chris Evans, who admitted the Bullock scandal had harmed the Labor vote.



With the federal government releasing
the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into Union Governance
and Corruption, things are only going to get worse for Labor.




Bill Shorten should use the ALP’s poor results in Western Australia as a starting point for serious reform within the party. It is expected that he will announce that the rule that all members of the ALP must be also be members of a union will be scrapped.



Until the ALP embrace reform, it’s difficult to see how they’ll break this pattern of self-harm.

No comments: