ALP National Review Panel
Submission by the Hawthorn Branch
Summary
The Hawthorn Branch considers that urgent action is needed to reform the ALP and to reassert the rightful role of the membership in party affairs, especially in the pre-selection of parliamentary candidates and in the development of policy. Long experience has demonstrated the inadequacy of internal party mechanisms to bring about the changes needed.
In important respects, despite the existence of formal rules the ALP is no longer rule bound, and processes that should provide for member authority are ignored or contravened with impunity. Given the demonstrated failure of internal processes to remedy the situation this submission is largely directed towards areas of legislative reform that would stimulate democratic reform of the ALP.
The Hawthorn Branch therefore urges the Review Panel to recommend and promote legislative reform to provide the necessary authority for the removal of sources of arbitrary power and the prosecution of anti- democratic behaviour within registered political organisations, including the ALP.
We consider the weaknesses in the policy development and pre-selection processes in particular are the function of the failure of democratic process and the bureaucratic centralisation of power. These weaknesses would be resolved if the recommendations we propose were to be implemented. It is only then that the ALP would then be able to look forward to its re-establishment as a bona fide membership based political party with a large, enthusiastic and effective membership.
The submission also discusses the relationship with affiliated unions which we see as becoming increasingly problematic under current arrangements. Union behavior within the current relationship is increasingly undemocratic and urgent remedies are required to open the party to democratic participation.
Introduction
The Australian Labor Party has a long and proud tradition as an advocate for social democratic values including fairness, justice and equality; a voice for those less well off in our community; an agent for change creating opportunity for all.
This vision of the party is nowhere better articulated than in the “Light on the hill” speech delivered by Prime Minister Ben Chifley to an ALP Conference in 1949.
I try to think of the Labour movement, not as putting an extra sixpence into somebody’s pocket, or making somebody Prime Minister or Premier, but as a movement bringing something better to the people, better standards of living, greater happiness to the mass of the people. We have a great objective – the light on the hill – which we aim to reach by working for the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand. If it were not for that, the Labour movement would not be worth fighting for.
If the movement can make someone more comfortable, give to some father or mother a greater feeling of security for their children, a feeling that if a depression comes there will be work, that the government is striving its hardest to do its best, then the Labour movement will be completely justified.
In recent years, however this vision has been sidelined by a short-sighted managerialist view of the party. The notion of the party an advocate for the views and interests of its broad membership has been replaced by one determined by party operatives that members are there to serve the needs of the organisation. The identification of the organisation with its managers rather than its members has given party officials permission to pursue the acquisition and exercise of power as an end in itself. Such hubris has led to the conflation of personal self-interest with that of the larger party, acceptance of the notion of “whatever it takes” and a lack of accountability to the party membership.
The exclusion of the broad party membership from active participation in party affairs and policy development has also forestalled the evolution of this social democratic vision into something more relevant to Australia as it enters the second decade of the twenty first century.
The theme of solidarity which permeated Chifley‟s vision resonated with the many union members and others that formed the broad “labour movement” to which he referred. Modern Australia is however a very different place to that of Chifley‟s times. The decline in the role and membership of unions, the rise of individual aspiration and the social disconnect experienced by many in today‟s society are significant factors in turning people away from Chifley‟s vision. To reassert its relevance as a party of progressive policies and ideas, the ALP must curb the dominance of head office administrators, union officials and party office holders and reassert democratic representation and authority through its grassroots membership.
Change is needed urgently
In its Terms of Reference, the Review Panel states that:
The review will look at our campaigning ability as a party, but also look at how we can improve our Party organisationally so that we are more inclusive.
The Hawthorn Branch supports these aims. We believe that the party must undertake a comprehensive and unconditional examination of itself in order to begin the process of renewal and to return the ALP to its rightful position as a source of high quality progressive policies and ideas and an effective change agent.
If the party walks away from this process, it will see its already declining membership collapse entirely and be even less able to attract effective and representative candidates for public office. Over the longer term, failure to address existing problems will render the party incapable of countering the growing attraction of such groups as The Greens to the broader community and younger people in particular. The ALP will also risk alienating its traditional support base amongst people who espouse social democratic values similar to those that underpin Labor philosophy.
This inquiry must not be permitted to suffer the fate of similar previous inquiries the party has undertaken. We draw your attention to an essay by Professor the late Sol Encel that was published by the Evatt Foundation in 2005 in which he reports on his experience in such reviews1. His sadness is apparent when he points out that the party went to the 2004 election having learnt nothing from the review Bob Hawke and Neville Wran undertook in the wake of the 2001 election loss. It is a bitter irony to realise how much of this analysis was applicable to the state of the party as it approached the 2010 election.
The role of ordinary members in the Party
At a recent branch meeting where we discussed making a review submission, several members queried the point of belonging to the Labor Party. They felt that ordinary members have virtually no role in formulating policy, pre-selecting candidates for public office or designing campaigns. They felt they were merely the dogs-bodies doing the footslogging while real power is concentrated in a relative handful of individuals including central office and union officials. The disillusionment and disappointment expressed by these members sparked off a lively debate revealing that these sentiments were shared by many others.
Policy committees
Several Hawthorn branch members have been or are members of state policy committees. In one case the committee responsible for industrial relations met for 12 months without once ever having a quorum, an astounding situation for a policy area so central to Labor‟s agenda and its reason for being. Participants reported that committees are run with no procedural discipline, vague agendas, and no apparent guiding principles on overall direction and no plan of action to prioritise work.
Committees often lack clearly defined boundaries of responsibility. For example, the Victorian ALP Economics, Innovation, Employment and Industry Development committee appears to have no clear line differentiating its particular contribution from that of the more specialised committees. Ideas and proposals are never checked out with the specific committee that could be affected.
No attempts are made to consult with the broader party to identify what the party membership wants them to work on or to develop support for a specific proposal. Much time is spent discussing proposals by individual committee members that have little relevance to the party platform or result in any action.
Membership of committees is determined by party factional structures which are largely a legacy of times when there were animating ideological differences. They are now more like tribes squabbling over available spoils. The factional basis for membership can block the participation of capable, committed people who are not tribal participants. It also leads to a situation where the committee can be captive to particular union officials or other factional interests. The readiness of some members to block open debate appears to rise out of fear that their particular interest will be threatened.
Any contact the committees have with the relevant minister or shadow minister is primarily a one-way affair with him/her instructing the committee on the implementation of specific policy initiatives. This is despite the possibility that the committee could offer the minister a useful source of new ideas or a means to consult with interested parties.
All smoke and no fire? Attendance at a policy committee meeting can feel rather like being at one of Don Williamson‟s 1960s dinner parties where the guests argue passionately about their particular hobby horse and then go home feeling very pleased about the rightness of their ideas never having been challenged and seemingly indifferent to the fact that their ideas are to never be put into effect.
State conferences and policy
Over the years our members have attended State Conferences as delegates and observers and been confronted with the huge gap that exists between what is described in the party constitution and the reality. At the most recent Victorian State Conference, the State Platform was presented as a policy document that represents Labor‟s vision for the next 10 year, a demonstration of Labor as a party of ideas based on conviction and values. And yet, the document is nothing of the sort – many parts of the document could have been written a decade ago and contain few instances of fresh thinking to confront emerging issues, much less the ambition to mould our future according to any well articulated convictions.
A good example of the failure of the document to reflect evidence and the experience of the ordinary member is the chapter on transport. This section continues to interpret the world almost exclusively through the conceptual framework of roads, freeway, cars and trucks and shows the hallmarks of having been written by producer interests with these interests close to heart. It shows little appreciation of the views and experience of a community struggling with an overwhelmed public transport system. Attempts by our delegates to shift the balance towards public transport and greater inter-connectedness through planning were vetoed by the Minister and his advisers. The experience served to confirm suspicions that grass roots membership had been trounced by interests with deep pockets and ready access to decision makers.
Business at the conference was pushed through so rapidly that it was all neatly wrapped up soon after lunch. The document had been presented as the product of widespread consultation with policy committees and members and open for debate and amendment at the conference. The reality was in fact very different; the consultation was heavily manipulated and the conference stage managed to secure validation for something that had largely been written in ministerial offices by ministerial advisers dancing to the tune of vested interests.
Federal policy development
Federal ALP policy development processes are similarly in disarray. The 2020 Summit held by the federal government in April 2008, and its outcomes, was described by then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as „a new way of governing‟. In reality, however, it should be viewed as a reflection of the failure by the ALP to identify and develop good policies itself. Such an enterprise should be unnecessary and would have been if the ALP was doing its job properly in developing policy and campaigning for an informed constituency to support it in government.
The Hawthorn Branch has for years understood this deficiency. In February 2006 in the lead-up to the development of the 2007 federal platform we made representations to the secretary of the National Policy Committee seeking a process for the development of the national platform that would most meaningfully draw on the resources of rank-and-file members and party units. To our mind the current process which, whilst it enables members and constituent party units to make written submissions and to appear before the committee, is vastly inadequate.
Our specific proposals for the National Policy Committee to fully engage the membership included the following steps:
Development by the Committee of a discussion paper on each of the major policy areas which highlight major emerging issues; Provision of a reasonable period of time for members and party units to make submissions on the issues raised in the discussion papers, as well as any other issues they consider important in relation to the current policy; Revision of the discussion papers in the light of submissions from members and party units, as well as other community contributions; Provision of an opportunity for a second round of submissions; and Finalisation of the draft platform by the Committee for consideration by National Conference.
These suggestions were dismissed at the time by the National Policy Committee, without reasons being given.
We made similar representations in November 2008, this time to the Chair of the National Policy Committee and the National Secretary. We argued that an effective iterative process would increase the value of the contributions that ALP members are able to make in the development of policy and improve the quality of the final document to be considered by national conference. Our proposals were again dismissed.
The mediocre quality of the 2009 National Platform reflected the failure of the policy development process that preceded it. It was strongly reinforced by the hesitant approach to policy announcements by the parliamentary leadership throughout the 2010 election campaign. The experience failed to reflect the reality that policy development is by nature a complex and often difficult exercise which relies heavily for its success on the need to secure a broad and informed constituency for policy change. None of this was attempted let alone achieved.
Undue influence of unions and other vested interests on policy development at the State and Federal level
The failure of the party‟s policy development mechanisms has left a vacuum that has been filled by undemocratic forces such as those alluded to above. For example, the influence of specific unions within party structures has had a negative impact on policy development particularly in the area of climate change. The close alignment of several unions with their industry has produced narrow, self serving policies and stymied any effective response. At the State level, this was reinforced by the unions‟ ready access to influence and control at State Conference.
In the resources area, coal interests have been able to distort the debate on the form of proposed emissions reduction schemes through their ready access to Ministers and ministerial staff. The mining lobby has obtained significant concessions on the proposed resources rent tax not only through public bullying and misinformation but also through backroom tactics directed at members of parliament and Ministers.
Disconnect between party administration and party membership
As participants in a grassroots organisation, we believe that the membership is the core of the Australian Labor Party. Party members and local branches should play the central role in innovative policy development and working in the community to spread labor values. In our experience, however, this view of the party as a democratic organisation is far from the practiced reality.
We believe that greater authority must be vested in the grassroots membership and that the party should urgently address concerns amongst members and voters about the power politics being played out within its state administrations. The failed review by the Special Purpose Membership Review and Audit Committee in October 2009 has once again demonstrated the lack of will by the Victorian State Head Office and the Administrative Committee to address the issue of corruption and branch stacking within the party ranks and has confirmed its lack of accountability to the grass roots membership.
The recent federal election campaign starkly illustrates the consequences of this disconnect.
Head Office conduct of the federal election campaign
After the recent federal election, the Hawthorn Branch discussed the conduct of the campaign and identified a number of issues which it believes contributed to the ALP‟s poor performance. Members were particularly critical of the actions of State Head Office.
People handing out how to vote cards at booths on Election Day and for pre-polling voiced their disappointment with the quality of the material provided. The how to vote card was dull and dreary in design and predominantly blue in colour which made it indistinguishable at first glance from that handed out by the Liberal Party. Some saw the glossy handouts as environmentally inappropriate. They also drew attention to the lack of any clear, succinct policy summary or imaginative message to remind the voter why they should choose ALP candidates. This contrasted with that of the Liberals with their recognisable catch-cries and the Greens with accessible summaries of their major policies. The material also paid scant attention to what particular qualities the local candidate was offering.
The level of resources available to the local candidate was miniscule in contrast to that apparently available to the Liberal candidate. The Liberals poured substantial amounts of money into this area because of an apparent perception that Kooyong was “up for grabs”. Voters perceived that the Liberals were out there and fighting for every vote. Despite the enormous efforts of our candidate, he received comments that Labor did not appear to have put much effort into the local campaign. The Liberal candidate, in contrast had the resources to ensure his photograph was everywhere and his supporters were immediately identifiable in their bright blue t-shirts sporting his name.
The Kooyong electorate appears to have undergone quite a deal of change since the last election with many more flat, apartment and unit dwellers than previously. It is estimated that 25 percent of all households in Kooyong are now single person. Those letterboxing regularly found that they had insufficient pamphlets to cover the number of letterboxes in their areas.
The only identification given to party workers for election day and street stalls was a small, low quality, nondescript piece of paper that could be pinned to clothing. This failed to attract attention and was easily lost. Alternatives such as well designed badges or rosettes would have contributed to a greater visibility of the ALP on the day.
Information provided by Head Office to the candidate on key policies was simplistic and out of touch with what people were looking for and showed no understanding of the types of questions voters were likely to ask.
The tenor of much of this material was that voters could be fobbed off with little more than sloganeering. Rather than encouraging people to become engaged, the suggested responses sought to discourage discussion and showed a degree of disrespect for the concerns and intelligence of voters.
Material distributed by Head Office to sell the policy credentials of the party was weak in content and showed poor thinking on economic and other policy matters. The writers of this material appeared not to have the language or the courage of any conviction to effectively advocate the party‟s policy messages. It was also noted that the local campaign coordinator for the Kooyong electorate brought in by head office from interstate was young, inexperienced and lacking any knowledge of local or Victorian politics.
Comments workers received at the booths indicated that electors were annoyed about the handling of a range of issues prior to the election which they attributed to the “faceless men” of the organisation. These included reversals on important policies such as climate change and the removal of Kevin Rudd from the Prime Ministership. There was a suggestion in these comments that “the backroom powerbrokers” had adopted a “whatever it takes” approach to the campaign to retain power at all costs to the detriment of the policy debate.
The campaign as a “policy-free zone”
Members were particularly angry with the use of focus groups by State and National Head Offices to identify the overall conduct and content of the national campaign. They felt that this produced an approach that was inappropriate for a party that calls itself progressive. It led to the adoption of inane slogans such as “moving forward” and “The real Julia” (in lieu of the bogus Julia?) which are so easy to ridicule and failed to identify the issues of particular significance to the local electorate. It also created a degree of resentment that the campaign was being run to only reflect the views of swinging voters in a limited number of electorates in marginal seats of western Sydney, Queensland and Western Australia.
Members were astounded at the many lost opportunities during the campaign to celebrate the Government‟s first term achievements. Throughout the campaign, authorities such as the Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, the International Monetary Fund, the OECD and others commented positively on the Government‟s success in warding off the effects of the Global Financial Crisis. The ABS published statistics demonstrating the strength of the Australian economy, including employment rates, balance of payments, growth in business investment including by the mining companies. Companies were reporting solid profit results and the share market was reasonably steady or rising. The ANAO published its report on the Building the Education Revolution program stating that it had been generally well run and that the problems represented a small part of a very large program.
And yet, the Opposition was able to get traction with its claim that this was the worst government that Australia had seen in the last 70 years. Why?
The relationship with the unions
The ALP’s relationship with affiliated unions has become increasingly problematic. Union membership has declined significantly in recent years in Australia as has rank and file union membership of the party itself.
Causes of the decline in union membership has been multifaceted, not the least of which have been changes in industrial regulation by both Labor and non-Labor governments which have diminished union recognition and presence in the workplace.
Within the ALP these changes have been accompanied by increasingly oligarchic behaviour by the party organisation as member numbers have declined. Self-evidently this type of behaviour is typical in the unions as well. This adversely impacts the ALP, not least in the manner in which unions conduct their affairs within the ALP. As far as we know, no or very few union affiliates provide for the election of their delegates to state or national conferences. About fifty percent of delegates to national and state conferences are comprised of delegates of affiliated unions. Most union delegations are appointed by executive decision, which in practice means the general secretary. This confers significant power and the ability to dispense rewards on these individuals. There is a strong symbiosis between this behaviour and the concentrations of power within the party which is attributable to branch stacking.
There was significant argument during the 2001-2002 Hawke-Wran review about the role of the trade unions in the party. This review declined to examine the manner in which unions select their delegations to state and national conferences. There was, however, significant discussion about the relative strength of rank and file and union delegations at the conferences. The result was the formalisation of equal representation of rank and file and union delegates.
However, it has made relatively little difference to practice within the party. Cartel behaviour within the party has continued apace, especially in the selection of candidates for public office.
The development of policy has become increasingly opaque in process and non-inclusive of member contributions.
At the same time some unions are declaring an intention to operate well outside the confines of the ALP. Some are supporting the Greens. The peak union body, the ACTU, has on several occasions declared the ambition to deal with all parties in and out of government in a manner that might not have been contemplated a few years ago.
Given the increasingly dysfunctional relationship between the party and unions it is necessary to reconsider the connection. It may now be in the best interest of each of the parties and in our collective interest that unions disaffiliate and deal with the party as independent interest groups, albeit ones with a strong historical, philosophical and a continuing practical association with the party.
The path to reform
The Hawthorn Branch supports the cause of party and electoral reform as a necessary element in enhancing democracy in Australia. We have made submissions to both State and Commonwealth inquiries on related matters and to relevant party reviews. We regularly invite authoritative speakers to our meetings and sponsor lively questioning and debate on organisational reform as well as policy matters. We also encourage our members to participate in the party‟s policy development and pre-selection processes.
We do this in recognition of the fact that the ALP has a strong progressive tradition. We believe, however that there is an urgent need to revive local political activity and democratic participation within this and other major political parties to counter the growth of anti-democratic and inappropriate corporatising trends in Australia.
As intimated above, experience has shown that we cannot rely on internal mechanisms within the party to bring about the change required. In a broad sense the ALP has the rules, regulations and structures necessary to reduce the power of an unaccountable central administration and to redistribute power to the membership. What has become clear is that there is no effective mechanism for making party officialdom accountable and to bring to heel the current culture of back room deals, corruption and pursuit of naked self interest to the detriment of party values.
It is now necessary that reform initiatives move beyond internal party processes to legislative instruments that are able to remove the sources of arbitrary power and make anti-democratic behaviour within political parties illegal. In this respect we believe that the three areas that offer the best prospects for immediate and effective reform2:
• Greater accountability for the receipt of public funding by registered political parties and transparency on the reporting of private sources of funding
• The creation of a legal notion to cover the existence and operation of political parties which enables greater accountability of the organisation to its members, increased transparency of its operations and the establishment of legally enforceable membership rights Transparent democratic participatory processes for the selection of political candidates, conference delegates and office holders including party staff that are open to scrutiny, democratic and where appropriate conducted by independent agencies.
What is the current position in these areas?
Electoral legislation
The principal piece of Commonwealth legislation covering the establishment and operation of political parties in Australia is the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. This Act covers a wide range of issues relating to the conduct of elections including the registration and funding of political parties.
As pointed out by the then Special Minister for State Joe Ludwig in the Electoral Reform Green Paper: Strengthening Australia‟s Democracy that he issued in September 2009, the Act is in urgent need of change3:
Since 1918, the Electoral Act has had only one major rewrite, and that was in 1984. Consideration needs to be given to modernising federal electoral laws. A number of provisions of the Electoral Act have become outdated and do not well reflect what happens in reality under their terms; the highly prescriptive nature of federal electoral laws can make them susceptible to becoming quickly outdated; and the wording of a number of sections of the Electoral Act is relatively complex and difficult to understand.
All states and territories also have legislation to cover the conduct of elections in their respective jurisdictions. The provisions of each can be, however be quite dissimilar and in urgent need of harmonization with the Commonwealth legislation.
Legal status of political parties
In Australia, political parties are not required to be legal entities, but are generally categorised as voluntary associations made up of members who have agreed to the internal rules of that association. As unincorporated non-profit organisations, they are not subject to the provisions of the Corporations Act. The consequences of this status can include a lack of accountability for the actions of officials and office bearers, the absence of certain requirements regarding financial reporting and transparency and difficulties in enforcing penal provisions of the Electoral Act and other legislation.
It is long past the time where it is sufficient for registered political parties in Australia to have a status which is the approximate equivalent of a tennis club.
Five years ago when concerned members of the Victorian ALP called on then-Premier Steve Bracks to take the initiative in cleaning up the party, he said that those with evidence of wrongdoing should take it to the Disputes Tribunal. However long-term filibustering and obfuscation by the Administrative Committee had by then and has since derailed this avenue of redress.
In his April 2005 reply on behalf of the Premier to the Hawthorn Branch chief of staff Tim Pallas wrote “As Labor Leader, he (the Premier) has consistently directed party members with a specific concern to pursue these matters within the appropriate party forum. With regards to the pre-selection of Labor candidates, this is ultimately a matter for the Party membership in accordance with the rules of the Party.”
In the light of the widespread concern that then prevailed about extensive malpractice in the ALP and compounded since, this response, which has since become pro-forma, was contemptuous of the rights of the membership and for the purported democratic processes of the party.
Funding of political parties
The major sources of funding for any political party are the public purse, private donations, and other sources such as investments, loans and internal funding sources including membership fees. The Electoral Reform Green Paper Donations, Funding and Expenditure4 that Senator Faulkner released in December 2008 estimates that about 80 percent of all funding for the major political parties comes from private sources, of which 25 percent was from donations.
On the basis of these figures, it is clear that about 60 percent of all party funding is outside the scope of the Electoral Act or other legislative oversight. Even the remaining 40 percent is subject to loose legislative requirements that do little to enforce greater accountability or transparency.
The question of funding is significant for many reasons. In particular:
• Providing funds can create obligations or influence attitudes or policies in ways that conflict with the broader wellbeing of the party but which enhance the interests of those participating in the transaction. Corporate donations from vested interests can place substantial pressure on party officials and politicians to adopt positions that favour the donor and distort policy outcomes.
• Control of funds and financial decision making can provide a source of power in determining how these funds are used, including who gets access to these funds and on what they are spent. Opportunities to exercise this power include the ability to make employment offers or to provide resources not available to others in order to branch stack and produce undemocratic pre-selection outcomes.
Anti-corruption processes and maintenance of parliamentary democracy
In August 2009, the Hawthorn branch made a submission to the Victorian ALP Special Membership and Audit Review Committee. We pointed out that the likelihood any organisation will initiate reforms to remove corrupt behaviour from within its ranks will be diminished the longer the practice is permitted to go on. This is especially the case where the perpetrators have access to sources of preferment they can use to buy off potential opposition or to create new loyalties based on self interest.
We noted further that this has been the case with corruption not only in the ALP and other political parties but also in many types of organisations, whether they are church bodies, law enforcement agencies, businesses, government agencies or non-government organisations. The perpetrator‟s apparent high status within the organisation and external perceptions of his/her success makes the task more difficult.
At the same time, the need to initiate reform has become ever more essential. The intimidation, bullying, and secrecy accompanying such corrupt behaviour in the ALP have lead to a breakdown in organisational values and a distortion of the prevailing culture of the party. We concluded that the traditional values of social democracy as espoused by the ALP have been subsumed in a lack of transparency and accountability and replaced with a culture that fails to provide equal access or to protect the democratic rights of members. In the absence of effective self-regulatory behavior within the ALP to inhibit corrupt practice and to stamp it out when it does occur, the ALP needs to look to efficacious statutory processes to do so.
Surveys conducted by the 2010 Review of Victoria‟s integrity and anti-corruption system showed that a third or more of correspondents thought that at least „some‟ Victorian politicians were involved in corruption5.
The review report was substantially adopted by the Victorian government including measures to deal with malpractice by politicians. This included the establishment of a Parliamentary Integrity Commissioner as an independent officer of the Parliament to investigate complaints about members of parliament and members of their staff who are publicly funded.
However, much of the corrupt activity engaged in within the ALP does not directly involve politicians or their staff. As part of this review the Review Panel should make recommendations that provide for all potential malefactors who act to abrogate the internal democratic processes of registered political parties to be dealt with by independent law enforcement agencies, whether or not they are members of parliament or their staff members. This matter should be addressed not only in relation to Victoria but in all jurisdictions.
Selection of candidates for public office
The pre-selection process for candidates for public office has been substantially subverted in recent years. The practice of denying the local member franchise has been widespread in Victoria for the selection of candidates for public office both at the federal and state level.
ALP members in the Kooyong Federal Electorate Assembly have not in living memory had the opportunity to vote in the selection of parliamentary candidates. Where there has been a possible contest the executive machine has always contrived to deny the franchise to local members, most recently in the pre-selection of candidates for the Southern Metropolitan Province prior to the 2006 general election and subsequently in early 2009 for the filling of a casual vacancy.
There has been a recent attempt to preselect a candidate for the Legislative Assembly division of Kilsyth in the outer east of Melbourne by using a form of primary selection. The experimentation has now reportedly been taken up by the New South Wales ALP.
To participate in the local ballot for the Kilsyth pre-selection, self-declared Labor supporters who are not ALP members were required to sign a declaration that they will vote for the ALP in the 2010 State election, that they are not a member of another political party, and that they are enrolled to vote in Kilsyth. The votes of members and non-members were given equal weight in the local pre-selection ballot. The centrally elected Public Office Selection Committee was retained for the other half of the vote.
Whilst this was claimed to be a bid to end branch stacking and membership rorts, it is not possible to establish an authentic connection between the two. And what difference will the US-style voting experiment in the Kilsyth pre-selection really make? It is significant that the votes of the self-claimed non-member supporters will diminish the value of the votes of the members of the local branches. The more non-members vote in the pre-selection, the greater the loss of influence of local members. And this was considered necessary only because state conference in June 2009 failed to adopt some simple rules to facilitate the reduction of branch stacking.
This leaves a basic conundrum for local members: why retain membership of the ALP if non-members, with no continuing party involvement required, get a vote equal in value with yours? In addition to devaluing the value of ALP members vote, primaries have their own inbuilt dynamic for rorting. Sporting clubs, schools, churches and other organised groups will become the source of bloc votes for well oiled local campaign teams, much in the same way as they are now in the heavily branch stacked Federal Electorate Assemblies in Victoria.
And how much branch stacking activity was neutralised in Kilsyth as a consequence of the experiment? Very little indeed – Kilsyth is not a hotbed of branch stacking. You have to go to the Federal Electorate Assemblies (FEAs) such as Calwell, Maribyrnong, Gorton, Scullin and others for that. These FEAs reportedly have 900 to 1800 members each. They are heavily branch-stacked, an activity inspired by the rewards of a safe Labor seat and the trailing sinecures that come with it.
Kilsyth is very different. It is in the FEA of Casey, which probably has a total membership of just over 100, and the Kilsyth Branch within Casey FEA probably has no more than 35 voting members. Labor has held Casey for only the five of the last 42 years although the state seat of Kilsyth has only existed in its current configuration since 2002. It was initially held by Labor and now by the Liberals. It is the territory of electoral uncertainty and hard work and of relatively little interest to the branch stackers as a consequence. So why trial a new pre-selection system purportedly to tackle branch stacking if there is no branch stacking to speak of?
Nevertheless, Kilsyth, with its very low ALP membership is collaterally damaged by branch stacking as are the many other FEAs that are not in strong Labor territory. The reputation of the ALP for branch stacking is very widespread and the incentive for people to be genuinely active is very low as a consequence. A review of membership numbers in FEAs that are not safe Labor seats shows that this is very much the case. Whilst low membership participation in Kilsyth and similar areas is very much a result of branch stacking, in reality it is the consequence of branch stacking elsewhere and that‟s where it needs to be tackled.
Seen in this light, the primary pre-selection experiment in Kilsyth assumed the character of a circus-somewhat entertaining but of little substance. And it is likely to be a circus in which the most colourful contestant wins, as it relies on rounding up the vote of the otherwise politically disengaged. Having trashed the party and the opportunity for serious engagement and local influence, the party bosses have us heading off in another direction – that of superficial and intermittent involvement. It is a crude process of legitimisation and simple populism where in a very short period of time the uninformed get to make up their mind about the relative worth of the most colourful.
New systems of pre-selection that further marginalise the influence of rank and file members are not the way to go. What are needed are reasonable guarantees that genuine members are accorded the involvement and influence in decision-making that should be their right.
Recommendations
As part of our call for legislative instruments to counter corrupt behaviour within the ALP organisation and to restore internal democracy, we have identified three areas that we believe offer the best prospects for immediate and effective reform. As noted previously, they are:
“ greater accountability for the receipt of public funding of political parties and transparency on the reporting of private sources of funding;
• the creation of a legal notion to cover the existence and operation of political parties;
• and transparent processes for the selection of political candidates, conference delegates and office holders including staff.
Most of these changes could be achieved through amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Act which presently takes a “softly softly” approach to political parties and their role in the democratic process in Australia. This is in contrast to the more prescriptive approach adopted in most other countries.
Our final recommendation calls on the party to implement more effective policy development processes to facilitate the participation of the rank and file membership and make better use of these resources.
1. To become eligible for public funding, a registered party should have a constitution that contains specific provisions to enhance internal democracy, especially for the pre-selection of candidates
Under the current provisions of the Commonwealth Electoral Act, a political party must be registered to become eligible for public funding for election expenses. This requires the party to demonstrate that it either has at least one member of the Commonwealth Parliament, a parliament of a State, or one of the Legislative Assemblies of the Northern Territory or the Australian Capital Territory, or has at least 500 members; and it has been established on the basis of a written constitution that sets out the party’s aims.
In comparison to legislation in other countries, the requirements for registration and funding eligibility under the Commonwealth Electoral Act are extremely liberal. The danger is that party officials and office holders can continue to attract substantial amounts of public funding and remain secretive and unaccountable to party members and the community.
We believe that the registration provisions of the Electoral Act should be tightened to encourage greater transparency and accountability to party members and to the community generally. A first step would be to require that constitutions contain specific provisions that enhance the democratic role of the membership in party activities especially the pre-selection of candidates and policy development.
A useful model would be the Queensland Electoral Act 1992 under which registration will not be granted unless the party has a complying constitution. Regulations to the Act detail the necessary features of a complying constitution including clauses on membership and pre-selection of candidates in ways that satisfy the general principles of free and democratic elections. The challenge is, however to make these provisions into something more substantial than mere gestures.
2. The Commonwealth Electoral Act should identify how political parties can use public funding including the direction of a proportion of these funds to local membership groups such as Federal Electorate Assemblies (FEAs). The Act should also require regular and public reporting on such expenditure.
In Australia, political parties and candidates receive public funding based solely on the number of formal first preference votes they received without a requirement to substantiate matching campaign expenditure.
Since its inception public funding has been utilised by the ALP to secure greater and less accountable control of the party by the undemocratic central bureaucracy at the expense of the grassroots organisation. To counter this trend and to promote much needed local activism we believe that there should be mandated financial support from public funding for local party organisation, such as Federal Electorate Assemblies.
We support the continued provision of public funding which was first introduced to reduce the ability of wealthy private interests to procure influence in government decision-making. We acknowledge that it has failed in this ambition but believe that this problem can be addressed in a number of ways including restrictions on what public funds can be spent on and also requiring the recipient to report regularly on how these and all other funds are used.
Scott Bennett of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library discusses this point in his research paper6. In Ireland, for example the relevant legislation provides that public funding may be used by the qualified parties only in relation to general administration of the party, research, education and training, policy formulation, and coordination of the activities of branches and members of the party. The funding may also include provision to promote participation by women and young persons in political activity. It is not permitted to apply the funding to offset expenses incurred at elections.
He notes that Irish qualified parties must account for their use of their funding annually. This is done by the Appropriate Officer of each party providing an Exchequer Expenditure Statement to the Public Offices Commission which details the amount of the funding and how it was utilised during the period in question. A Public Auditor is required to audit the Statement and that Auditor’s report is submitted with the Statement to the Commission. The material is made available by the Commission at its offices for public inspection and copying.
The Political Donations Bill that Senator Faulkner introduced into Parliament in March 2009 and was voted down contained a number of proposals for amending the Electoral Act including with respect to public funding. It defined the meaning of electoral expenses and limited the size of the claim that a party could make to the amount spent on such expenses. It did not, however, take the next step and regulate how these funds were to be used subsequently or establish anything but the barest minimum reporting requirements.
3. Changes should be made to the Electoral Act and to the Corporations Act to extend provisions for declaration and reporting of private funding. This would include a wider scope for what is reported, a lower threshold on the amounts to be reported, more timely reporting of funding contributions, less consolidation of detail and increased public availability of the reports.
As previously noted, the only private funding subject to any legislative oversight is that made through donations. On average, such funds represent around 20 percent of total party funds and are subject to very loose disclosure requirements. The Electoral Act requires donors and recipients to disclose „gifts‟ or donations above a specified threshold (the current disclosure threshold amount from 1 July 2010 to 30 June 2011 is more than $11 500). The definition of what comprises a gift, the level of the reporting threshold, the failure to cover all other sources of private funding (investments, loans, fundraising activities, membership and affiliation fees etc) all contribute to a lack of oversight for at least 60 percent of all party funding.
The Electoral Act also does not distinguish between corporate and other donations, nor does the Corporations Act 2001 contain specific provisions relating to the disclosure of donations to political parties. This contrasts strongly with the scrutiny that applies in most other countries and contributes to a lack of transparency over the potential motivation and level of influence wielded by companies, unions, lobby groups or other corporate bodies on policy development and selection of candidates.
The requirement under the Electoral Act that registered political parties must lodge annual disclosure returns documenting the total of all receipts, expenditure and debts does little to improve the transparency of party finances. For example, there are no national accounts for Australia wide parties; expenditure by all administrative units is consolidated; and election expenditure is not separately identified.
The United Kingdom provides an example of greater oversight of corporate funding contributions. The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (UK) amended the Companies Act 1985 (UK) to require shareholders‟ approval of donation policies of public companies and require full donations disclosure in a public company‟s annual report.
4. All pre-selection ballots of candidates should be conducted under the auspices of an external body such as the Australian Electoral Commission and in accordance with party constitutional requirements designed to make the processes competitive, procedurally fair and capable of protecting the democratic rights of all participants.
The pre-selection of candidates capable of winning a seat in parliament and dedicated to working towards the implementation of the party agenda is ultimately the main reason for a party‟s existence. It would seem desirable, therefore that this process should identify the best and the brightest to represent the party and the electorate. A more transparent process for pre-selecting candidates free from the corruption of branch stacking and the power flexing of factions would also improve the party‟s image in the eyes of the electorate.
The level of democracy applying to pre-selection processes in Australian political parties was one of the questions examined in a report published by the Research School of Social Sciences at The Australian National University7 in 2004. The authors stated that:
… we define that „a party-candidate selection process is regarded as passing the test of being reasonably democratic if it is based on a selection system that is reasonably competitive and procedurally fair‟. A strong case can be made that if political parties dominate the legislatures and effectively select members of parliament in many seats, then they have a crucial obligation to the electorate—to choose candidates for public office by what are largely democratic means.
The report assessed the pre-selection rules of most Australian political parties “…using the principles of fair elections”. All eight State and Territory Labor organisations failed to meet the test of one vote one value, five of the eight failed to protect the integrity of their voters roll, half were unable to guarantee the fair conduct of the ballot, six made provision for secret ballots and all provided fair dispute procedures.
5. The formal relationship between the ALP and affiliated unions, if it is to continue, should not inhibit the application of the principle of one vote one value in elections and decision-making within the ALP, including for the pre-selection of parliamentary candidates and the selection of delegates to state and national conferences.
As discussed above the relationship between the ALP and affiliated unions is now highly problematic. Historically the local branch structure was subsidiary to the affiliated unions. This reflected the fact that the party was borne from the trade union movement relatively early in a prolonged period when union density was on the increase and rank and file unionists were politically active. Union representation of the Australian workforce has since collapsed. In their relationship with the ALP affiliated unions have to a significant degree been reduced to shells that do little more than accommodate the parliamentary career ambitions of union officialdom.
This is most apparent at State Conference which comprises 50 percent union representatives and 50 percent constituency Party representatives. These arrangements put paid to any claim that policy making at State Conference reflects the views of the rank and file membership as determined by chosen delegates.
In 2002 John Button put the case for the Labor Party and the trade unions ending their relationship. He wrote8:
Martin Foley of the Australian Services Union asked the most germane question in his submission to the current Hawke-Wran inquiry into the state of the ALP: „Why—beyond serving the careerist interests of an elite of labour movement professionals— do unions affiliate to the ALP at all in the modern Australian context? What is in it for the unions? What is in it for the ALP?‟ The union-ALP relationship has degenerated into a bad habit. It damages the ALP. It damages the unions even more. It may be time for the formal relationship to end: to have a friendly divorce.
Button also pointed to:
The domination of the party hierarchy by a new class of labour movement professionals who rely on factions and unions affiliated to the party for their career advancement. These people come from the ranks of political advisers, trade union policy officers and electoral office staff. Individually they can be thoughtful and decent people. Collectively they are destroying the diversity and appeal of the ALP.
These observations by John Button, if persuasive when made in 2002, are far more compelling in 2010.
6. The Electoral Act should be amended to require political parties to become legal entities in order to qualify for public funding
As discussed in the Electoral Reform Green Paper Strengthening Australia‟s Democracy,9 political parties in Australia are not required to be legal entities, but are generally categorised as voluntary associations made up of members who have agreed to the internal rules of that association.
The Green Paper points out that
Despite the important role that political parties have played in Australian politics, Australian law largely ignored the existence of political parties until 1977. Registration of political parties for federal election purposes was introduced in 1984 to support the introduction of funding and disclosure arrangements and the printing of party affiliations of candidates on ballot papers.
The lack of a clear legal status has allowed party administrations to ignore their obligations to their membership base. A requirement that political parties become legal entities would establish certain transparency and financial reporting obligations and make for easier enforcement of offences under the Electoral Act. Such status would also make the party responsible for the actions of its members and office bearers.
The Green Paper suggests that this could be achieved in one of the following ways:
• become an incorporated association under state or territory legislation;
• become a company under the Corporations Act 2001;
• or be deemed, once registered under the Electoral Act, to be a body corporate with perpetual succession, with the power to own property and capacity to sue and be sued.
7. Implement new processes for the development of the national and state platforms that facilitate meaningful contribution by rank and file membership and party units and makes effective use of these resources
We believe that the ALP should view policy development as an ongoing process that aims to reflect durable ongoing progressive principles and to significantly influence the overall political environment. As outlined above the current process fails any such test. It is spasmodic and it is subject to capture by unrepresentative vested interests. Most significantly it denies the authority of genuine membership contribution and influence.
We have previously discussed the failure of existing processes surrounding the development of the national and state platforms and proposed a number of changes that would encourage greater contribution by individual members in policy development. We see the more effective participation of all members in the process as beneficial for a number of particular reasons:
• It makes better use of the enormous intellectual and strategic resources that still exists within the party and harnesses this energy and commitment.
• It enables better identification of the issues that members consider should be given priority and provides a better window into the attitudes and concerns of local communities of interest.
• It encourages an increased sense of ownership by members in the results and consequently greater commitment to policy advocacy to the wider community.
• It discourages policy development directed at sectional or vested interests and reinforces the social democratic values that underlie Labor Party philosophy.
The changes in process that we would like to see include:
• development of discussion papers on major policy areas highlighting major emerging issues;
• time for members and party units to make submissions;
• revision of the discussion papers to take into account these submissions and other community contributions; an opportunity for a second round of submissions;
• and finalisation of the draft platform by the National Policy Committee for consideration by National Conference.
Hawthorn ALP
Balwyn
VIC 3103
29 November 2010
Refs
1. Sol Encel. Labor & the future – Where to now? Evatt Foundation November 2005. (http://evatt.labor.net.au/publications/papers/136.html )
2 Parliamentary Library. Research paper no.21 2001-02. Australia‟s political parties: more regulation? http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2001-02/02rp21.htm#major
3 http://www.dpmc.gov.au/consultation/elect_reform/strengthening_democracy/docs/strengthening_australias_democracy.pdf
4 http://www.dpmc.gov.au/consultation/elect_reform/docs/electoral_reform_green_paper.pdf
5 Victoria State Services Authority. Review of Victoria‟s integrity and anti-corruption system. 2010. (pp. 12-13)
6 Parliamentary Library. Research paper no.21 2001-02. Australia‟s political parties: more regulation? http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2001-02/02rp21.htm#major
7 Australian political parties in the spotlight. Prepared by Dean Jaensch, Peter Brent and Brett Bowden. Democratic Audit of Australia Political Science Program Research School of Social Sciences The Australian National University 2004 (http://democratic.audit.anu.edu.au/papers/focussed_audits/200501_jaensch_parties.pdf)
8 John Button. Quarterly Essay 6 August 2002. Beyond Belief: What Future for Labor?
9 http://www.dpmc.gov.au/consultation/elect_reform/strengthening_democracy/docs/strengthening_australias_democracy.pdf
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