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We might follow leaders we got to pick ourselves

by Sassoon Grigorian

17 Nov 05:55am

Filed under: Leadership, Politics, Primaries

39 comments

Should other than Caucus members of Parliament determine the leadership of an Australian political party?

We're yet to see how things turn out for Ed Miliband. Picture: AFP

We have all known that despite all the talk, the leadership of political parties are not determined solely by Caucus members of Parliament, they are influenced by a range of factors including public sentiment and in the case of the Labor party, the leaders of relevant trade unions.

The release of Paul Howes’ book, In Confessions Of a Faceless Man, does not diminish those assertions.

Continue reading "We might follow leaders we got to pick ourselves" »

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persephone says:

04:37pm | 17/11/10

James something like this has been tried a couple of times in Australia and it failed dismally. The reason was that party members tend to elect people like themselves. Now, Australia has a very low level of party membership. I think it’s less than 1% of citizens who belong to… Read more »
persephone says:

04:28pm | 17/11/10

Julia Gillard was elected by her constituents to represent them. She was elected by her parliamentary party to be its leader. The nation, in our form of democracy, does not decide who the leader is to be. Each of us votes for a local representative. Those local representatives then vote… Read more »

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