The Labor frontbencher Mark Butler has launched another blistering attack on rightwing opponents of party reform, declaring the current institutional pushback amounts to a “lazy” conclusion that “only the powerful can be trusted to wield power”.
With internal sensitivities heightened by Anthony Albanese’s speech last week, which contained implicit criticisms of Labor’s current direction, Butler doubled down on the push for democratisation in a left faction publication circulated ahead of this weekend’s New South Wales Labor conference.
“Fundamentally we cannot in good conscience say the Australian Labor party is a truly democratic, mass membership party,” Butler says in the new contribution seen by Guardian Australia.
“We are a party whose membership is at best stagnating in numbers, whose members cry out for more participation and empowerment, and whose structures are determined by the habits of the past, rather than the challenges of the future.”
He says opponents of reform argue greater democratisation “is a dangerous or at best pointless indulgence”.
“That argument contends that factional warlords and hired experts can provide all we need to formulate policy agendas and run election-winning campaigns,” Butler says.
“They argue that giving the membership a real say risks a radical party platform and an unelectable party, even if it does deliver an enthused, engaged and growing membership.
“They point to the experience of UK Labour and argue an Australian version of what is assumed to be the unelectable Jeremy Corbyn will be the inevitable result of trusting our membership to have a real say in who represents us and what their platform should say.”
He says that argument says “those who hold power or wealth do so because they deserve to, according to some handed-down entitlement”.
“That entitlement to power may be more common in the history of humanity and the history of our party, but it falls short of what we do strive towards for Australia, and what we should strive towards for our party”.
Butler’s push for greater democratisation was a significant backdrop to the recent campaign for the ALP presidency, which was ultimately won by the Queensland rightwinger Wayne Swan, who ran on a platform of making Labor’s economic policy more progressive.
The right faction traditionally resists democratisation sorties on the basis that it boosts the power of the left in party forums. Rightwing power brokers – infuriated by Butler’s campaigning – are currently pushing for a prohibition on serving frontbenchers nominating themselves to run to be the ALP president in direct response to persistent provocations.
Swan, in claiming victory in the presidential battle, took a swipe at Butler, declaring Labor’s success “won’t be determined by tinkering with internal processes or by the outcome of votes over single issues at national conference”.
“To get new members coming through our door, and a new generation campaigning and voting for us, we have to show them we mean business about creating a better, more democratic and more equal society,” Swan said.
Butler’s latest incursion follows Albanese’s decision last week to use the opportunity of the Gough Whitlam address to articulate his own broad-ranging vision for Labor in 2018, noting the ALP can’t expect to “slide into government off the back of our opponent’s failures” and saying it is not good enough to say to voters “elect us because the other mob are useless”.
Albanese also backed the push for party democratisation. He noted grassroots members must be given more direct say in elections for public office and internal positions and “maintain our internal processes that emphasise policymaking from the bottom up”.
Butler concedes in the new article the left is unlikely to achieve a breakthrough at the December national conference “or even the national conference after that, but it is an ideal we can never stop fighting for”.
He urges fellow leftwingers to maintain momentum: “I won’t be giving up on this fight, and neither should you.”
