Andrew Whitecross did not waste any time. The first business day after the federal election he moved decisively against Rosemary Follett and took the leadership of the ACT parliamentary Labor Party from her. It had been coming a long time. He could not, of course, have moved before the election because it would have looked bad of Labor. As it happened, it probably would not have made much difference; pebbles do not add much to landslides. In January, when the mutterings within the Labor Party became audible without, and this paper headlined that Ms Follett’s days were numbered, the official response from Mr Whitecross and Ms Follett was monomorphic: Rosemary has been the leader since self-government, she is the leader and she will remain leader. She has the total support of the parliamentary party.
On the other side of politics, the Liberals had been enjoying Ms Follett’s leadership. There was not much fire in it and it did not make for an effective opposition. They would not like a change. And thus, the Liberals pulled the rug from under one leg of a possible leadership challenge by Mr Whitecross with Terry Connolly as his deputy. Mr Connolly was offered and accepted a judicial post. Now the Liberals have to contend with a very much weakened Labor leadership team. Mr Connolly was by far Labor’s most articulate and intelligent MLA and most representative of moderate centrist government. But he came from the wrong faction; so there was no future for him.
Similarly, Bill Wood comes from the wrong faction, so there is no future for him. But though he represents a more palatable centrist political philosophy he obviously does not have the talent of a Terry Connolly to seek a better future elsewhere.
So what was Monday’s leadership vote about. It was a vote in a phone booth among the four factional leftists … who are too divided to even call a gang … to replace one of their kind with another, while Mr Wood stood outside like someone with an urgent call to make while those inside prattled endless irrelevancies. Mr Wood’s call was essentially to tell the Labor Party in the ACT to broaden its agenda beyond the ideological left.
His message should not have been needed. It should have been obvious from the Federal election. There was Annette Ellis, cruelly pushed down the ticket at the last Assembly election by a Whitecross-union alliance despite her good local work, voted in federally against all the odds after Labor’s disastrous by-election a year ago when it put the far-left party machine choice Sue Robinson in as the candidate.
Despite the message, ACT Labor rushed in with indecent haste. In a cynical exercise of numbers politics, Mr Whitecross did not wait for Mr Connolly’s replacement in the Assembly to be installed to take part in a more democratic vote for the leadership. Heavens, someone not of the left faction might be given a chance to have a say.
Labor is now out of government in every state and territory except NSW. Labor has a choice. Either it becomes an irrelevant protest clique of the far left, or it regroups to retake the centre ground and become a meaningful opposition against conservative parties that could very easily move to the destructive right. ACT voters will be anxious to see what Mr Whitecross’s choice is.