Well, “student politics” Socialist Left consigliere Gavin Jennings called manoeuvres at the Victorian State Labor conference, held at Moonee Valley racecourse (“student politics” being the standard term, for “we lost that one”). Motions on a live export ban, changing the Australia Day date, and ending offshore processing were all deferred to the sycophants’ graveyard of the administrative committee.

The gag motion was a product of a CFMEU-AWU alliance, a first outing for the “Industrial Left – Centre Unity” faction, working together smooth as butter knife on toast. CFMEU supremo John Setka, whose photo appearance after his court victory last week showed him, bottle of Jagermeister in hand (talk about student politics; we bet his office is decorated with a shelf of empties and a souvenir traffic cone) said the gag motion was a win for “democracy”. Yeah, yeah.

It’s a small tactical victory for the bizarre coalition between the Jane Garrett left — the CFMEU and the RTBU — and the butter knife right (the AWU and Adem Somyurek’s Mod Squad of SDA defectors, and a few others), but it’s about all they’ll get. The Garrett-butter knife coalition is stalled at around 32-33%, maybe a little more, well short of what they need to hold off an eventual challenge.

[Red Brotherhood at War! Inside Labor’s impending factional collapse] 

The clock is now ticking on that, with the timetabling of five byelections, and Tony “the Elbow” Albanese pushing his way ahead as preferred leader. The Elbow has been trying to get through for more than a year — beginning with a very interesting meeting in Hobart, of which more anon — and he now has the remainder of the Conroy-ites on side. They’re a somewhat diminished force in Victoria — Philip Dalidakis now constitutes half their gross body weight — but still enough to swing it eventually.

The only reason the Elbow hasn’t triumphed already is the 75% rule Kevin Rudd had put in place to limit the power of union factional warlords like Bill Shorten. Funny old world — unless your weekend was spent at a Melbourne racecourse with soggy sausage rolls, dropping Jagerbombs with Setka and trying to get the Wangaratta branch of the Amalgamated Frittlers to switch from the Jennings left to the Episcopalian Right or something. There are horses who’ve had a better weekend at Moonee Valley, even as the screens were being put up around them. The forward march of labour rolls on.