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SERIOUS BADNESS WITNESSED
Poor Latham Jesus! Did they really have to burn him as well as crucify him? Meanwhile, Labor historian Rodney Cavalier vents about the ALP’s faction system, which inducts dozy young Laborites into lives of bitter sloth:
So you have, therefore, an entire generation of people who have never worked, from the day they left school, going into university. Graduating or not graduating, and never worked for anyone but the Labor Party, a minister, a member of Parliament or a trade union. Now, if you think that that is adequate preparation for public life, good luck to you.
And on the ALP in general:
What we’re witnessing is something seriously bad in the history of any political party, and that’s an intersection of the collapse of belief and the collapse in organisation. But as belief has disappeared as a crucible, careers and jobs and the prospects of the glittering lights have replaced them. And so people are lining up in terms of where they nail their colours to the mast—not in terms of what they believe, but in terms of what opportunities they perceive will fall their way, in terms of what faction they join ...
[The party] hasn’t renewed itself, and that’s the single biggest mistake that an opposition can make, failing to renew itself. If the Labor Party is serious about recruiting new talent, then it’s got to look beyond the ranks of Young Labor and ministerial staff and the espousing of loyalty. Young Labor does one function - it teaches people how to hate other members of the Labor Party. It should be looking at the tsunami relief and Kosovo and places that idealists have gone and worked, and bring those people into parliament.
(From J.F. Beck and reader Raff)
Just a word of caution amidst all this ALP bashing. The Liberals are pretty well dead at the branch level also and I get the impression that there is a very low level of debate on policy issues among both young Lib and young Lab.
There is still serious work to be done to reverse the drift to bigger and more intrusive government, but major pork barrelling was the most obvious feature of both election platforms last year.
While I steel myself for the inevtiable rain of housebricks, fruit and chamber-pots full of human waste I expect for making this confession, I very recently joined the ALP - not because of some fit of beserk pinko rage at the Howard government, but because Cavlier is spot-on - the failure to win this quite winnable election lies squarely with the ALP. With its organisation, with its approach to policy (even if much of that policy I agreed with), the talent they preselect, and even the membership itself. My anger is at the ALP for so breathtakingly stuffing this up.
The old adage is being followed here (may God forgive my vanity) - “if you want something done right….” Only by enticing new membership from beyond the current brackish pool of hacks and chancers, will the party have anything to offer the community at large. My frustration is such that I - and a few others I know - have had to act.
And it may please some that the first attempt by some urger to force me to play ball with the idiotic factional system was repelled with a “fuck OFF” loud enough to blister paint on a nearby wall.
Rafe is quite if right - the careerist little spivs in the Tiny Tories and the Labor Jugend are hardly going to be the salvation of either party. Quite the reverse, if the ones I’ve met are anything to go by. These gerbils should be kept as far from the levers of power as is humanly possible.
good luck polishing the labor turd brendan. let us know how it turns out.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 01 21 at 12:08 PM • permalinkIt is true that the ALP faction system is on the nose, especially the divisive, corrupt and reactionary “ethnic” lobby. But the ALP still manages to run all state governments, and has almost managed to run the LN/P to ground in two elections (1998 & 2001). The housing bubble & terrorist threat propped up the LN/P in 2004, but that won’t last.
Rafe is correct about the dearth of talent in the LN/P at the branch level. The LN/P as nothing much to brag about in regard to its members. There are plenty of LN/P legal and financial hacks to match the ALP’s political and industrial hacks. Dr Peter McMahon explains:The Liberal party is replete with corporate lawyers who see politics as an extension of the adversarial law system. To beat your opponent, not to solve a problem, is the goal of this approach. These lawyers love the cut and thrust of Parliament because it is modelled on law courts, but they make lousy analysts of complex issues.
The LN/P ministry has not exactly set the world on fire, being full of people like Alston, Reith & Wooldridge who seem to have their eyes on post-political careers. Its inner cabinet - PM, Treasurer & FM - stand head and shoulders above their opposite numbers in the ALP. But it would not take much talent to look like a thoroughbred compared to that gaggle of nags.Brendan, you da man!
What to do about ALP factions? How about banning them?
Posted by David Morgan on 2005 01 21 at 12:13 PM • permalinkThe weaker political parties get, the better off are the people. All we should expect from politicians is to raise an army, maintain the law, train sufficient police, teachers and medics and then they can get back to vulturising what’s left of a 20 per cent flat tax rate. Nah, make that 10 per cent.
Back in 1988, I was a 20 year old third-year uni student and came close to joining the ALP. Hey, it was during the Hawke years, and back then, the Libs were tearing themselves up over the Howard-Peacock rivalry.
A mate of mine who’s dad was a senior union powerbroker took me along to a Labor Unity faction meeting at Trades Hall in Melbourne. This guy was switched on enough to have nothing to do with uni politics, preferring to play with the big boys like Robert Ray, even at the age of 20.
I was pretty pissed that the only item on the agenda for this meeting was how they were going to stack the Victorian conference and do the Left. Why? Because of fundamental differences on policy or philsophy? Nah, just because they’re not us.
That was the end of my flirtation with joining Labor. I voted for Hawke in 1990, but by 1992, I was voting for Jeff Kennett in the state election and in 1993, voted for John Hewson against Keating. And I’ve voted Liberal ever since.
They say a neoconservative is a liberal who got mugged by reality, so I guess that makes me a neocon.
yeah jack. those state labor govts are ‘managing’ to run their states into the ground. if it wasnt for the revenue from the gst (which labor opposed) they’d be REALLY f..ked by now. as for ‘the housing bubble and terrorism’ helping the libs in the last election! nothing to do with how shite labor was as a proposed alternative govt was it?? it’s time for labor and it’s supporters (you jack!) to stop blaming external factors for labor’s total inept shitness.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 01 21 at 04:55 PM • permalinkSteve68 — And a conservative is a liberal with teenage daughters…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 01 21 at 05:10 PM • permalinkrosceo on Jan 21, 05 | 3:55 pm evidently needs remedial comprehension therapy in both English and Economics. I am just the man to gleefully shove it down his throat.
nothing to do with how shite labor was as a proposed alternative govt was it?? it’s time for labor and it’s supporters (you jack!) to stop blaming external factors for labor’s total inept shitness.
Here is what Jack Strocchi wrote on Jan 21, 05 | 11:10 am, for the benefit of the cognitively challenged:
[The LN/P’s] inner cabinet - PM, Treasurer & FM - stands head and shoulders above their opposite numbers in the ALP. But it would not take much talent to look like a thoroughbred compared to that gaggle of nags.
Also, the State ALP’s government finances are being propped up by the property taxes on the housing bubble, which is Costellos worst policy failure.
The GST goes straight into the LN/P’s federal government coffers, which is how JWH financed the huge statist giveaways in his last couple of budgets.
Anyone else around here need assistance in comprehending reality, or is rosceo moron-in-chief?Jack
Sorry old son, but the GST revenue (minus a small collection fee) is paid to the States. It cannot therefore prop up the Government’s promises. The reason for this is the High Court decision in the Ha Case which meant that the States lost a huge revenue stream.
As for housing prices, that idiot Carr has ruined the market in NSW and at the same time lost heaps of revenue by introducing the stupid vendor duty. This latter is a wonderful example of how high rates of tax can actually lead to lower government revenue as well as screwing up the market.
the ALP will be routed in NSW in 2007, in Victoria Bracks is looking more and more dead in the water. In WA Gallop is soon for the high jump. So I wouldn’t crow too loudly if I were you.
Costellos worst policy failure.
see, costello leaving the property market well alone, that’s terrible, but so is “statism”. get your shit straight jack. do you want more government intervention or less?
btw jack you’re well behind in your tax literacy as per Toryhere2 above.
speaking of reading literacy, remember last time you came here and bitched about tim’s “economic racism” comment? yeah, you forgot to read the link you spastic - as if you can talk about reading literacy.
plus the “all state and territory govts are ALP” schtick doesn’t matter a shit because only nsw, qld, vic and wa matter a toss. (apologies to territory, sa and tas dwellers). alp is fucked in all of them save qld maybe.
Posted by benson swears a lot on 2005 01 21 at 06:47 PM • permalinkLOL!! economics and com-pre-hen-shun 101 with jack strokee. at least you tried jack and y’know, that’s the main thing.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 01 21 at 07:23 PM • permalinkJack, writing about yourself in the third person is kind of lame.
Posted by Andrea Harris on 2005 01 22 at 12:14 AM • permalinkGive credit to Brendan for having a go.
Wait until you turn up to your first branch meeting in a dusty old classroom with five other people.
For most ALP branch members, ALP membership is about having to do drudge work.
And I agree with Rafe, in Queensland at least the Liberal Party is a shambles.
Nic, when you work for a pollie you do work.
Worked briefly for a federal one (well, she was only in briefly), as well as for a local Councillor and in the Lord Mayor’s office and a few bits and pieces elsewhere.
Although it’s my understanding that some staffers spend a lot of time doing political stuff rather than the work they are supposed to be doing.
Posted by Major Anya on 2005 01 22 at 07:40 AM • permalinkAnd I agree with Rafe, in Queensland at least the Liberal Party is a shambles.
Actually, polls have showed it’s support has recovered a lot lately. It’s ahead of the Nationals in Queensland now.
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 01 22 at 09:14 AM • permalink“economics and com-pre-hen-shun 101 with jack strokee.”
The important thing is that he can sit back at his desk and smoke a cigarette and feel all butch for “shoving it down your throat”. There is no manlier rhetorical warrior than Jack Strocchi. Like a poodle humping the legs of giants he astounds all who behold him.
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Cavalier is absolutely right about how YL “teaches people how to hate other members of the Labor Party.”
It certainly doesn’t teach them to like human beings who aren’t in the party.
Indeed, it also doesn’t teach them that there is a life outside the party.
In Queensland at least, YL is fairly moribund as an organisation, but is active during student union elections and when executive positions are up for grabs.
Of course, at student union election time they can’t even manage to run together and invariably run factionally in groups given idiotic names like “Zest”, “Whitlam” and “We are a bunch of careerist boofheads who always go on about being ordinary students”.
Amusingly, the Labor Right team ran last year with a slogan that resembled Latham’s ladder of opportunity stuff.
This was just after Latho’s crushing election defeat, by the way.