An edited version of the 2014 Victorian Labor’s new crisis article by Race Mathews, focusing on factional anti-democratic processes, starting some history of the 1960s “Scoresby Letter” impact on ALP democratisation and the 1970 Victorian ALP federal intervention.
Federal leader Bill Shorten has committed to far-reaching party reforms, and other states such as Queensland are already adopting them, but the Victorian ALP is lurching back into a troubled past.
The Scoresby Letter, the Participants’ Group & the 1970 federal VIC Intervention
Faced with a comparable crisis in the mid-1960s, the ‘Scoresby State Electorate Council committee of inquiry into representation and decision making in the ALP’ wrote to local branches, expressing its concerns. This ”Scoresby letter” sought advice on membership, governance and finance, the issues included:
- The ALP’s chronic under-representation in the state and federal parliaments;
- the dominance of its affairs by an external body,
- the so-called Trade Unionists Defence Committee; the withdrawal of recently secured rank-and-file representation on the party’s state executive;
- a historic low of party membership and involvement.
The state ALP president, Bill Brown, and the state secretary, Bill Hartley, instructed branch secretaries the letter should be returned unopened to state office. Some may have complied. Many did not.
Sharing the concerns, and frustrated by the assault on members rights, John Cain and others (including John Button, Richard McGarvie, Frank Costigan and Barry Jones) formed the ”Participants” group. Backed by Gough Whitlam, they paved the way for the 1970 democratisation of the party, and the Whitlam, Hawke and Keating governments.
2014 Victorian Labors new crisis, 50 years on – local members still disenfranchised
Fifty years on new challenges for the Victorian party stem from its factions monopolising the party’s governance and decision-making bodies, locking out most non-aligned members, and locking in faction members to decisions of the inner circles. State Conference union delegates are mostly appointed by factionally aligned union officials, subject to factional direction.
In Victoria’s 2013-14 state preselections, a ”stability pact” between the factions enabled them to jointly divide up the winnable seats.
Consistent with the party rules, the factionally dominated Victorian Administrative Committee initially pledged the upper house candidate preselection would include plebiscites of local members. Subsequently, the plebiscites were cancelled and referred to the ALP national executive.
The executive’s decision was moved by the Left’s Kim Carr and seconded by the Right’s Don Farrell, with all but three of the members present voting for the motion despite others being known to have disagreed with it. The party’s national returning officer refused to announce the outcome of the subsequent ballot on the grounds of non-compliance with the affirmative action rule. The returning officer was overruled and the candidates specified in the ”stability pact” preselected. Local members were disenfranchised.
State lower house seats were divided between the factions before the preselection process. A highly qualified Macedon resident received more than 80% of the local ballot votes, but an external candidate with 19% of the local vote was preselected. In other electorates, well-qualified preselection candidates reportedly were bullied by factional operatives into withdrawing their nominations, or did so on the promise of factional support at a later date.
This exercise of power for sectional advantage results from subverting ALP democratic procedures,and lack of transparency, in particular that all internal elections and preselections be by secret ballot. State conferences and public office selection committee meetings don’t provide voter privacy booths. Delegates are routinely required to disclose completed ballot papers to factional operatives or surrender them for completion by others. Administrative committee agendas are not available in advance to the branches and members. The committee’s minutes are not released or its decisions reported. Elected administrative committee members are frequently represented by unaccountable proxies. Their identities, frequency of attendance and relevant qualifications and experience are not disclosed.
Recommendations for party reform from reviews such as by Mark Dreyfus (1998), Bob Hawke/Neville Wran (2002), John Faulkner/Steve Bracks/Bob Carr (2010) and Alan Griffin (2011) are pigeonholed or swept under carpets in state and national party offices.
The ALP deserves better
Factions properly should be ”on tap but not on top”. Their stranglehold on the party must be challenged at Victorian state conference delegate elections.
Related readings
Labor electoral hopefuls angry over plan to fast-track state preselections – by Royce Millar and Ben Schneiders, The Age, 28 Nov 2013
Towards A Modern Labor Party: Bill Shorten On Party Reform – by Bill Shorten, Per Capita, 22 Apr 2014
A review of all the ALP reviews – 50 years of soul searching – by David Barda, Open Labor, Oct 2020
Locking out the Left: the emergence of national factions in Labor – edited from on article by Osmond Chiu, Jacobin Magazine, 27 July 2020
Race Mathews joined the ALP in 1956. He is a life member of the party, and a former federal MP, Victorian minister, and chief of staff to Gough Whitlam and Labor leaders in the Victorian Parliament.
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