Factional analysis of ACT Labor

So, from all the comments it looks like in the ACT it is this way:

1 MLA = A Rouge element
2 Rouge Elements = 1 Faction
1 Rouge Elements + 1 Faction = Party
3 Factions = government

When housebound says the Libs will never, ever get government in this town again (because this stupid safe labor town will keep voting Labor) he or she is probably right and would explain why the Libs can’t attract good candidates.

The current Liberals are, it is true – and it’s obvious to Blind Freddy that they’re not resonating in the electorate. They’re down to their rusted-on supporters and that’s about it.

In short I believe it is the Liberals’ choice whether to remain irrelevant, or to get real and become electable. In doing so they may just become Green-supportable, too.

This still comes back to abortion bad/good stances (and other similar issues).

It’s true, but it means the ACT government is determined by who supports abortion etc rights. Surely buses, schools, even data centres involve more than that? And don’t the libs have a conscience vote on that?

There isn’t enough political talent in this town to support 3 major parties, let alone factions within those parties. The more divisions you have, the more likely it is that people are given power because of patronage rather than talent -and the more likely decisions are made on tactical grounds rather than merit.

Someone (housebound?) said that the Westminster system does not suit small cities like Canberra. (I know we’re not strictly ‘Westminster’ but we have a version of it).

Looking at the ‘talent’ available to Labor and the Libs (don’t know the Greens yet), I think they may be right.

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This is Canberra, not Tassie.

Agreed, but that doesn’t actually constitute evidence supporting your case.

I would suggest that Canberra is far more likely to be able to throw up the kind of socially-progressive Liberals who might well be able to work with the Greens, than is Tassie. This would represent something of a turnaround for the current Liberals, but I’m sure there’s got to be a fair constituency of socially progressive yet economically dry voters out there in this city.

Nomnomnom @23
point taken re cossey that was a close kept secrete but the campaign was not well run, the emphasise on successes was very low key compared with the level of Lib expertise experience etc, however the Lib voters did dump the majority of their dead wood whereas labor did not.
Now re the portfolio distribution the right dumped on again John Nohope must go

If the Greens will _never_ support the Libs, that means:
1. Shane Rattenbury was (at the least) misleading during the election (like anyone believed him)
2. a vote for Greens IS a vote for Labor
3. the Libs will never, ever get government in this town again (because this stupid safe labor town will keep voting Labor)
4. Labor can do what it likes, because it will never lose power unless the Greens decide to take the responsibility of forming government (as if)
5. Maybe the Libs should consider giving up

For the record: my personal political view is that the major parties need to get turfed out every couple of terms. They all perform reasonably well in their first terms, variable in the second (some are good, some bad – Sonic was the latter in this case). Third terms can be vary bad. The US system of enforcing change after two terms has some merit and we should consider it.

To cross with another thread: Wollongong is smarter than us because they realised that voting Labor forever = no spending. So they voted independent. (To avoid political bias, insert Wagge and Libs, but like us, they’re also too dumb to swap.)

Seriously, if the Liberals found a few candidates as keen on “small government” in social policy as they are on it in economic ones, then they might well be able to find some common ground with the Greens.

You don’t need to write “Period”, there’s a key just for that: .

It’s happened before, Thumper – in Tasmania, when Labor got so jack of the Greens that they refused to go into minority government relying on Greens support. And there’s weirder things under the political sun – like the National Party minister in the current South Australian government.

amarooresident – pretty good summary, except that the left has significantly more members than both rights combined, and, like you say a better record on solidarity. The reason things go well is just the conduct of the factions, the numbers are run in order to get the best candidates from each faction up, motions at conference are often debated and amended before so that they are acceptable to all parties.

Basically the factions behave like grown ups, and you can see that now with the way that Barr is behaving, in the interests of his party, not himself.

Bilko – Cossey was always going to resign after the election and you could hardly call the campaign a failure. The ALP started a long way behind in the polls and ended up ensuring that all of the swing against it went to a friendly party and not the libs. They retained government and have secured a mandate for progressive government. Hardly sounds like a failure.

How would they go about dumping the present CM, anyway? It’s not like the Prime Ministership where it’s all conducted behind closed caucus doors – to force him out they’d have to move a no confidence motion on the floor of the Assembly, in their own Chief Minister. Can’t see that happening, myself. They could try to convince him to resign, but Jon’s not one to fold a hand once he’s pot-committed.

Tetranitrate said :

The Right has the numbers, why on earth can’t they just do us all a favor and get rid of Sonic?
Does anyone seriously think it’s plausible that the Greens would suddenly run across to support the liberals because of the prospect as Andrew Barr as chief minister?

Probably because the ALP went to the election with Sonic as leader and dumping him directly after the election wouldn’t be the best look. After all, he was the highest vote winner in the ALP and did “win” the election.

Give it 18 months or two years.

The Right has the numbers, why on earth can’t they just do us all a favor and get rid of Sonic?
Does anyone seriously think it’s plausible that the Greens would suddenly run across to support the liberals because of the prospect as Andrew Barr as chief minister?

The left faction have dominated ACT labor for more than 20 yrs in branch council and at conference, here was a chance for the 4 right wing members to elect a new leader amoungst the current MLA members and they wimped out.
Cossey and Stanhope ran a Howard rodent style fear campaign and failed. Cossey has gone Stanhope should have been dumped as well.
The left wingnuts praise a 20 yr plus happy partnership but deride a similar marriage lifestyle as it smears those who chose other style relationships. hypocritical to say the least,finally re post15 there are three factions, left, centre semi independant mix and the right currently split into two possibly half rights the sooner they rejoin the better for all concerned.

BeyondThought said :

Factionally I guess its Zed = 3, Smythe = 1, Despo = 1 and Soldier Boy = 1 and if I was Zed I would’nt count on Coe.

Smythe’s ‘numbers’ are irrelevant because he’s the only non-right winger. He is not a faction.

Tosspot and Soldier boy are really the only at all legitimate ‘rivals’.

A couple of things
Burch not Birch

I forgot to say Mary Porter is a member of CC.

Moore also forgets to mention the part that the party organisation plays in terms of the Assembly caucus. I would hazard a guess that the unions, including the right wing ones would be more comfortable with Gallagher as the nesxt Chief Minister rather than Barr or Hargreaves.

poptop said :

Nomnomnom – I don’t have a clue how ALP factional politics works in the ACT Branch.

Can you explain it to me?

I’ll have a go. The ACT Branch of the ALP is roughly dived into three groupings, the left, the “independents” and the right. Numbers are resonably even across the three groups if you take annual conference as the measure.

BUT it is not as simple as that. The right for example is actually two seperate factional groups – Centre Coalition and Labour Unity, which split off from Centre Coalition a few years ago. Labour Unity could largely be described as the industrial right as it is where the right wing unions caucus. While both groups would support the same things 90 per cent of the time, there are idealogical differences (particularly when it comes to industrial relations and some social issues)as well as the usual personality issues. Barr Hargreaves and Birch (I think) are Centre Coalition members.

The independents, who like to think of themselves as non factionalised, in practice tend to vote as a group and sometimes play a deal making role as their numbers can be the make or break on any issue.

The left faction have always had various sub groups operating however when it comes down to it they always vote as a bloc as they have a very strong sense of discipline within the caucus. They have in the past made life very difficult for left faction members who have gone against the left faction line.

Part of the reason the ACT ALP has been so succesful is precisely because the numbers are relatively even across the party and most of the senior people have recognised that the factional warfare that went on in the long and colourful history of the ACT Branch was destructive in the extreme.

Nomnomnom – I don’t have a clue how ALP factional politics works in the ACT Branch.

Can you explain it to me?

It seems a pretty lame assessment of ALP factionalism in the ACT.

Written by someone who thinks they know how it works, rather than someone who has any idea what is actually going on at the moment.

Stanhope might have been the one doing the negociating, but it didn’t happen in a vacuume.

HOUSEBOUND. No, it would just make it harder.
IMHOTEP. The “evidence” that you seek is in the donation disclosure statements:
http://www.elections.act.gov.au/pdfs/returnselect_04/thirdparties/actrighttolifeassoc.pdf
Hansard makes for boring if informative reading.

BeyondThought said :

“the libs are now full of religious anti abortion, anti-fun facists. Zed, catholic. Dunne, catholic. Coe and Symthe active protestants.”

Any evidence of this BT? I’m a catholic, and you sound more fascist than me.

And what is an ACTIVE protestant? Do they believe in beheading unwanted wives as well?

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Are you suggesting that Greens choose the governance of the ACT is determined by whether or not someone supports abortion, attends church, etc.

Am I the only one in town who thinks there is more than that to governing?

Of course the Greens wouldn’t go into coalition with Zed in Bed, as ministers they may actually have to be responsible for their actions. Take life easy and throw mud from the sides.

There is another reason too; the libs are now full of religious anti abortion, anti-fun facists. Zed, catholic. Dunne, catholic. Coe and Symthe active protestants. Anyone know about Despo and Soldier Boy?

Factionally I guess its Zed = 3, Smythe = 1, Despo = 1 and Soldier Boy = 1 and if I was Zed I would’nt count on Coe.

housebound said :

This Greens=Labor fascinates me. The much-lauded Patterson-Canberra Times poll had Greens voters evenly split between Zed and Jon when it came to which leader they preferred.

The poll I remember had a huge preference to Labor from Green voters.

Quite possibly the poll was dead on correct.
However I remember a year or two ago, the Victorian labor party was able to do a *lot* of damage and easily win two bielections that had been predicted to be somewhat challenging by throwing around the accusation that the greens were siding with the liberals in the upper house.
It may well be the case that ACT voters are different, but it’s worth wondering about something:
the half that might have preferred Zed presumably are aware that the greens tend to support labor and are willing to vote green regardless – what about the half that preferred labor though?

This Greens=Labor fascinates me. The much-lauded Patterson-Canberra Times poll had Greens voters evenly split between Zed and Jon when it came to which leader they preferred.

Regardless, commentators push the idea that all Greens voters must be closet Labor, and therefore even a hint of siding with not-Labor (always defined as Libs) makes them unsupportable.

The Greens themselves go along with it (or maybe they’re closet Labor too), and seem to predictably support Labor at every critical point.

The only conclusion is that half of the Patterson-Canberra Times poll resondents lied, and they were also closet Labor, but too scared to say it even over the phone.

Not if they framed it right, don’t forget the Libs offered them 2 ministries. Anyway if that’s the argument he’s making they’ve always been irrelevant.

make that only other option.

areaman said :

Michael Moore is as always full of it

Thanks to the way the Assembly elects a chief minister, should the Greens oppose the move it will be their turn to become irrelevant.

That’s the opposite of how the assembly works. The chief minister has to be elected by the assembly so if the greens didn’t like it they could vote against say Hargreaves, and instead side with the Libs.

Maybe that was his point? Their only option is to side with the libs, which would in all likelihood halve their vote next election.

Michael Moore is as always full of it

Thanks to the way the Assembly elects a chief minister, should the Greens oppose the move it will be their turn to become irrelevant.

That’s the opposite of how the assembly works. The chief minister has to be elected by the assembly so if the greens didn’t like it they could vote against say Hargreaves, and instead side with the Libs.

I don’t think anyone can really explain Labor’s behaviour, even Labor.