In the 1950s the party split when concerns about the influence of the communists in the trade union movement moved enough people in the ALP to form the DLP.
Maybe that formula is too simple to capture the complex of political, religious and personal issues that were in play at the time.
But the point is that there was a concern about the way the party was going and it resulted in a shift of allegiances that kept the ALP out of power for almost a generation.
Lately the ALP has been effectively driven by the linear descendents of the communist movement and there is not even a single representative in the party who is prepared to cross the floor of the House and give the electorate the opportunity to use the ballot box to express their obvious opinion about the leadership of the nation.
Tribalism outweighs the good of the country.
The fear of being labelled a labor rat has kept otherwise adults from doing the right thing.
entropy
28 Jul 12 at 12:01 pm
No, Rafe – it isn’t oversimplifying things. The ALP has been successfully white anted by Left. It’s what the Left does. It subverts organisations, societies, nations, and individuals.
When are we going to wake up to this?
As you say, the proof of this peculiar blind spot on the moral retina of the ALP is the refusal of just one member to stand up for Democracy.
Winston Smith
28 Jul 12 at 12:08 pm
entropy
Other ALP people from the past had the courage to do “the right thing” and overcame the “fear of being labelled a labor rat” But the present mob give the impression of not being courageous nor adult.
stackja
28 Jul 12 at 12:11 pm
It tells you everything you need to know about the Labor Party that an MP can steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from blue-collar hospital workers and be protected by the NSW branch financially and the prime minister politically.
The ALP is dead. It is a malodorous, fly-blown carcass on the highway of Australian history.
C.L.
28 Jul 12 at 12:16 pm
Moral credibility is gone. They’re still moralistic though…
ar
28 Jul 12 at 12:22 pm
Barry Cohen in April:
And one year before:
This describes the problem. There is no social democrat party in this country. The ALP comprises a hard progressive left which is spalling off to their real home, The Greens, and a right which comprises career unionista power seekers. Their base is disappearing towards the Libs because the unions have almost entirely bought the climate meme (in turn because of the Communist leanings of many in the union hierarchy).
The real people who should be represented by these ideological idiots are not being represented. Some keep supporting the ALP and hoping, they are the 28%. Others are giving up on the ALP. More are voting for the Libs for the first time in their lives. Will they return? I don’t think so.
But if any lefties out there want to make good, Barry’s second comment is looking better and better each day of the Gillard ecopolyse.
Bruce
28 Jul 12 at 12:25 pm
The ALP is scum, led by the stinking crust that sits atop the oozing filthy stew that is the sewer pond of the ALP. Led by Gillard and Swan, supported by Howes and Maher. It is to their eternal shame that Martin Ferguson and Joe de Bruyn support this socially and economically destructive government. They have no moral courage at all. They are gutless morons led by thuggish morons.
John Comnenus
28 Jul 12 at 12:27 pm
The fear of being labelled a labor rat has kept otherwise adults from doing the right thing.
To say this is to admit that current Labor MPs have been unmanned. It is also to admit that current and past members of the post-WW2 ALP cannot hold a candle to those that split to form the DLP.
dover_beach
28 Jul 12 at 12:32 pm
On present polls, the DLP should hold the balance of power in the next senate.
I am surprised they don’t get more media attention given their likely future role.
This means the carbon tax gets repealed, but what sort of IR policy is going to come out of the next parliament?
2dogs
28 Jul 12 at 12:35 pm
That’s the problem. That is not the ALP’s true heritage.
They have a base, but they have no soul. effectively they are dead, or at best, zombies.
.
28 Jul 12 at 12:55 pm
People will question authority and rebel if they have an alternative authority to appeal to. In the case of the DLP (according to folklore) this was the Catholic Church. Who would any rebels today turn to for leadership?
wreckage
28 Jul 12 at 1:35 pm
2Dogs, do you have a link to a particular poll to confirm this?
Winston SMITH
28 Jul 12 at 1:51 pm
Very well said. Ferguson always had a fan club – notably, Andrew Bolt – but I never bought the image of old-world sensible saviour. Ferguson has been yellow throughout this epic disaster.
C.L.
28 Jul 12 at 1:54 pm
I tend to think that ALP stopped being a panaustralian political party quite some time ago and became just another super union, they represent the featherbedding of their leaders and not much else. Too many people and groups have been betrayed for them to garner wideheld public support so they are extorted by the criminal and unscrupulous. Gillard represents the modern ALP almost perfectly, sold out her profession, sold out her credibility, stands for nothing desirable, is being blackmailed and can only think of uninspired unneeded things to do halfarsedly with other peoples money whilst proclaiming to be a reformist representative of middle Australia. Even the ideaology is hodgepodge and confused.
Simon
28 Jul 12 at 2:07 pm
The bigger trough of the UN offers snout possiblities not available in previous times. Who cares what da people want, it’s about getting your bum on a UN seat now.
coz
28 Jul 12 at 2:09 pm
Everyone seems to forget that the structure of the ALP ensures that only like minded people can go up the ranks and those who do not fit in do not progress. That explains why no one in revolting, they are all in the same mind of our PM – what can we get for ourselves – how do we protect our buddies – how can we make more for ourselves – and back to what can we get for ourselves. This is the socialist and commusit way, for history shows never have any communist or socialist leader lived a simple life as they expected their followers to do.
GK
28 Jul 12 at 2:24 pm
What we really need is a Real Peoples Movement , NOT a political party in the old sense ,bot a movement which would endorse candidatesof good will and reputation to enter parliament ,to really represent the People and Nation. A change of constitution to eliminate the thing that Perpetuate the current system created by Corrupt politiciansof the past.The corrupt senate gerrymander ,which gave us the fascist greens,compulsory voting which helps the alp ,preferences which holds half of the alp and greens in power .State governments a relic of the past,and the politization of local governments ,to provide jobs for the tertiary educated drones .One government ,subject to Referenda on All Actions ,5 year term ,electedvrepresentatives serve 1term and then unable to stand for election for10years,no political donations allowed .2stage elections ,the first 6months before the end of the existing groups 5year term expires ,with all candidates standing ,stage 2 is 3 months later between the 2candidates who polled the most votes in round 1.All elected subject to dismissal on a petition of electors after a petition of 20per cent of electors demanding recall .theres a start! There is More.
Borisgodunov
28 Jul 12 at 3:23 pm
poor old rafe, The DLP was the first of Australia’s political parties to promote:
• justice and equity in education funding
• the vote for 18 year olds
• equal pay for equal work
• an independent pensions and needs tribunal
• an end to the White Australia Policy
• increased family-based immigration
• strategic development of Australia’s inland, north and west
• responsible environmental protection
• support for life and traditional family values
• capital grants for the family home and for granny flats attached to the family home
• a homemaker allowance and income tax splitting for families
• a universal living allowance or guaranteed minimum income based on reverse taxation
• nationwide portability of superannuation
• market and product diversification in trade
• producer cooperatives and income stabilisation
• long-term low interest loans for small business and the family farm
• industrial democracy, worker cooperatives and enterprise profit-sharing schemes
many a new leftie would vote for the DLP but for their 1960s social conservatism
Jim Rose
28 Jul 12 at 3:53 pm
Boris
I’m actually pro democracy but anti representation.
I’d want a Parliament selected by sortition, subject to approval voting, who then appoint a CEO/President, subject too to approval voting. They then appoint a PM who may or may not be a member of Parliament, subject to the same vetting process. All laws can be struck down by referenda and all parties removed by recall.
Harsh but fair.
.
28 Jul 12 at 3:55 pm
dot, people vote parties out, they do not vote people in which is the assumption of sortition.
the Schumpeterian voters have the ability to replace political leaders through elections. Citizens do have sufficient knowledge and sophistication to vote out leaders who are performing poorly or contrary to the electoral majority’s wishes.
All voters have time to know is performance, so they vote retrospectively.
sortition rules out retrospective voting and the development of parties as brand name capital.
The power to vote officials out of office at the next election gives political leaders an incentive to adopt policies that do not outrage public opinion and administer policies with a minimum of honesty and competence.
such a schumpetarian democracy, Richard Posner argues, enables the people, at very little cost in time, money or distraction from private pursuits, to punish at least the flagrant mistakes and misfeasances, assure an orderly succession of at least minimally competent officials, generate feedback to the officials concerning the consequences of their policies, prevent officials from entirely ignoring the interests of the governed, and prevent serious misalignments between government action and public opinion.
Too many, in Posner’s view, want to remake democracy with the faculty workshop as their model. Such deliberation requires a high level of knowledge and analytical sophistication and an absence, or at least severe curtailment, of self-interested motives. so does sortition.
Jim Rose
28 Jul 12 at 4:06 pm
Simon said: “is being blackmailed.” Makes sense of Queen Midas and a lot of other things about labor.
mareeS
28 Jul 12 at 6:11 pm
Bruce, but this new screening process for parliamentary candidates is efficient i.e. university, union organiser, MPs’ staffer and then candidate.
With no working class left to speak of, do you know of any alternatives that ensure that endorsed ALP candidates are true and loyal members of the party?
the purpose of political party internal labour markets such as university politics, union organiser, lawyers, MPs’ staffer and finally endorsed candidate is to screen for true quality, loyalty and groom for success.
By socialising together, potential ALP candidates can mutually monitor each other for true commitment to the party’s values and aims.
In the past, the screening process was through occupation, club, union, and class memberships, and long apprenticeships on the backbenches. high flyers are now less willing to wait for long on the party backbenches because real incomes are higher for university graduates and alterative career opportunities are greater.
in the US, both parties have thousands of patronage positions at all levels of government to use to testdrive loyalty and political ability.
Jim Rose
28 Jul 12 at 6:58 pm
One comes to the conclusion that ALL politicians are grandiose ,self serving ,money hungry ,incommpetent ,tertiary ,semi educated WANKERS! A Baja Los Intellctuales ! As the anti communist Nationalists in Spain ih the 1930s .
Borisgodunov
28 Jul 12 at 7:27 pm
And breed the herd larger, eh? Well if you look at the third link you’ll see that is no longer working – the kiddies are defecting to the Greens. What did Anna say?
CSIRO developed a blue rose. The left now seems to be breeding red watermelons.
They’re heading for a crash, the poor working voters are no longer being represented by these millionaire apparatchiks.
Bruce
28 Jul 12 at 7:54 pm
Sortition is fine. The best part of a such a system would be the professionalism of the PM’s office.
.
28 Jul 12 at 8:04 pm
Hahaha!
— Donald Cameron, member for the Free Trade Party, March 22, 1904
Racists.
.
28 Jul 12 at 8:17 pm
sortition does not give the voters an opportunity to vote people out
Jim Rose
28 Jul 12 at 9:08 pm
I suppose the last line is missing a “can be”.
…and all parties can be removed by recall.
Plus the fact most of the Parliament would get turfed in one term, and the PM or President are very visible and are from one nominal electorate. It would still be cheap in terms of opportunity costs to monitor them and dismiss them.
.
28 Jul 12 at 9:15 pm
Simon said: “is being blackmailed.”
Mmmm – I think – “yes – but” – and this seems as good as forum as any to toss the hypothesis out.
If I read the suggestion between the lines – the assumption is that Julia’s ex Bruce took anything up to $1 million off the AWU; the AWU was getting ready to go after the members’ money; and then the paperwork went back in the bottom drawer, courtesy of Big Bill Ludwig if I recall the story.
Ergo, Julia must be a wholly owned asset of the AWU.
Except why would the AWU let a lifelong member of the Socialist Left step into the PM’s office instead of one of Ludwig’s princelings ?
Recall Bill Shorten back in April sticking his foot in his mouth about something that contradicted Julia, and then hauling his ass into the ABC to agree with her , on anything, no matter what it was and if he didn’t even know what it was ?
One line of thought was they were so arrogant they thought they could toss out nonsense like this.
But look at Shorten’s face in images from the time. As one who has had it happen to me often enough, Billy looks like someone who has had his ass handed to him on a platter; told to get in front of a camera; and recant.
And Billy is supposedly AWU royalty.
My conclusion. The AWU may have a dirt file on Julia. Julia seems to have something that represents MAD ( Mutual Assured Destruction ) for the AWU. As a former lawyer handling AWU work, and involved with a corrupt AWU official, one can only wonder what she has tucked away.
There – not so off-topic from ‘What happened to the Moral Credibility of the ALP’.
Just in time for Midnight Oil to come on the radio. Hey Peter – how do you sleep while the ALP’s moral bed is burning ?
Myrddin Seren
28 Jul 12 at 10:05 pm
dot, You cannot vote for a party of your choosing into office under Sortition. That is how you vote someone out. You decide the replacements are more tolerable.
Your choice of candidates is limited under Sortition. You yourself cannot run for office and put the mess right.
That was how the labor and country parties and all new parties were formed.
a decision was that a new team was needed and you and those like you where that team. The right to run for office is fundamental to a free election.
The strength of democracy is a small group of concerned and thoughtful citizen can indeed change things by running for office and winning elections.
That is how new parties such as the ALP, the country party, the DLP, and the greens changed Australia. by winning a few seats, they attacted attention for their ideas and slowly won more and more seats
Jim Rose
28 Jul 12 at 10:30 pm
it went out the window on 24 june 2010
candy
28 Jul 12 at 10:59 pm
Y’all realise there’s a generation (or two?) of voters out there who have never known the ALP to possess any moral credibility at all.
Gab
28 Jul 12 at 11:56 pm
Winston look at the state by state polling results. They give the coalition four senators in both QLD and WA, and half of the senators in the other states and territories.
On such a result, the coalition will be just one vote short of the majority.
Senator John Madigan will be a continuing senator in that senate, and holding the balance of power.
2dogs
29 Jul 12 at 6:55 am
I actually don’t see your point Jim.
.
29 Jul 12 at 9:47 am
I don’t see Jim Rose’s point either.
Sortition would reduce the number of psychopaths in parliament to about the same as in the general population. This would be be vast improvement over the current nearly 100% with a good number of actual criminal psychopaths amongst them.
Eyrie
29 Jul 12 at 9:57 am
Dot, Sortition (also known as allotment or the drawing of lots) is the selection of decision makers by lottery. The decision-makers are chosen as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates. This is how juries are formed.
As many have pointed out, one way of protecting yourself in a democracy is running for office, and otherwise trading yout votes for what you want.
People do not change the world by waiting to be drawn by lot for service on a jury. They vote in elections.
All citizens should not have an equal chance of entering office. Those that win free elections should enter office. Sortition is not a free election.
Sortition puts in power people with minority views. There are enough problems with democracy, including agent-principal problems, without giving up its greatest advantage: majority rule and the power to vote the rascals out at regular elections.
Jim Rose
29 Jul 12 at 10:21 am
I don’t see any difference other than the assertion that sortition is not a feature of a free society.
# You can have recall elections.
# Sortition isn’t compulsory.
# You get some sort of preselection process.
# Most if not all of the Parliament would be voted out automatically.
# There would be the initiative power to strike down bad laws.
# Everyone loses the right to freely nominate themselves to Parliament but is subject to the same sortition, approval voting and constant threat of recall.
.
29 Jul 12 at 10:34 am
Anyway Jim, you are simply putting forward the idea that to protect the rights of some through a participatory process, democracy needs widespread franchise which includes the right to nominate oneself as a candidate.
You cannot argue that sortition is illiberal on the same basis that you might on the same grounds as an elective representative democracy.
Your chances in sortition are simply put to the mean and you can hold the pool in check by approval voting and hold the Government in general through recall and the negative initiative power.
Most of that short circuits the median voter problem.
.
29 Jul 12 at 10:47 am
I would not use sortition for the lower house where executive government is formed. However I do think that senators should be appointed using sortition. The senate would continue to be a check on executive legislative power. However it would be much more representative of the general population in a statistical sense.
However the government should not then be allowed to appoint such senators as ministers lest this become a way to curry favour.
I would want sortition candidates to be qualified in terms of seriousness. If you want to nominate as a senate candidate your nomination should need signatures from 20 registered voters. This is a low bar that any serious candidate can meet.
TerjeP
29 Jul 12 at 10:52 am
dot, who has an incentive to organise recall elections? There are no political parties because they have no point. There are no elections to win. The same applies for initiatives and recalls. There are no political parties to do the legwork.
Never having the chance of being re-elected means there is no reward for following the will of the people.
sortition stops you getting on the ballot paper. you must win the lottery.
would you invest in a company that used sortition to hirer its senior leadership?
Jim Rose
29 Jul 12 at 10:54 am
Most companies don’t run open election contests to appoint the board members. As such the analogy supports neither sortition nor elections.
TerjeP
29 Jul 12 at 11:02 am
What, like the way Q&A sorts their audience by political leaning?
It wouldn’t take much for someone like Getup to provide 20 signatures for 60 candidates and stack the numbers so they will get more of their crackpots up than One Nation, Social Alliance, or The Sex Party.
Splatacrobat
29 Jul 12 at 11:04 am
It wouldn’t be formed in the lower house…
Parliament nominates an executive council and President that works like the NH or VT model…but the Pres appoints a PM who is like CEO and doesn’t have to be in Parliament.
The exec council and PM are all subject to approval and recall.
I’d have primaries and approval voting.
You are arguing that they don’t exist because they no longer have a point and so cannot do something they serve a purpose to do.
Which can be good. Really bad decisions can be punished by recall, which to a Prime Minister would be very strongly incentivised because they’d serve at the pleasure of the President.
Parliament would represent society, subject to a vetting process. It would be like having jurors who want to be there and have been preselected and confirmed once more.
Companies use franchise limited by ownership.
.
29 Jul 12 at 11:16 am
Sortition is a nice subtheme of Arthur C Clarke’s “The Songs of Distant Earth”.
The moral is this: there are people who will climb over the dead bodies of their own family if that is what is required for them to achieve Power(TM). Local councils are full of them. As are unions. If you fill Parliament and councils using sortition all you are doing is getting in the way of these tin-pot dictators. In “The Songs of Distant Earth” at the end of the book there is a coup.
This is the point: local councils and companies and unions offer a useful safety valve. They soak up those frustrated types who burn, drool and yearn for power, yet who are so hopeless you wouldn’t otherwise trust them with a box of matches. Peter Principle.
Von Moltke had it right a century ago.
Bruce
29 Jul 12 at 1:50 pm
“Jack is as good as his master”
The left had to kill this slogan of the true Aussie spirit, which gives lie to their Euro/British class warfare bullshit.
The ALP has destroyed the spirit that founded it.
what planet am I on?
29 Jul 12 at 1:55 pm
Bruce
I’m not advocate we block those sorts of people from joining private firms or unions.
Just the local councils perhaps.
.
29 Jul 12 at 2:13 pm
Bruce – corporations are also full of them. And in fact that is where we would rather divert their enthusiasm. Let normal people act as the house of review and let the maniacs climb the corporate ladder. Or at least let them try.
TerjeP
29 Jul 12 at 3:02 pm
Splatacrobat – if there are 10,000 candidates stacking is very, very difficult.
TerjeP
29 Jul 12 at 3:08 pm
The ALP has destroyed the spirit that founded it.
It definitely seeks to do this as part of its mantra. Subvert the politburo is the same as subverting the people, comrade.
John Mc
29 Jul 12 at 3:25 pm
The DLP. Well on the face of it the site and policies contained within seem to read OK and in a lot of cases make sense. One glaring non inclusion is anything at all on Indigenous people. Another problem is part of the stated Life/marriage and family policy:
Support legislation that preserves and protects marriage as the voluntary union of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others, for life.
Oppose legislative or administrative measures that undermine or degrade marriage by conferring on homosexual, lesbian or transsexual pairings any form of legal recognition of their relationships, per se, whether through “civil unions”, “relationship registers” or other legal device.
http://www.dlp.org.au/policies/life-marriage-and-family/
Xevram
29 Jul 12 at 4:06 pm
What we really need is directly elected ministers. If you like one party’s IR policy and another’s family policy, you should be able to vote accordingly.
Budgets would be set by candidates specifying them upfront. Their term ends after a fixed period or when that money runs out, whichever comes first.
2dogs
29 Jul 12 at 6:25 pm
Ooo, Ooo, I like the idea of elections being forced by the money running out. Perhaps each election the opponents should tell us what they intend to spend whilst in power and the minute they have spent it we have another election. If you want to hold onto power then spend slowly.
TerjeP
29 Jul 12 at 7:20 pm