At the end of next week a 'special symposium' will be hosted by Macquarie University to mark the three decades since the ALP-ACTU deal helped to elect the Hawke Government in 1983. The good and the great of the Accord era will be there (Hawke, Crean, Kelty etc) as will many enthusiasts from the academic community. The Accord was Australia's odd experiment in corporatism at the national level. Odd because the labour movement (or at least its leaders) seemed to embrace corporatism at the same time and, at least on the political side, with the same enthusiasm as it embraced... Continue reading

Anatomy of a modern campaign - Pollytics (Crikey) Essentially we’re just applying the best of the resources of the early 21st century, to early 20th century community organising. But what that actually requires under the bonnet is a level of political information and analytics that’s never really been needed by a campaign before, so that it can be transformed into the knowledge required to enable the people with the real skills – our union campaign folks and our organisers – to achieve magnitudes of order more than they ordinarily could do without it. (UK) Trade unions face difficult times, but... Continue reading

This evening Sydney University's embattled vice-chancellor sent out this email to students: Dear students, As you will know, the proposed visit of the Dalai Lama to the University in June has been the subject of sensationalist and misleading media reports. Throughout discussions regarding the potential visit of His Holiness, the University and I personally have been consistently committed to the principle that academics can invite to the University anyone whom they believe has a legitimate contribution to make to public debate. It is not within the power of a Vice-Chancellor, or anyone else, to withdraw an invitation issued by an... Continue reading

This is an excerpt from David Marr's recent Quarterly Essay on Tony Abbott, which was reproduced on Martin Whitely's website earlier this week after the WA ALP Branch pre-selected (yet another) extreme right wing SDAer, Joe Bullock, to help prevent the federal ALP caucus adopting a modern approach to issues like marriage equality: …In those summer days in early 1976 the course of his (Abbott’s) political life was set. In the heady atmosphere of that secret forum young Tony was recruited for Bob Santamaria’s Movement. The men who did the work Peter Samuel, the Bulletin’s cranky political correspondent; Warren Hogan,... Continue reading

Unions gang up to flick Senator - West Australian Senator Mark Bishop pulled out of last night's ALP preselection ballot that saw the most powerful left-wing and right-wing unions conspire against the resurgent blue- collar section of the party. It is understood Senator Bishop may not have received a single vote if he had contested because of a deal between his right-wing retail workers union - the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association - and the dominant left-wing union United Voice. Under the deal, SDA boss Joe Bullock, Senator Bishop's one-time friend and union ally, grabbed the top spot on... Continue reading

In 18th century, rotten boroughs (or electorates) were controlled by the country's great families, who used this distortion of the electoral system to control the country through the House of Commons as well as the Lords. William Pitt the Younger was 'elected' to Parliament from a rotten borough, but as prime minister he pursued a modest program of electoral reform which included abolishing 36 of these rotten boroughs. Recently, there have been press reports of ALP pre-selections in several states. In Queensland: Ms Newton will benefit from a factional deal that saw the Australian Workers' Union seize control of Labor... Continue reading

Views of my PhD thesis on Scribd (on why union affiliation has become a burden for unions and the ALP) have climbed 20% in the last couple of weeks, now at 1220. Community backs beseiged gay Labor senator - Star Observer In a joint letter signed by some 22 LGBTI rights advocates, the group said they were concerned amid reports Pratt was facing a challenge from Joe Bullock, head of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association (SDA) in Western Australia. Whatever happened to warts and all review of ALP? - Ben Westcott, Crikey Two years on from a comprehensive... Continue reading

Now in her 71st year, Bronwyn Bishop (MacKellar, NSW) has been in federal parliament since 1987, first as a Senator before moving to the lower house in 1994. Coming after Hewson lost the 'unloseable election', her move to the lower house was seen as a step towards the Liberal Party leadership and achieving her ambition to become Australia's first female prime minister. Many years ago, I was seated next to Ms Bishop at a dinner party at a private home in Sydney's eastern suburbs (don't ask). At one point, she told me in a pleased, slightly confidential tone that she... Continue reading

An article of faith for the post John Howard Liberal Party is that, like their heroine Margaret Thatcher and the US tea partiers, it doesn't believe in society (we're all individuals, and families), and so it hates anything that smacks of collectivism, universality, and everything else they see as mere euphemisms for socialism. Menzies' Liberals were, like the ALP, big on nation-building, so a few modest efforts at building social infrastructure were OK. When Menzies won in 1949, he essentially pushed on with Chifley's Keynesian, full employment policy framework with very little change. The sort of the economic policy agenda... Continue reading

A Gillard win on 14 September would be historic in terms of a come fro behind win in modern times, as Peter Brent noted this morning: You’ve got to compare trend with trend, average over a unit of time (say three months) with average over the same unit in the past. And across the polls, over sustained periods, the ALP is further behind in two-party-preferred voting intentions than any party has been since the mid-1980s and then gone on to win the next election. (I say “mid-1980s” because that’s when Newspoll began. This is the problem discussing polling precedents; we... Continue reading

Paddy Manning's article in Crikey yesterday that prompted his dismissal by Fairfax goes to the heart of the relationship between public relations and journalism now that the newspaper business model is being destroyed by the Internet. No doubt it makes a lot of sense to the management of the Australian Financial Review to run a series of 'soft' interviews with business leaders with sponsorship from the Commonwealth Bank. But it is advertising not journalism, because the point of the column seems to be about associating the Commonwealth Bank brand with 'business leadership' rather than holding business leaders to account or... Continue reading

(Thesis on unions-ALP relationship) Dirt flies in Gellibrand preselection - SMH Former attorney-general Nicola Roxon has lashed out at ''misogyny'' within Labor ranks, after the release of an anonymous dirt sheet attacking a candidate in the preselection battle for the safe seat of Gellibrand. Covered also in the Australian A SCANDAL sheet making defamatory claims about a candidate's sexual history and honesty while working for the Health Services Union has poisoned Labor's attempts to run an orderly preselection ballot for the federal seat of Gellibrand. Unions mount court challenge to donation laws - National Times The laws, introduced by the... Continue reading

A newly searchable database of US cables dating from 1966 to 2010, provided by Wikileaks, is enormous fun. Unsurprisingly, the US guys have been taking a lot of interest in the internal workings of the ALP (there are several well-informed and insightful expositions of the workings of the factional system and its relationships with affiliated unions) and the question of who might succeed Rudd as PM and when. Here are some interesting snippets I came across. Cable dated 23 December 2009 Powerbrokers confide the factions will assert themselves when Rudd's popularity wanes. One theory is that Rudd is developing a... Continue reading

Flora Hoolihan lived with my uncle Bert Cook (my father's eldest sibling) for about a decade after the second world war. Together they had a daughter, my cousin Janet. Flora's family history is one of the most remarkable you'll ever hear. It has already been covered in a book, a TV documentary and now there is a musical: MOUNT Isa's Megan Sarmardin has written a musical which tells the story of the women in her family, but focuses mainly on her 97-year-old great grandmother Flora Hoolihan, who lives at Garbutt. She says the 85-minute story she calls Little Birung is... Continue reading

The paucity of basic political skills among the Gillard Government's top leadership group continues to damage the ALP's chances of a respectable result in September. If Gillard hoped for clear air after the recent leadership fiasco, she will have been bitterly disappointed by this week's events. First, the sideshow. After, Gillard's rhetoric about "Australian jobs for Australians", and "putting Australians at the head of the job queue", ugly Hansonite rhetoric, we have seen daily revelations that 457 visas are widely used in the union movement and that the two remaining ALP state governments (SA and Tas) are among the largest... Continue reading

This article was published earlier today by The Conversation: The biggest retirement reform since the age pension, compulsory superannuation is one of the ALP’s greatest achievements. Before it was introduced, as part of the Hawke Government’s Accord with the union movement, superannuation was mostly a benefit enjoyed by well-paid, male, white-collar workers such as judges, politicians and public servants. The scheme is simple; it is essentially a compulsory savings scheme for an ageing population that is not good at saving, made more attractive by concessional tax treatment. Without compulsory superannuation, most of us would be facing a far tougher time... Continue reading

Good news - MyPhD thesis on unions & the ALP has passed 1080 views on Scribd Unions have lost plot on Tony Abbott, IR says Bill Shorten - Australian WORKPLACE Relations Minister Bill Shorten has clashed with Victorian unions over their demands for more policy concessions before the federal election, suggesting they were "living on another planet" if they went ahead with threats not to campaign strongly for the ALP. Senator at risk in union row - West Australian A deep rift among WA Labor's left-wing unions is threatening to end the parliamentary career of Senator Louise Pratt. In another... Continue reading

Dermot Ryan, the Irish chief of staff to TWU boss infamously here on a 457 visa, has contributed a comment piece in today's Irish Times which portrays the ALP in glowing terms and advocates it as a model for its Irish counterpart (Ryan is a member of both parties): But the big difference in Australian politics is that generally speaking, politicians (and voters) choose a side. Those on the centre left are members of the broad church known as the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and those on the centre right are members of the other broad church – the Liberal/National... Continue reading

Good news - MyPhD thesis on unions & the ALP has passed 1070 views on Scribd MacTiernan blasts ALP power plays - West Australian Outspoken former Labor minister Alannah MacTiernan has labelled the union power struggle over control of the ALP State executive an "insult to union members". She said it was typical of the "cronyism" identified in a review after Labor's 2008 State election loss. McGowan puts unions on notice - Australian WEST Australian opposition leader Mark McGowan is on a collision course with the powerful maritime and construction unions as they seek to wrest internal control of the... Continue reading

According to an advertisement in the Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser on the 23 December 1862 my 2nd great grandfather "Willaim Amos Esq", who arrived 30 years earlier as a convict from Bristol transported for larceny was the appointed starter for the Ulmarra Annual Regatta to be held on the 26 December 1862, entrance fees to be paid at the Ulmarra Hotel on Xmas Eve. William Amos had been a starter the previous year and, with G. Leeson,G. Phillips, and A. Blanch, a winner of the four oar event: Every, farmer owned a boat, and pulling was... Continue reading

Greater media regulation in Australia seems unlikely despite the continuing efforts of left-wing academics to promote a last-century approach. At the same time, the ALP itself seems to be having some great success in using social media to promote the sort of diversity the ALP's media reforms were meant to achieve. Laurie Oakes wrote on the weekend about an ALP graph on debt issued to counter a forthcoming Daily Telegraph story that went viral: The graph was put on the ALP's Facebook page and, to the surprise of almost everyone, it took off. In the first 2 1/2 days there... Continue reading

Good news - MyPhD thesis on unions & the ALP has passed 1000 views on Scribd Faceless men are driving Labor off a cliff and into oblivion - Troy Bramston, Australian Whitlam, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and Rudd often relied on factions and unions to advance their careers and manage the internal work of the party. But, unlike Gillard, they were never dependent on their support for survival. That is why the phrase "faceless men" has a contemporary resonance. MUA push to take over WA Labor - West Australian In the past 12 months, the number of MUA members who... Continue reading

How come the Gillard Government is so bad at communication and political management? Perhaps the Federal Government will come up with some very sensible reforms of the tax treatment of superannuation in May's national budget. In the meantime, a peculiar combination of prime ministerial 'hints' (long-term sustainability of super) and ministerial denials ('won't rule in or out') has been enough to have the media frothing about a 'forthcoming raid on Australian savings as the government seeks to fill its revenue black hole'. Sounds like the Cypriot option right? No doubt the recent events in that european nations will leach into... Continue reading

Unions urged to intervene as members abandon ALP (Qld) - Australian RANK-AND-FILE members are abandoning Queensland Labor in droves, further fuelling fears of an electoral wipeout of the Gillard government in the key battleground and damaging plans for a heavily manned grassroots campaign in the state. More than 30 union officials have already been seconded to help run Labor's campaign across Australia, with many being sent to Queensland as a third of the state ALP membership has abandoned the party in the past year. Roxon joins ALP seat brawl as Conroy 'goes nuclear' - Age The safe Labor seat in... Continue reading