The ALP national executive’s decision yesterday to include Macquarie in its regime of central preselection impositions has sparked a wave of dissent from warring factions, with left dissidents likening the state party to communist Russia and NSW general secretary Matt Thistlethwaite to Stalin.
Crikey has stumbled across an extraordinary missive that was doing the email rounds in the lead-up to last Saturday’s state conference, which famously resulted in a purge of Joe Tripodi and Ian Macdonald and a win for left-aligned assistant secretary Luke Foley.
The rant, which had party temperatures at boiling point, contains many amusing paragraphs detailing the state’s slippery slide into apparent despotism:
The cult of the individual embodied in the slogan “All power to the general secretary” is applicable to both the Soviet Union of the 1920s and today’s NSW ALP … the machinery committees are best understood as being akin to the Show Trials of Stalin’s purges of the 1930s. The outcome of the considerations of these bodies is decided in advance, with the wishes of the general secretary communicated to loyal henchmen and henchwomen who duly execute their instructions.
Historical comparisons with the Eastern Bloc are bountiful:
As it groped around for some credibility, the 1950 Congress of the Peoples Republic of Bulgaria could not have invoked Marx and Lenin more than a NSW ALP conference calls on Curtin and Chifley…with the vacuous praise of old heroes comes a doleful companion: the rehabilitation of old enemies. At the 1961 Party Congress Khrushchev posthumously rehabilitated the murdered Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky — the Red Bonaparte. This was an historic event of sadness and grief. At the 1971 Party Conference Keating rehabilitated the former Premier Jack Lang — the Auburn Plute. This was the settlement of a suburban Sydney squabble.
… the impression is that the ALP is like Albania under Hoxha — technologically backward and bureaucratically repressed.
The document also containes a helpful table on trade union membership in NSW, and the requisite delegate breakdown on state conference floor. The Shop Assistants Union, that benefit from big department store sign-ups as a semi-official condition of employment, remain dominant.
Table 1: Composition of the 2009 NSW ALP Annual Conference
| Union Delegates (Must be 48% of the Total Delegates) | ||
| Union | Membership | Delegates |
| Marine Engineers | 620 | 1 |
| Meatworkers | 6856 | 7 |
| Metalworkers | 24,141 | 27 |
| Services Union | 9,849 | 11 |
| Australian Workers Union | 25,893 | 28 |
| Communications | 11,967 | 14 |
| Construction, Mining | 24,117 | 25 |
| Commonwealth Public Sector | 11,970 | 12 |
| Electricians | 18,000 | 20 |
| Financial | 13,219 | 15 |
| Health Services | 34,215 | 38 |
| Miscellaneous | 25,109 | 30 |
| Media | 4,203 | 5 |
| Maritime | 3,429 | 4 |
| National Union of Workers | 17,150 | 18 |
| Rail, Tram & Bus | 14,822 | 17 |
| Shop Assistants | 65,664 | 73 |
| Textile, Clothing, Footwear | 3,261 | 4 |
| Transport Workers | 36,448 | 42 |
| Municipal Workers | 33,274 | 37 |
| Union Total | 384,207 | 428 Delegates |
| Other | ||
| State Parliament | 16 | |
| Federal Parliament | 16 | |
| Young Labor | 16 | |
| Federal Electorate Councils | 49 x 3 delegates each | 147 |
| State Electorate Councils | 93 x 2 delegates each | 186 |
| Policy Committees | 15 committees x 3 office holders | 45 |
| Administrative Committee | 34 | |
| Total | 888 Delegates | |
The rancour adds to the turmoil inside the NSW branch following last weekend’s extraordinary PM-auspiced power grab. Following the secret Left-authored deal to oust Joe Tripodi and Ian Macdonald, sections of the Right were so livid, according to insiders, that payback was sought to intervene in Macquarie, against the wishes of local branches, the momentarily triumphant Luke Foley and the departing Bob Debus.
Left branches are rebelling forcefully this morning over the imposition of Searle, with many apparently unaware of his solid exploits as Blue Mountains mayor. Crikey has continued to receive futile calls for a local vote this morning to revive the hopes of their candidate, spin doctor Sue Templeman.
On Templeman loyalist said they were unimpressed Searle had pursued his campaign through the media: “He has gotten into this position by smooth-talking journos and right-wing backers into thinking he is the one, with more than a little help from constant meddler (NUW official) Mark Ptolemy.”
As controversy swirls over Searle, Left-aligned national executive observers have described the publication in Tuesday’s Crikey of a triumphant salvo revelling in the Left’s victory last weekend as “not helpful”.
See, this is why I left the Labor Party – unions getting 428 delegates and and state and federal electorate councils getting 333. So all the loyal branch members who actually do the work at election time and in between get swamped by war lords. F*ck that for a joke.
There should be a strict audit of union membership numbers as a condition of sending delegates to the conference.
For example: Despite the huff and puff, the CFMEU does not have 24,117 members in NSW. It has about 8,000.
That is a guess of course, it may be less (or more). If I am wrong I would stand corrected, of course, by an independent audit.
This “fantasy unionism” which fuels the “power brokers” is going to be the long term undoing of NSW Labor. The audience is simply not listening to the “workers spokesmen”.
The strangle hold of this 1970s throw back – the union movement – is making the party less relevant each year.
After the train wreck of March 2011, they will have to re-build. They will not do that if the decisions are being made by unrepresentative remnants.
What I haven’t read anywhere on crikey or big press is the role of the GFC in sidelining Joe Tripodi, 1st class economics honours graduate.
Container ship gigantism was behind expansion of Botany Bay against recommendations of planning commissioner Kevin Cleland in 2005. Ports Minister Tripodi could get away with that pre GFC bubble burst but not after. The expansion drove (!) the $5 Billion truck tunnel under Marrickville scheme – to carry shipping containers to western Sydney. Under Tebbutt/Albanese’s seat, Right against Left ruthlessly.
But it all stalled after the GFC – container ships were carrying at a loss, stacked on Chinese wharves. It was always a croc anyway and Cleland’s report is the smoking gun rebuttal of Keneally re where are the decisions that are not on the merits. Cleland was highly respected. The Botany Big Bang was going to imact 40 suburbs or more. It was and is an outrage.
The Herald and Telegraph went along for the ride in their growth fetishism.
Post GFC Tripodi had no economic financial political traction for his grand scheme to deliver Fairfield style air pollution (which is indeed bad) to the inner west. Two wrongs don’t make a right Joe.
That $5B truck tunnel has been gazumped by a different boondoggle – the $5 inner west tube train. Oh please – I drove delivery in the inner west for 5 years. They don’t need a tube train at hyper expense. It’s pandering to the construction corps and union interests. It’s not planning just like Port Botany.
The arrogance of this NSW ALP Government must be broken.