Despite laughable attempts by the Sydney metropolitan media to turn Premier Morris Iemma into a latterday Metternich, Talleyrand or Bismarck, the reality is that he has been humiliated by the state Labor conference at the weekend and is now in political isolation.
Tomorrow morning, hours before the resumption of the NSW parliament, he will face a caucus meeting which has been freshly mandated to support the party’s policy of outright opposition to the privatization of the power industry.
The caucus, however, is split down the middle. It comprises a wondrous collection of nervous Nellies and tired Tims.
They are torn between supporting Iemma and his Treasurer Michael Costa or supporting the party which has given them almost everything they treasure – a well-paid job, perks of office and social status.
The weekend conference voted not once, but TWICE, to show its explicit rejection of the privatization of the publicly-owned energy industry. According to the ALP’s rules, that gives all members, premiers, ministers, MPs and ex-premiers (Barrie Unsworth and Bob Carr included), the clearest riding instructions: they must have no truck with private ownership of power.]It is not an optional issue. Membership of the ALP is voluntary but it carries the basic requirement that all members are bound by current party policy.
Members who break ranks and oppose the platform are in violation of the party’s rules and risk being reprimanded, suspended or expelled.
Yet this is the course that Iemma, Costa and a small minority of party members have chosen. Their status has been conflated by editorial writers from the Tory media, the big end of town and a cheer squad of corporate lobbyists, including Bob Carr who is now a valet at Macquarie Bank.
Rather than force a caucus showdown tomorrow, factional leaders may try to postpone any vote pending the outcome of the deliberations of the party’s campaign committee which has been called into service to provide an escape route for the premier.
The obscure but highly influential campaign committee will start meetings today to thrash out a way forward for Iemma, his government, the Labor Party and the trade unions.
It has a strict deadline of less than a week to overcome the impasse and report back to the ruling administrative committee as a matter of urgency.
Its members are the four parliamentary leaders, Iemma, his deputy John Watkins, upper house government leader John Della Bosca, and his deputy Michael Costa; party general secretary Karl Bitar, and his two assistant secretaries Rob Allen and Luke Foley; and state president Bernie Riordan and two vice presidents Michael Williamson (health employees’ union) and Andrew Ferguson (construction workers’ union).
As ALP members, all of them are bound by the weekend conference decision to oppose the sell-off. In other words, the committee’s deliberations are strictly circumscribed: they can consider any policy outcome provided that it does not include the private sell-off of power industry components.
The compelling virtues of the campaign committee are that it is small enough – 10 members – to be manageable and that it has representatives from both sides of the political equation – Macquarie Street (the parliamentary Labor Party) and Sussex Street (the party machine and the HQ of Unions NSW).
Now that the conference rhetoric has receded, the only hope for Iemma’s survival is that the centre position occupied by Della Bosca, Watkins and Bitar prevails. This would see some kind of public-private partnership in charge of the industry along with guarantees on jobs and future pricing.
However, this form of compromise is totally unacceptable to treasurer Costa who stunned conference delegates and the media with his extraordinary rant from the platform and his colorful abuse of opponents during behind-the-stage meetings: “You blokes can get f-cked. You’re going to look like dickheads on Monday morning.”
Is Iemma so desperate for a lifeline that he is prepared to ditch privatization which would lead almost inevitably to the exit of his treasurer?
Or is he taking his lead from the likes of Roads Minister Eric Roozendaal, Ports Minister Jeo Tripodi, Unsworth, Carr, factional fixer Eddie Obeid and howling right-wingers like Kristina Keneally, MP for Heffron, Michael Daley, MP for Maroubra and upper house MP Amanda Fazio?
Finally, the editorial writers who fill columns giving stern lectures on democracy (in China, Burma, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, Zimbabwe, Lebanon etc) have a very different line on the NSW ALP conference.
Apparently, the party’s seven-to-one vote against privatization – followed by an almost unanimous second vote on Sunday afternoon – are signs of vile “union power” and “dictatorship”. They urge their hero Iemma to show “courage” and “conviction” and soldier on regardless.
This completely ignores the fact that the vote was carried overwhelmingly by rank and file delegates from party branches as well as those from the unions. Iemma’s pathetic 107 votes came from party hacks on policy committees, right-wing MPs and smalltime functionaries.
How odd that only recently the same newspapers were denouncing the Iemma government as the worst in the state’s history and calling for it to resign to put NSW out of its misery.
Im starting to wonder what the State Government is actually there for. The M7 the M2 the M5, all built with supposed ‘private’ money. I thought thats what State Governments are supposed to do with the money they get, provide infrastructure.
And here is the State Government paying a company millions, so it can delay road narrowing works until after an election. And the sad thing is that it was public knowledge, and yet, they still got voted in. Creating extra roads on our choked highways, then narrowing others to funnel people into paying. All this privatisation, with the added administrative costs of a CEO checking the share values (every minute on the web), to calculate his impensing fat bonus. Not to mention other positions, with fat slaries attached, for their rugby private school mates. And now, we come to trying to privatise power. The state NEEDS the money. What else have we to sell when these corrupt pigs urinate the proceeds against the wall. Hitler, where are you?????
Yes, Alex, quite extraordinary the hypocrisy of all the media, ABC and SMH included, not only dismissing the rare and open democratic process of the ALP conference (which is perhaps more a result of good luck with timing (conference was due) than anything else), they absolutely refuse to mention the word mandate, or should I say the lack of it coming out of last March’s election. Paul Gibson was good on this in the conference debate. Rudd was smart enough to keep out of it on Sunday, but certain realities are hitting home with Kevin07 types finding out he wants privatisation to happen. And what about Patricia Forsythe from the Chamber of Commerce claiming she represents the majority of the people of NSW! What allies big money brings together! The class dimensions of this – and hence the particularly violent tension inside the ALP – have received almost no comment, other than the derision that the democratic union (& branches) position shows Labor hasn’t “modernised”
The most accurate description I heard of the Costa- Iemma proposal is “cash grab” including big business barrackers. You can almost see the latter salivating on radio over the profit centres (generators, retailers) and side stepping the cost centres (wires and poles). Surely it must give pause to the ALP in toto that all the pro Howard Work Choices crowd are backing Iemma on this one? Kennett, Hewson, Big Business. As for John Brown on sydney abc 702 ex ALP federal minister, a story on stateline where he allegedly steered a disabled taxis business entrepeneur into the arms of Macquarie Bank came to mind. Carr singing for Mac Bank too. Keating will be weaving his sophistry in the Herald tomorrow. As was said back in 1997 this is spiv Labor (Tripodi/Roozendaal are right in there) versus traditional Labor. Well it seems to me when toil and trouble of dangerous climate change moves in on society it’s traditional Labor that I will be trusting and respecting, not the other one.
I was at Conference (as a State Electorate Council delegate), and Alex Mitchell has got it just about right.
Reba Meagher, for all her faults, gave a resonant backs-to-the-wall speech and does not lack for guts. She retained respect for the manner of her speech alone, though comparisons with Maggie Thatcher are probably not exactly what she had in mind at the time.
Della Bosca and Watkins retained their credibility – Della’s speech was actually his audition as Premier in Waiting. Kristian Keneally was puerile, addressing her speech at the level of 12 year olds.
Michael Costa, on the evidence of his Saturday rant, is now certifiably insane. He is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Morris – your mentor told you “whatever it takes” – and what it takes here is to get rid of Costa. There will be no solution with him around.
So Alex – tell Crikey readers about Eric Roozendaal and the duck!
Could not agree more with Alex re the shallow analysis by the commentariat. I saw this displayed on the ABC Insiders programme on Sunday. It was all about Iemma and his governmemt v union power. Where were questions such as, who would invest in coal fired power stations, unless like Andrew Bolt you believe global warming stopped in 1998? Where is the Liberal opposition in this fray? Having been burnt once on this issue, might their reticence have something to do with public opinion? Why is that every time Governments are strapped for cash, public assets go under the hammer? What is wrong with governments going into debt to invest in infrastructure? What future public participation in the political process if political parties are going to ignore the wishes of their rank and file? Since the Qld Govt sold off the retail arms of Energex and Ergon, prices are up so are complaints to the energy ombudsman. Energy company reps now cruise the suburbs. Have they got a deal for you?