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2011 ALP Review of 2010 Federal Election....A commentary By Brian Boyd, VTHC Secretary

By Brian Boyd, VTHC Secretary
28 March 2011

With the so called 'bloodbath' NSW State election last weekend (26.3.11) already fading into history, it is worth having a look at the ALP’s national review of last year’s Federal election and the party’s performance, is partially released. Steve Bracks, Bob Carr and John Fawkner oversaw the review process. As Party ‘elders’ they had two contradictory subliminal riding instructions –

a) provide a document that could be used to learn the harsh lessons of 2010 and

b) don’t provide any ammunition to the Party’s enemies.

Any assessment of the public parts of the review shows that they have delivered on the latter aim but definitely have not cut through on how to move forward based on why we now have a hung parliament, three years after the great defeat of John Howard.

There is some recognition given to the issue that many ALP members “feel alienated and disenfranchised”, that ALP branches are closing, membership is falling; that Party strategies are not engaging the outer suburbs of major cities, that reaching “traditional” working-class voters is not occurring. In turn, acknowledgement of what the ALP stands for, is not given much airing at all. Yet, it is the biggest challenge that needs to be addressed.

Instead the review document suggests reforms such as – allowing ALP members to directly elect delegates to the Party’s national conference, building links with community organisations (already done!); reinvigorate the party’s policy committees (tried continuously over the years, won’t happen as policies ignored by Parliamentary wing most of the time anyway!); boost local campaigning and training (won’t work as each candidate runs his/her own ‘trusted’ net works!); grant amnesties to ex-members who have left. That is they can return with full membership rights. (Pathetic, desperate and open to abuse eg don’t pay between elections and rejoin to be part of the pre-selection processes!).

All of these ‘ideas’ is an emphasis on cosmetic ‘reform’. Party ‘internals’ won’t win any votes, especially from the alienated working-classes and fickle middle-classes. Real policies that can be identified with is the only way forward.

It was policy opportunism, post the anti-WorkChoices campaign of 2005-7 that blindsided organised conscious workers. Repetitive, mis-truths that the Fair Work Act fully ended the John Howard WorkChoices nightmare caused mis-trust. Some union leaders adding to the mis-information didn’t help.

In 2010 these workers didn’t go all the way back to becoming “Howard’s battlers”, as Howard’s con was still relatively fresh in their minds. However the enthusiasm of 2005-7 had well and truly dissipated in less than three years!

The ACTU couldn’t generate any measurable level of pro-ALP campaigning pre August 2010. The care-less mood was palpable. A few big unions put up money but attached it to specific problems eg TWU – safe rates campaign; MUA – resurrecting an indigenous coastal shipping strategy, CFMEU – neutralise the ABCC post July 2011. Such ‘understandings’ were mostly ‘under the radar’, as requested by campaign headquarters.

While some in the ALP parliamentary wing like to play on the slow decline of union membership coverage to the relative growth of the workforce over the last 20-30 years, as a justification to regularly call for less union say in Party affairs, they do so at their peril.

Many ALP apparatchiks hate unions just as much as the Libs/Nats. The conservatives may carry on about union influence in the ALP, mainly citing donations. But it is not the money they lament, it is the policy ideas and strategies they bring forward because they can strike a chord with organised workers which can translate into those extra votes that win elections eg 2007.

When organised labour is disenchanted, the ALP loses eg Victoria 2010, NSW 2011. Union coverage of 20% of the workforce can still translate in 3-5% or even more of the national vote at any given election time, to win through. Contempt for unions with the ALP is a losing strategy. It must be reversed.