Campaign Diary of a Faceless Man

Paul Howes has been branded one of Labor’s faceless men, the union boss accused of helping to remove Kevin Rudd and installing Julia Gillard. Howes’ diary of the 2010 election campaign is now in print as the book Confessions of a Faceless Man. This is an insider’s account of modern campaigning ALP-style. Strategy meets stuff ups in a  day-by-day chronicle of a five week federal election campaign and the days of uncertainty that followed it. On Thursday 11 November 2010, Paul Howes addressed The Sydney Institute and gave his reflections on the campaign process and the challenges facing the Labor Party in the wake of the 2010 federal election.

CHALLENGING LABOR’S ORTHODOX FUNDAMENTALISTS

PAUL HOWES

One of the many things that struck me during the recent federal election campaign, is that instead of developing Labor values, evolving Labor culture, meeting the new century with brilliant new Labor ideas, we’ve become reactive. Dare I say it, we’ve become fundamentalists who will not easily stray away from the Labor orthodox path.

We now need to promote a culture within the Labor Party that says it is a good thing to question Labor orthodoxy.

Too often nowadays we can be seen reacting to the ideas pushed forward by Tony Abbott and his ilk. Too often nowadays anyone who dares to question the Labor orthodoxy faces a thousand stone throwing apparatchiks – ready to bury you in the sand up to your neck. Those stone-throwers seem to be able to quickly, easily, accurately hit their targets – and silence the dissidents. I’ve decided I’m going to make it one of my missions over the coming years to ensure we get at least a couple of think tanks to match – and best – The Sydney Institute.

If we are going to do that then yes Labor’s faceless men – a tag which you will see in my book Confessions of a Faceless Man – will have to step back a bit and learn to tolerate dissent. We now need to promote a culture within the Labor Party that says it is a good thing to question Labor orthodoxy.

There are already a number of think-tanks, you could argue, are loosely associated with the progressive, social democrat, centre-left, or Labor side of politics. You’ve got Per Capita, the Centre for Policy Development, Catalyst, the Australia Institute, the Evatt Foundation, the Fabians

That’s a lot of shingles blowing in the wind. They all claim the progressive, social democrat, Labor-values think-tank label. But frankly none of them are as healthy, have as much gravitas, and community standing, as those on the conservative side of the political fence. For me it is hard to admit this – but it is simply a fact.

Former State Labor Minister Rod Cavalier has recently issued his own analysis of Labor’s problems. I must say I don’t agree with his conclusions – especially about the role of unions in the Labor Party. However, it is very good that he has written his book, and he is promoting ideas and debate. I don’t want to pretend that Confessions of a Faceless Man is an ideas book in the vein of Rod Cavalier’s. It plainly isn’t. It is a diary of the different highs and lows I felt throughout this last federal election campaign. And I take a few pot shots at Rod in my diary.

But that’s mainly because I do believe that in an election environment, especially as tight as the one we just faced, we need focus and discipline. I think Rod and a couple of other Labor elders forgot the importance of discipline in elections.

Throughout the federal election campaign … I felt that one of our big problems is that we’ve lost our ability to generate ideas.

The prime example of that was of course Mark Latham – but then maybe he has lost the right to be called a Labor elder because of his nutty behavior over the last few years. And more especially during the election campaign. That does not mean, outside of a heated election environment, Rod, and others, should not question the sacred cows.

We should get people talking about new ideas for the labour movement, and what exactly are Labor values in a twenty-first century context. Throughout the federal election campaign – as I observed the highs and lows – I felt that one of our big problems is that we’ve lost our ability to generate ideas. Ideas and values that touch people; and make them get excited about being Labor supporters.

Labor could do worse than learn from the experience of John Howard’s prime ministership.

This wasn’t a flash of revelation just because of this federal election campaign. But in the heat of an election battle – to be very truthful – it does become starkly obvious that Labor was not promoting a whole raft of new ideas to promote a social democratic Australia. Too often we were just reacting to Tony Abbott and his conservative mates.

As I note in my diary, Labor could do worse than learn from the experience of John Howard’s prime ministership. While I find just about everything that he stood for and did in office to be reprehensible, he understood power, the electorate and how to effect change.

No one can deny that, during his 11 years in office, John Howard radically changed the power structures in this country to ensure that his conservative agenda was adopted. He did it though incremental changes and by taking the electorate with him. He showed courage and the moral backbone to stand up for his beliefs.

That is the challenge for Australian Labor – effecting change to make our society more equal, prosperous and progressive, and bringing the electorate with us as we do so. The Sydney Institute can take some of the credit for the way John Howard effected change in this country.

Carr, like me, is despairing of what’s happened to the Labor Party over the last few decades.

It was the ideas that think tanks like yours generated – and over the years got the Australian public and the Liberal Party leadership to accept that ensured those Howard successes. Now, on the Labor side, our lack of ideas generation is a problem.

I’ve discussed this a number of times with one of my great mates in the Labor Party – Bob Carr. Carr, like me, is despairing of what’s happened to the Labor Party over the last few decades. As a youngster, Carr sat at the feet of great people with ideas. People who knew why they were in the Labor Party; what they were fighting for and ready to discuss those values and pass them onto the next generation.

The young Labor Right of Bob Carr’s time was set afire by one of my heroes – Laurie Short. Short was in the labour movement campaigning for clear values. He wanted to ensure that Stalinist thugs did not capture the union movement, and in turn get influence and control over the ALP. If you don’t believe me that there was a real threat from the Stalinists just take the time to read Mark Aarons’ fascinating history of his family in the Communist Party of Australia – The Family File.

Now if I have problems sometimes with Gerard on my right I also have problems with Mark Aarons on my left. I don’t agree with Aarons’ analysis of me in the August edition of The Monthly. Nor do I have much time for Mark Latham’s comments about my union and our views on Climate Change in the latest edition of The Monthly. But I found Mark Aarons’ history of the communists in Australia – through the lens of his family’s ASIO files – fascinating. It showed how correct the Labor Right was when they campaigned to protect our party from the influence of the Stalinists.

Bob Carr and I have chatted a number of times about our despair that the Young Labor Right has no sense of this extraordinary history – a history that informed our values for 50 years or more. The truth is that many people in my section of the Labor Party don’t actually know today why they are members of the Right. They don’t have a sense of our history, and really can’t stand up and argue for our values and ideas.

I am also sure there are people in the Labor Left honest enough to say the same goes for members of the Labor Left. It might be easier for me to say this as I’m yet to make 30. If Carr, who is twice my age, said it they might accuse him of being just a grumpy, fuddy-duddy old man, living in the past.

There is an increasing tendency now for political activists to just talk to themselves. Membership in political parties – Labor and Liberal – has taken a dive.

To be honest, both the Labor Left and the Labor Right have lost that ability to argue for our values. And generate new ideas to inform those values. That’s why I’ve discussed with Bob and a number of other Labor people about the need to send off our young people to re-education camps. (No not the Stalinist types)

I want us to teach them about our proud history and then tell them to run with that history – with some courage. I want Young Labor people to take those values out into the community, put forward new ideas based on our historic values – and listen to the responses.

There is an increasing tendency now for political activists to just talk to themselves. Membership in political parties – Labor and Liberal – has taken a dive. Those who still attend their local party branch meetings  – for both Labor and Liberal – are increasingly only retirees. Some of the Labor branches, regularly meeting in drafty old halls, are still debating the Split! Many political activists, union officials often don’t attend their own local suburban branch meeting.

I put my hand up. I admit it has been years since I walked into a meeting of my local ALP branch. I’m not interested in going over the meaning of the Split – again and again and again. Smaller and smaller numbers of people are talking to each other about political values and political ideas.

Not only do we have to educate our base about the history of our values – and how we evolve those values into new political ideas. But we also need to be ready to take those values and ideas out to a wider public, discuss them and carefully listen to the responses. The leadership of the ALP must adopt and promote a strategy of breaking out of the Labor corridors of power. And that doesn’t mean just using Twitter, Facebook or some such other social networking site. We’ve got to be ready to go out and have our ideas challenged.

Shutting people up turns our natural constituency away from us. It turns our base in suburban working Australia off politics.

Go out amongst the wider community. Take new ideas out. Discuss them freely. Have them challenged. Accepting this challenge will have an important role for the ALP. It will end the fear I sometimes sense inside the party. It will help develop a new intellectual courage amongst Labor people to stand up to the orthodoxy. Stand up to the Labor machine – oh and end the myth of the so-called Faceless Men controlling the party.

In turn my mates at Sussex Street have got to accept the right to openly and fearlessly debate ideas. Just because some of these new ideas don’t fit in with the current orthodoxy, the leadership shouldn’t sandbag Sussex Street against those who want to discuss these new ideas. I don’t want to shut people up. Shutting people up turns our natural constituency away from us. It turns our base in suburban working Australia off politics. It keeps  people who should be our eager supporters out of the very democratic process which would best improve their lives.

I don’t want Labor to end up in an inner suburbs political ghetto where we are just manning the barricades against The Green hordes. The majority of Australians are not in the inner cities. They are in the suburbs and the regional centres outside of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. It is in the suburbs and the regional centres where Australian Workers’ Union members and their families live. And I want to ensure my members, their families and their neighbours continue to see Labor as their natural home; because they continue to see Labor as the party which delivers a better life for them, their families and their neighbours.

I want new pro-Labor think tanks, and our wider community base, to compete in the market place of ideas to get people excited again about our agenda to improve the lives of my union’s members, their families and their neighbours.