Labor after the 2013 Election

They were the smart “new” Australian Labor Party. In the 2007 election, led by Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, they made the country look fresh and optimistic again. But under the sunny exterior lurked woes. In September 2013, Labor’s pains saw the Tony Abbott-led Liberal/National parties’ Coalition return to government in Canberra. Aaron Patrick, the Australian Financial Review’s Deputy News Editor is the author of Downfall: How the Labor Party Ripped Itself Apart. On Tuesday 29 October 2013, Aaron Patrick joined ABC journalist Chris Uhlmann to address The Sydney Institute on how and why the Labor Party under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard lost its way.

LABOR AFTER THE 2013 ELECTION

AARON PATRICK

Downfall, How the Labor Party Ripped Itself Apart, is an attempt to describe where the Labor Party went wrong. We all know the basic facts. At the end of 2007 the Labor Party held power federally and in each state and territory government. The most senior Liberal politician was Campbell Newman, the mayor of the Brisbane. At that point Labor could justifiably claim to be one of the most successful centre-left political parties in the world. It is easy to forget the incredible euphoria and optimism on the Left generated by Kevin Rudd’s defeat of John Howard’s government in 2007. I was in London in 2007 and remember overhearing at the Frontline Club someone describing to the New York Times bureau chief, John Burns, with awe about Maxine McKew’s victory in Bennelong.

Don’t be fooled the civil tone of the recent Labor leadership contest. Today, Labor is mostly in disgrace and retreat. The party is in opposition in NSW, Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. It is serious trouble in South Australia and Tasmania. It clings to power by one seat in the ACT. The defeat at the federal level of September 7 was so expected it is easy to overlook just how badly the government failed politically. It was the first two-term government since Whitlam. The first to remove its leaders twice since Billy McMahon replaced John Gorton in 1971. The party that created many of the core elements of the modern state, including universal health care, social security, labour protection, multiculturalism, superannuation, low tariffs and a floating currency, barely qualifies for party status in one of its birthplaces, Queensland.

So what went wrong?

Academics, politicians and journalists have offered up many explanations for Labor’s malaise. They include: society’s growing affluence and the decline of class identity; a lack of a clear philosophy and reform agenda; the rise of a professional political class, limited internal democracy, union influence in a de-unionising economy; the popularity of the Australian Greens and the environmental movement; the lack of charismatic leaders like Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and Gough Whitlam; the inability of governments to shield voters from global economic turmoil; unpopular policies.

There is probably truth in all of them. Here’s some of my own explanations: attacking whistleblowers and internal dissidents; trashing the reputations of external opponents; unethical behaviour by party leaders before they became politicians; allowing people who may be criminals to wield significant political power; corruption.

Some people may think I’m being too harsh. But consider this. In October 2009, reporters Tracy Ong and Angus Grigg published an article in The Australian Financial Review entitled “Labor Powerbroker Hits A Rich Seam”. They revealed that Eddie Obeid, the state Labor MP and former resources minister, had purchased a farm in the Bylong Valley that covered part of a valuable and newly issued coal lease. For a down payment of $1.02 million, the Obeids netted a profit of $13.35 million, they reported. Obeid told them he didn’t know about the coal licence in advance and just bought the farm because he loved the view.

There was one major problem with the article. The Obeids weren’t in line to make $13 million from the deal. The true figure, according to evidence tendered to the Independent Commission Against Corruption, was more likely $100 million, and possibly much more if it was converted into a coal mine.

ICAC this year determined that Eddie Obeid and his son Moses are corrupt. It will probably take years for the courts to uphold or strike out that finding. The reality is he was one of the most powerful half-dozen political figures in New South Wales for at least a decade. He was at the apex of power in the biggest state, owned substantial unexplained wealth, and was accused by a reputable newspaper of involvement in what appeared to be, at the very least, dubious behaviour. He literally helped select three premiers.

The question of Obeid and Macdonald’s possible corruption was a subject of public debate. After Obeid bought the coal-rich Cherrydale Park farm, a Greens MP in the state upper house, Lee Rhiannon, asked the Mining Minister, Ian Macdonald, in parliament if he had talked to Obeid about the possibility of a coalmine on the property. Macdonald, who was later found to be corrupt, didn’t answer the question.

Who inside Labor challenged Obeid and Macdonald’s rights to be MPs? Who in authority stood up and said: why do we allow these sleazy figures to represent this political party and the people of New South Wales?

Bob Carr didn’t. He defended Obeid in court against allegations he solicited a bribe for a property development. Carr portrayed Obeid as the victim of a smear campaign by the Sydney Morning Herald. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard didn’t. The secretaries and presidents of the NSW division of the ALP didn’t. There is no evidence that any of the national or state union leaders tried to remove Obeid, Macdonald or Craig Thomson from parliament. The national president of the party, a position with the platform, some might even say the responsibility, to protect the party’s interests, took no action against Obeid. That too may not be surprising. The person holding the position when Ong and Grigg’s article appeared, Michael Williamson, pleaded guilty two weeks ago to four counts of fraud and faces up to 30 years in jail.

So, what’s the solution? The Labor Party has got to democratise itself. Regular party members should no longer be treated as a free workforce useful for getting factional and union hacks elected each polling day. Thanks to Rudd’s election reforms, that is already starting to change.

The second change may be even tougher. The party leadership, at a state and federal level, and in the unions, have to embrace something a lot of people regard as antithetical to the political process: that’s ethics.

Some people say arguing for ethical behaviour in politics is naive. It’s a contest for resources, or over ideology, they say,

I say it’s a political necessity. Voters hate corruption. And they don’t like the other behaviour that has become common in politics too: special treatment for political allies and family members, lying, misrepresentation of opponents and the removal of democratically elected leaders because they have upset factional chiefs.

The big question for the Labor Party now is: what kind of man is Bill Shorten? Can he clean up the party?

Shorten was a pillar of the power structures that did little to stop – many would say tolerated – the unethical behaviour that has so badly damaged the party’s reputation. He was a pragmatic minister and a ruthless faction ruler.

During the Labor leadership contest. Shorten liked to quote Gough Whitlam. That was in part, I believe, because he wanted to avoid people making comparisons with the leader he had most closely styled himself on during his political rise, which is Bob Hawke. Much as Hawke remains a popular figure in the Labor Party, his blokish personal style is a bit out of date with modern sensibilities, in my view.

Having known him as a young man and closely studied him for my book, the leader I think Shorten most closely resembles is Kevin Rudd.

To me, both men epitomise the contradictions of the modern Labor Party. They are skilled at wielding the rhetoric of the labour struggle to bolster their political positions in public. In private they enjoy, or seek, the lifestyles of the very wealthy. Both men are strong media performers and adept at manipulating the media. In private both have narcistic tendencies. Both men have reached high office and claimed credit for substantial policy achievements, yet behind the scenes they are disorganised, often irresponsibly so.

When Bill Shorten was national secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union, he would disappear for substantial periods of time. His office would not know where he was.

His management style was so unreliable that his secretarial staff used to joke that they should get t-shirts which words ‘I survived Bill Shorten’ on them.

During my research for Downfall a prime ministerial adviser told me that Shorten had developed a reputation for cancelling public engagements at the last minute. This is not a good sign. As a cabinet minister reliability is important. For someone who aspires to be prime minister it is essential.

I spoke to a senior adviser in a Labor government who once met Bill at a public event. Even though they didn’t know each other, Bill said he would like to meet the person for a personal chat at a later date. It was perfectly regular opportunity for networking. When they finally agreed on a date and time, the person, who was from Sydney, waited 45 minutes at the AWU’s Melbourne office waiting for Bill to turn up. Eventually the person left and never heard from Bill again.

That said, Shorten has two important characteristics that have propelled him to the top of Labor politics: a compelling personality and strong grasp of strategy. If Shorten can learn to project his personal charm through television then he may be able to become a genuinely popular politician in the same vein as Bob Hawke, Tony Blair or even John Howard.

Throughout his career, starting in Young Labor, Shorten has shown an uncanny ability to position himself in winning positions. After a brief and unremarkable stint as a workers compensation lawyer he joined the Victorian division of the AWU. The union was demoralised and in disarray from a corruption scandal. By 31 he was the state secretary and membership was on the rise. He became national secretary, the spokesman for the Beaconsfield miners, and in many ways the face of the modern face of the union movement.

In the party, he dumped Young Labor allies like Martin Pakula and aligned himself with skilled operators like Stephen Conroy and David Feeney. They split the Left, giving them control of the state division and Shorten a safe federal seat. The Victorian Right has now surpassed even the NSW right in terms of federal caucus representation, a seismic shift in party’s internal power balance.

When Shorten got to Canberra, Rudd blocked his path to power. Shorten led the putsch against him and in return was promoted to the ministry and cabinet. When Labor MPs finally, out of sheer political exhaustion, made the Faustian pact to return to Rudd, Shorten split with the AWU, which backed Gillard, and helped Rudd get elected. He got another promotion.

The pattern that emerges from Shorten’s career is of a man prepared to do almost anything, including abandoning close allies and sacrificing personal friendships, to obtain power. To me, the interesting message from the Labor leadership ballot is that both regular party members and Labor MPs understand this about Shorten. The fact that 60 per cent of party members voted against him show they want more of an idealist as leader. The fact that 63 per cent of Labor MPs voted for him shows they want a leader who can, at the very least, position the party to return to power.

Shorten will need every ounce of that ruthlessness to defeat Tony Abbott, who has 13 more years of parliamentary experience than him and has already taken down two Labor leaders, one of them twice. Presumably, Shorten’s internal rivals, including Tony Burke, Chris Bowen and Jason Clare, are waiting for Shorten to claw back the lost ground before they consider staking their own claims to the leadership.

While completely understandable, caucus’ pragmatism carries a cost. Rudd was returned as prime minister after spending three years undermining Gillard. Shorten was made leader even though he was the driving force behind Rudd’s removal in the first place, which turned out to be one of the biggest political miscalculations in modern Australian politics. A system of perverse incentives is operating in the Labor Party. Damaging behaviour – bastardry in the words of Nicola Roxon – is rewarded. Loyalty to oneself has been placed above loyalty to the cause.

There is a lot at stake, not just for the Labor Party but for Australia. A strong and vibrant Labor Party is good for the nation. Effective Labor oppositions keep Coalition governments honest. Good Labor governments are brave, progressive and honest.

When Labor leads by example it lifts the quality of political debate, the conduct of government and contributes to a better society. Labor’s problems matter for all Australians. That’s why the party needs to be fixed.