The Lessons From John Faulkner

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday July 2, 2005

Labor in a factional rut

Labor stalwarts have readily dismissed Mark Latham's latest attack on the party as the embittered ravings of a loser incapable of shouldering blame. The former leader's criticisms - of Kim Beazley as a conservative, stand-for-nothing type of leader; of the ALP as beyond repair; and of half the Labor premiers as "A-grade arseholes" - might have amounted to more if Mr Latham had departed Labor's federal leadership with a hint of equanimity. Erstwhile colleagues might now have been willing to acknowledge that the Latham disaster resulted from more thanMr Latham's considerable shortcomings and that his surly departure had not remedied Labor's flaws.

It became too easy to dismiss his rebukes as predictable blather, to overlook the broader symptoms of Labor's cancers. That's why John Faulkner's launch of the Latham biography Loner: Inside a Labor Tragedy offered an opportunity for more considered reflection. While chastisingMr Latham for failing the "expectations of discretion", Senator Faulkner, a former Labor Senate leader and a Latham adviser during last year's election campaign, insisted problems were deeper than the Latham leadership. Indeed, he excused Mr Latham's occasional poor behaviour as the consequence of being raised in the sometimes toxic culture of the NSW Labor Right. "When maintaining factional power is put ahead of civility, decency, honesty, humanity or even legality, then bullying and thuggery become lazy substitutes for debate," said Senator Faulkner. It is true that he, too, is an old factional warrior and his observations are through the prism of Labor's Left. But the party's broader interests will not be served by dismissing his comments as partisanship.

Too often, the all-important numbers are mustered not by the appeal of ideas or by the espousal of shared commitment to justice or equity or other values, but by venality. Too readily, the greater good is sacrificed to self-interest. Simon Crean's efforts to diminish trade union clout within the ALP contributed to his ruin. Bob McMullan is off the front bench because he is non-factional, and Craig Emerson remains on the outer for annoying some factional troglodyte in his home state of Queensland. Labor is not alone in this blemish, but it has a reputation for ruthless suppression of those who point out the faults of factionalism.

And, yet, Labor is less rigidly factionalised than it was,say, 20 years ago, when it reigned over federal politics. Then, its ranks were more diverse and overwhelmingly more talented. Today, when talented individuals are less inclined to join political causes, factionalism impedes their elevation. It discourages the well-grounded and clever from volunteering their services, and helps the less talented time-servers and sycophants to smother others' ambitions. While that persists, Labor will remain bogged.