Factions

Nathan Rees’s move to ambush the Labor factions and go directly to his Party Conference for the power to appoint his Cabinet was audacious. In my 30 years as an ALP member I can barely recall a gutsier attempt to reclaim the high ground. It will at least temporarily stop the rot for NSW Labor – and if he follows on with more unilateral displays of strength it may actually start turning things around.

By taking control of Cabinet appointments Rees did more than achieve a short term political objective – he made a critically important long-term reform to culture of the ALP in NSW.

For too long factionalism has stunted Labor’s ability to nurture and develop the best talent the Party has to offer.

Continue reading "The mouse that roared may have changed Labor forever" »

UPDATE: Nathan Rees has sacked Joe Tripodi and Ian Macdonald from Cabinet.

In political terms the equivalent of a nuclear bomb has just gone off in Sydney. It has immediate ramifications for some of the most hated figures in the deeply unpopular NSW Government.

But it has massive national long-term implications, as it will determine whether Labor leaders have the right to choose their own ministry, rather than have their frontbench foisted upon them by the factions.

In a gutsy gamble, NSW Premier Nathan Rees has gone for the doomsday scenario revealed on The Punch some weeks ago by taking on the factions and winning rank-and-file party approval to form his own Cabinet by dumping unpopular or treacherous ministers. And Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has just strongly backed Rees in her speech to the NSW ALP, and Kevin Rudd has done so in a press conference at APEC.

Continue reading "Rees’ gutsy gamble rewrites the rules of Labor politics" »

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" »