There are two images that summarise the unique tenor of last weekend’s ALP conference for me.
The first is the storming of the stage by pro-refugee activists who were not Labor members. In their eagerness to protest the Shorten leadership’s “me-tooism” position on asylum seeker policy, they mistimed their appearance and disrupted the speech of promising left-wing backbencher, Andrew Giles, who was actually arguing for their side.
Of all the accusations you can throw at a Bill Shorten-led Labor party, a reticence to expose itself to public opinion is not one of them. Try, now, to imagine the consequences of storming a more tightly stage-managed event – and consider that Giles instead acknowledged his interlocutors, laid aside his notes, and thrust himself onto the political map with the speech of his career.
If there is no more brutal lesson than defeat, here’s some proof that Labor’s learnt it. The forced smiles and public disavowals of the Rudd-Gillard era cost the party its credibility; whatever the nation thinks of Shorten, he at least fronted the royal commission on trade unions with a willingness it would behoove Tony Abbott to summon for a single episode of Q&A. The parade of confessions made by Labor identities featured in the Killing Season could be politely considered oversharing.
In this context, last weekend’s ALP national conference was an exercise in Labor’s new openness. With the factional split at its most obscured in years, the right deprived of its once unshakeable majority and policy debates scheduled that were pregnant with potential for division, it was not unreasonable to predict outright brawling. But the conference wasn’t buried in a quiet corner of the country, as was the habit of the past, nor were media or public locked out: conference this year was at the Melbourne Convention Centre, behind glass.
Viewers observed Giles’s motion for Labor to oppose boat turnbacks was lost, but without brawling – policy decisions are, after all, made not by speeches but through deals and compromises. If it surprises those outside Labor that militant left-wing unions, including the CFMEU, backed Shorten, they may not be looking directly at what is really going on.
There’s no denying that Labor is complicit in the ugly, inhumane mess of institutionalised cruelty on Manus Island and Nauru, but while the vote at conference didn’t rule out turnbacks, it didn’t quite oblige Labor to follow through with them, either. Humanitarian visas were quietly doubled. Note the behaviour of the NUW, who put out a statement affirming their commitment to “international law” with a refusal “to support any amendment to the current platform that seeks to turn back the boats” – and also voted on the Shorten side.
Activists are right to maintain pressure on Labor to develop humane refugee policy, but to argue that the existing shared turnbacks policy indicates a broader interchangeability between Labor and its conservative opponents is patently wrong. For all the glass of the Melbourne Convention Centre, many critics’ view of progress has been blocked by the boats in the way. It doesn’t mean there wasn’t any; the ALP has just voted up perhaps its most progressive economic and industrial policy in years.
Certainly because of an ascendant left faction but also perhaps because Shorten is, at very least, a union man, Labor is now, for example, backing the “Buffett rule”, a policy that makes it impossible for the wealthy to avoid paying tax, and opposing the notorious investor-state dispute clauses in free trade agreements as well as clauses that enable corporate interests to exploit labour mobility to undercut wages and conditions.
As the Liberals continue to threaten penalty rates and call for “discussion” about minimum wages, the ALP has recommitted to protecting both, as well as freedom of association and collective bargaining, and a national occupational health and safety framework. It has also promised to address exploitative employment conditions affecting Indigenous Australians, workers with disabilities and those trapped in the uncertainty of insecure work. Most ambitiously, Labor is also seeking to improve the rate of high-end manufacturing jobs. It has committed support to the CSIRO as the effective conduit between science and industry, and to restore state-funded Tafe training as the main provider of technical and further education.
This is in addition to Labor’s much-hailed commitment to a new emissions trading scheme, as well as an increased renewable energy target of 50%. Feminists enjoyed the historic victory, too, of both a 50% quota for female MPs as well as policies for fair paid parental leave and the provision of family violence leave for workers in vulnerable circumstances.
And it was the marriage equality debate that provided the other most potent image of Labor’s evolving character. Photographers captured a poignant moment during Penny Wong’s speech in favour of a binding policy when they focused on ancient Catholic stalwart, faction boss and marriage equality opponent, Joe de Bruyn. As those behind him are applauding on their feet, the old man sits alone, stone-faced. The party voted up a pledge from Shorten for a free vote in his first 100 days of office, with a bind on all members in two parliament’s time if the free vote isn’t won.
It’s an image that shows everything Labor can get wrong as much as it can get right. Held back as much by its warlords, compromises and policy mistakes, the party of progress even yet sometimes moves itself forward.
