The NSW Premier, Bob Carr, wants to kill off the factions in the Labor Party. Fresh from his election win he has announced a desire for the Labor Party in NSW to be more like the Labour Party in Britain where Tony Blair reinvigorated the party, leading it into government.
Mr Carr said he wanted to end branch-stacking, recruit new people, and change the ethos of the party to make its programs relevant to people who’ve never belonged to a trade union.
Mr Carr’s “”New Labor” would extend the base of traditional Labor – union members – with economic policies that allowed small business to prosper without radical changes to State industrial relations laws.
The idea makes good politics. The major party that captures the middle ground invariably wins government – Menzies and Wran are good examples. John Howard’s first campaign is also an example. A major party that gets too stepped in ideology or divided by ideological or faction brawls often loses – John Hewson in 1993 and pre-Whitlam Labor are good examples.
Indeed, Mr Carr’s success at the recent election must partly be put down to ideological division (resulting in leadership instability) in the Liberal Party.
But immediately after the election the factionalism broke out. Under Labor rules, Caucus votes for the 21-member ministry, though Mr Carr gets to allocate the portfolios. The various factions played a critical role in dumping or promoting certain MPs according to factional loyalty more than merit or policy, though Mr Carr got his way in some cases.
Mr Carr’s stated aims are good for the ultimate aim of retaining power and are good for promoting talent over time-serving. However, there are some drawbacks. Mr Carr must ensure that the attack on the tight organisation and structure of the factions within in party does not become an attack against diversity of opinion and ideas. The downside of factionalism is that it can become tribal with the factions regarding the capture of an office (whether ministerial or organisational) as a means of giving its faithful the spoils of office that flow from it – staff, travel, office space and equipment and so on. The upside of the factions is twofold. They can promote diversity of views and policies within the party, so it does not become a mono-culture and secondly, they can institutionalise friction so it does not become divisive.
Mr Carr is right to set his eyes on recruiting new blood, particularly from small business, and to promote pragmatic policies. However, his desire to reduce union control of the party can also be seen as revenge for union opposition to the privatisation of electricity. Clearly, Mr Carr, like Mr Blair before him, sees the union movement as an impediment to the pursuit of pragmatic policies that would be in the interests of the electorate, even if they offended those that retain power and position through strong unionism. There is nothing wrong in seeking to dilute union power over the party if done for the right reason.
Reducing the strength of the factions also has merit, provided it is not an excuse to centralise power and policy-making in the Premier’s office. One of the less pleasant aspects of Mr Blair’s New Labour in Britain has been the extraordinary level of control exercised by the Prime Minister’s office over other ministers, policy development and administration of policy.
Mr Carr may well wish to emulate the political success of Mr Blair, but he would do well to eschew any control-freak element that might emerge from a factionless party.