Alp Conference

When Gough Whitlam set out to reform the Labor Party and its structure in the 1960s, he was prepared to risk everything in the cause.

“You’ve got to crash through or you’ve got to crash,” he said. And he put first the deputy leadership, and then the leadership, on the line in a series of battles to achieve necessary change.

Now Labor needs reforming again. Urgently. Party elders warn it will wither and die unless drastic action is taken.

Continue reading "Is the party over for Labor?" »

It says a lot about changing community standards that a state such as Queensland, which under Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was every civil libertarian’s nightmare, has this week voted to recognise same-sex unions.

Or does it?

It could show that the Queensland Parliament has responded to majority community sentiment in support of gay marriage. Or it could just show that the Queensland Parliament is now home to a majority of MPs who support gay marriage.

Continue reading "Gay marriage: there’s nothing easy about “I do”" »

POLITICAL dropout Peter Costello is unlikely to have spent even a minute watching A-Pac’s live feed of this mundane ALP national conference. There’s every chance the footy-mad ex-treasurer is mooching around the house in his black and red tracky dacks watching Essendon tapes, his mind focussed on tomorrow’s do-or-die clash with West Coast as the Bombers try to keep their spot in the eight.

Had he tuned into proceedings from Darling Harbour, John Howard’s perpetual political bridesmaid would probably have had a bit of a knowing grin at watching Julia Gillard make her own transformation to the position he held for so long - warm-up act to a bloke who has no real intention of ever leaving the prime ministership.

Costello has spoken about the sense of tedium and frustration which accompanied his bib-and-bub act with John Howard at the annual Liberal Party conventions.

Continue reading "Julia is looking more and more like a future leader" »

I think that we in the ALP are better than our opponents in celebrating our history and honouring our own.

Whereas Malcolm Fraser is reviled by modern Liberals and the Democrats cannibalise their leadership, we revere our former Prime Ministers.

Past differences, old feuds and factional rivalries are forgotten as we celebrate success, and forget failures. I’ve seen, for instance, left-wing delegates cheer and give standing ovations to Paul Keating, their former nemesis. For us, Labor’s history is part of our present, and our future.

Continue reading "Honouring the greatest architect of consensus" »

King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV had extraordinarily big hands. They were imposing and strong – they were safe. They were the kind of hands that could be relied upon to dispense justice and steer the ship of state.

As the King of Tonga he made it into the Guinness Book of Records as the heaviest monarch ever, topping the scales at 209kg. To be big in Tonga was to be important and in a land of big people the King was clearly the biggest.

As a Labor child of the eighties the King confirmed my own observations of power.

Continue reading "Fall of the heavyweights: how the salad set took over Labor" »

There’s been a lot of talk recently about so-called “green shoots” springing up in our ravaged economy.

Some commentators have grasped a recent bounce in the stock market, a few surprisingly strong profit results overseas, and a benign sense of business confidence as evidence that the economy is on the path to recovery.

Well, it is time for a reality check.

Continue reading "Why unions will remain the voice of workers in Labor" »

What the public and the media want out of politicians are two very different things. The politicians whom journalists recall with misty-eyed affection tend to be those who had a sharp tongue both in public and in private, an uncontrollable ego, and were driven by such reformist zeal that they governed as if in a race against time to implement as much of their agenda as possible, regardless of the repurcussions.

If you ran a quick straw poll of any newsroom in the land, the favourites list would be topped by acid-tongued megalomaniacs such as Paul Keating or Jeff Kennett. It would also feature powderkegs such as Gough Whitlam, Nick Greiner or Don Dunstan who did so much in a short period that their governments fell apart because they had given scant thought to the political consequences of executing such a manic policy agenda.

Kevin Rudd would not make the list. Not even close.

Continue reading "Rudd’s boring, but he’s boring his way into history" »

You will all be aware of current demands for Australian Government procurement policies to include a “buy Australian” bias. The Government does not support such proposals. We remain resolutely committed to a non-discriminatory purchasing policy.

Australia is a signatory to numerous international agreements that seriously inhibit our ability to use discriminatory procurement policies. We have been vocal in international forums warning against the serious threat any upsurge in protectionism poses to the world economy. If we introduce protectionist measures like discriminatory procurement policies we will invite retaliation from other countries. As a trading nation, Australia stands to lose a great deal in any global outbreak of protectionism.

The notion that there are big gains for Australian companies and workers to be won from discriminatory procurement policies is essentially a mirage. Research by my Department that I am releasing today shows that the possible benefits are very modest.

Continue reading "Buy Australian not worth the risk to our economy" »

This week’s ALP National Conferences bears scant resemblance to the hey days of the seventies in Terrigal, when then-ACTU chief Bob Hawke cut deals in his budgie smugglers. 

There is not even the gauntlet of the fields of pokies that provided the surreal backdrop to proceedings for most of the nineties when the Conference called the Hobart casino home.

This week’s affair at Darling Harbour in Sydney will involve a lot less flesh and a lot less vice, but the dynamic tension between the political and industrial wings of the ALP will be on display for all to witness.

Continue reading "There will be blood: A guide to the ALP conference" »

Much has been written about the Rudd Government’s commitment to introduce a new era of transparency into our schools. As important as bricks and mortar or computers are, the Education Revolution is about more than infrastructure.

If some are to be believed the educational sky will fall in should the Government, and more importantly parents, be given simple information about the performance of schools in their neighbourhood and around the nation.

Some on the other hand, particularly in the NSW Parliament, is nothing more than base political manoeuvring. It has certainly seen some bizarre political marriages of convenience.

Continue reading "Parents deserve more information about schools" »

On Friday, 5th of June this year, my partner Beck and I were married in Vancouver, Canada. However, since arriving home in Australia, our marriage is no longer recognised, and this has brought significant sadness to our lives, and also to our families who were unable to travel to Vancouver to be with us on our special day. 

Beck and I are now in the bizarre predicament, that we are married in a growing number of countries in the world, but not married here in our own country.

Some people find this funny, saying we have the ‘best of both worlds’ we can get on a plane and be married one day, and get off a plane and be free of the ‘ball and chain’ the next. But this situation is far from funny to us. It is heartbreaking because we want to be married all the time, not just in certain parts of the world.

Continue reading "We’ve had the wedding. Why doesn’t our marriage count?" »

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner said yesterday on Meet the Press that the government choosing to buy Australian made products was like him doing his 15 year old daughter’s homework.

I’m not sure what he means by that, but it’s clear he hasn’t been doing his own homework when it comes to using the government’s stimulus packages to create the most jobs possible.

In fact, the government choosing to source products overseas is like getting the neighbour’s kids to come over and mow the lawn, and then wondering why your own kids are hitting you up for pocket money when you go to the shops.

Continue reading "Labor risks throwing away Australian jobs" »