WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.160 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. 2 00:00:01.560 --> 00:00:02.880 My name's Chris Schott. 3 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:05.220 I've been asked to chair this session 4 00:00:05.820 --> 00:00:08.000 on what's the future for the Labor Party, 5 00:00:08.920 --> 00:00:11.340 and a speech to be given to us by Judith Brett. 6 00:00:12.300 --> 00:00:14.300 In a moment, I'll introduce Judith 7 00:00:14.300 --> 00:00:19.460 with her most distinguished academic writing career. 8 00:00:21.160 --> 00:00:22.820 The usual rules will apply. 9 00:00:23.020 --> 00:00:25.320 First of all, turn your mobile phone off if you've got one. 10 00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:29.240 Secondly, Judith will speak for about 25 minutes, 11 00:00:29.240 --> 00:00:31.340 and there'll be about 20 minutes for questions. 12 00:00:31.700 --> 00:00:34.220 If you are a Labor Party member and want to ask a question, 13 00:00:34.280 --> 00:00:36.080 I'll ask you to tell me which faction you're in 14 00:00:36.080 --> 00:00:41.700 so that we can send out the death squad for the guilty 15 00:00:42.440 --> 00:00:44.720 of putting the Labor Party where it is today, 16 00:00:44.980 --> 00:00:47.380 successfully elected in every state and territory, 17 00:00:47.580 --> 00:00:48.880 government and landslide elections, 18 00:00:49.160 --> 00:00:51.380 but can't lay a glove, a feather, 19 00:00:51.460 --> 00:00:52.480 or whatever you want to call it, 20 00:00:52.520 --> 00:00:54.840 on John Howard and the Liberals at the national level. 21 00:00:55.140 --> 00:00:57.700 And it's a strange dichotomy we have 22 00:00:58.620 --> 00:00:59.220 in the... 23 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:00.240 in Australian politics, 24 00:01:00.680 --> 00:01:03.080 where at one level, the Liberals are hopeless 25 00:01:03.080 --> 00:01:05.380 in an area where they should be the strongest 26 00:01:05.380 --> 00:01:06.920 because they're the state rights party, 27 00:01:07.760 --> 00:01:10.100 and the Labor Party, who is the national party 28 00:01:10.100 --> 00:01:13.280 with a view of centralist activity, et cetera, 29 00:01:13.360 --> 00:01:14.980 is hopeless at the federal level. 30 00:01:15.400 --> 00:01:17.000 And it is a... 31 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:19.080 in all the history of the Labor Party, 32 00:01:20.200 --> 00:01:23.680 in our 115 years of glorious history 33 00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:25.840 of defeats, martyrdom, 34 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:27.580 and occasional victory, 35 00:01:27.700 --> 00:01:28.780 we've never before, 36 00:01:29.240 --> 00:01:31.260 had every state and federal... 37 00:01:31.860 --> 00:01:33.820 every state and territory government 38 00:01:33.820 --> 00:01:35.340 held by the Labor Party. 39 00:01:35.540 --> 00:01:37.940 And it's almost now a trivial pursuit question. 40 00:01:38.040 --> 00:01:40.500 You have to find out when was the last time 41 00:01:40.500 --> 00:01:42.820 the Liberal Party at the state and territory level 42 00:01:42.820 --> 00:01:44.740 won an election in Australia. 43 00:01:45.060 --> 00:01:46.540 It's actually August... 44 00:01:47.300 --> 00:01:48.140 sorry, it's 1997, 45 00:01:48.920 --> 00:01:50.820 the state election in South Australia 46 00:01:50.820 --> 00:01:53.100 in September 1997. 47 00:01:53.900 --> 00:01:55.520 So it's been a long time. 48 00:01:55.600 --> 00:01:58.060 But in the meantime, since 96, of course, 49 00:01:59.240 --> 00:02:01.220 the drought's been on the other foot, so to speak. 50 00:02:01.900 --> 00:02:07.060 And it is an issue that the Labor Party has to deal with. 51 00:02:07.180 --> 00:02:10.440 And I notice in our distinguished guest speakers elsewhere 52 00:02:10.440 --> 00:02:13.060 in this festival of ideas, John Caine, 53 00:02:13.240 --> 00:02:15.880 Labor Premier for eight years in Victoria, 54 00:02:17.160 --> 00:02:20.940 is a speaker in other forums. 55 00:02:22.120 --> 00:02:25.540 John Caine, I have to say, I hope he can join us at some stage 56 00:02:25.540 --> 00:02:28.900 and might make a contribution because he's been one of the people, 57 00:02:28.900 --> 00:02:31.620 in Victoria and Australia, in the Labor Party, 58 00:02:31.700 --> 00:02:33.820 arguing for some fundamental changes 59 00:02:33.820 --> 00:02:38.800 in the way the Labor Party operates and organises itself. 60 00:02:40.320 --> 00:02:42.900 My own view is that at the state level, 61 00:02:43.020 --> 00:02:45.200 the tide will gradually go out 62 00:02:45.200 --> 00:02:47.980 after you win a couple of elections at the state level. 63 00:02:48.140 --> 00:02:50.340 The pun to say, well, give the other mob a go, 64 00:02:50.380 --> 00:02:52.100 nothing much changes at the state level, 65 00:02:52.220 --> 00:02:53.380 whether they're Labor or Liberal. 66 00:02:53.760 --> 00:02:57.580 It's all about management of who can keep the hospital door open longest 67 00:02:57.580 --> 00:02:58.880 or keep the school open. 68 00:02:58.880 --> 00:03:00.300 The school's painted more freshly, 69 00:03:00.420 --> 00:03:02.260 and those services are the sort of issues. 70 00:03:03.400 --> 00:03:07.400 And if the Labor Party did start losing state elections 71 00:03:07.400 --> 00:03:09.180 and didn't win a federal election, 72 00:03:09.400 --> 00:03:12.020 then I think the issues that Judith is now raising 73 00:03:12.020 --> 00:03:15.540 about the future of the Labor Party would be absolutely upfront. 74 00:03:16.620 --> 00:03:19.420 My own comment, and we'll come back to this in question time, 75 00:03:19.580 --> 00:03:23.340 is the Labor Party is almost comfortable with the present situation 76 00:03:23.340 --> 00:03:27.480 of having all the state and territory governments in their hands 77 00:03:28.880 --> 00:03:31.080 and let's not worry too much about the federal 78 00:03:31.080 --> 00:03:33.200 because we've got all this patronage, 79 00:03:33.220 --> 00:03:34.520 all these appointments, legislation. 80 00:03:35.080 --> 00:03:35.980 We look happy. 81 00:03:36.120 --> 00:03:40.540 We've got white cars, ministerial advisers, et cetera, et cetera. 82 00:03:40.620 --> 00:03:42.860 And it all looks like we're actually in power 83 00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:46.400 when John Howard has made it quite clear state governments aren't 84 00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:49.420 in power anymore because he's got the money and they haven't. 85 00:03:49.500 --> 00:03:53.620 And so in the end, as an old unreconstructed Gough Whitlamite, 86 00:03:54.260 --> 00:03:56.960 I believe I'd rather have one federal Labor government 87 00:03:56.960 --> 00:03:58.860 and eight territory, state and territory governments, 88 00:03:58.860 --> 00:04:02.280 so long as the federal Labor government's got the money. 89 00:04:02.460 --> 00:04:06.440 Because therefore you can direct outcomes even on liberal states. 90 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:10.700 Howard has now become the great centralist of Australian politics. 91 00:04:11.060 --> 00:04:14.320 He's now doing things that if Whitlam had suggested back 92 00:04:14.320 --> 00:04:18.340 in the mid-70s, liberal premiers, Bolte, Askin, 93 00:04:18.380 --> 00:04:21.380 would have torn the roof off everything in Australia. 94 00:04:21.760 --> 00:04:24.480 So it is a strange process we're in. 95 00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:28.600 With those few prejudicial remarks, 96 00:04:28.740 --> 00:04:28.840 I'd like to thank you. 97 00:04:28.860 --> 00:04:29.300 I'd like to thank you. 98 00:04:30.100 --> 00:04:30.500 I'd like to thank you. 99 00:04:30.500 --> 00:04:32.640 As you know, I am a member of the Labor Party. 100 00:04:33.480 --> 00:04:36.580 I now have great pleasure in introducing Judith. 101 00:04:37.940 --> 00:04:40.800 Judith, if you've seen the, I'm not going to read it out, 102 00:04:40.820 --> 00:04:43.660 in the booklet, the background, it is extraordinarily impressive. 103 00:04:43.920 --> 00:04:45.400 And what really is impressive for me, 104 00:04:45.580 --> 00:04:47.560 she wants to write about the Liberal Party. 105 00:04:49.300 --> 00:04:52.880 And she'll explain why that's sort of a form of masochism, 106 00:04:52.880 --> 00:04:55.480 I suppose, to write about the Liberal Party. 107 00:04:55.520 --> 00:04:57.520 When most academics and a lot of other people write 108 00:04:57.520 --> 00:04:58.520 about the Labor Party. 109 00:04:59.620 --> 00:05:02.200 One anecdote about books and the Labor Party. 110 00:05:02.440 --> 00:05:04.980 Barry Cohen, former Labor Minister, 111 00:05:05.980 --> 00:05:09.180 member of the Labor Party for all his life, 112 00:05:09.940 --> 00:05:13.280 a successful politician, is a good writer, a great raconteur. 113 00:05:13.640 --> 00:05:17.220 He has written several books on anecdotal stories, 114 00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:19.580 anthologies of politics. 115 00:05:19.880 --> 00:05:22.760 And he told me no matter what the book is, 116 00:05:22.860 --> 00:05:24.340 what's in it about politics, 117 00:05:24.460 --> 00:05:28.340 if you can get Gough Whitlam's name on the front page and Gough's 118 00:05:28.340 --> 00:05:31.480 in the title, no matter what the content later on is, 119 00:05:31.620 --> 00:05:32.780 you'll sell the book. 120 00:05:33.160 --> 00:05:36.280 And the publisher says it's worth 15,000 in Australia. 121 00:05:36.860 --> 00:05:39.960 Judith might explain why she thinks people are willing 122 00:05:39.960 --> 00:05:42.680 to buy Labor Party books and that's why there are more 123 00:05:42.680 --> 00:05:43.180 of them around. 124 00:05:43.440 --> 00:05:46.500 But she has taken what is absolutely important 125 00:05:47.320 --> 00:05:50.600 for a civilized political society is to write about the, 126 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:53.700 ensure that the other side of politics, the Liberal Party, 127 00:05:53.780 --> 00:05:57.160 the non-Labor side, has got detailed writings about it. 128 00:05:57.180 --> 00:05:58.320 So that we, as a society, can write about it. 129 00:05:58.340 --> 00:06:01.900 So that we, as a society, have a memory of what's gone 130 00:06:01.900 --> 00:06:04.940 on in the last hundred years plus in Australian politics. 131 00:06:05.400 --> 00:06:07.860 Ladies and gentlemen, would you give Judith a big warm welcome. 132 00:06:14.840 --> 00:06:17.340 Okay, now at this Festival of Ideas, 133 00:06:17.380 --> 00:06:19.820 which we've all been going to, we've been hearing lots of ideas. 134 00:06:20.400 --> 00:06:21.420 What is to be done? 135 00:06:21.500 --> 00:06:23.380 People think what is to be done, you have an idea. 136 00:06:23.700 --> 00:06:26.780 I want to say I actually also think we have to have institutions. 137 00:06:26.780 --> 00:06:30.480 So this talk is about institutions, not so much 138 00:06:30.480 --> 00:06:31.480 about ideas, although I hope. 139 00:06:33.180 --> 00:06:36.360 And the problem about what is to be done is the Federal Labor Party, 140 00:06:36.580 --> 00:06:39.440 which we all know has lost four elections since 1996. 141 00:06:40.440 --> 00:06:42.740 And is facing many and various problems. 142 00:06:43.460 --> 00:06:47.360 Now whether or not one votes Labor, the present problems 143 00:06:47.360 --> 00:06:50.400 of our Federal opposition I think are a problem for us all. 144 00:06:50.900 --> 00:06:52.680 They leave the coalition government, 145 00:06:52.980 --> 00:06:56.520 my typeface is not big enough, they leave the coalition government 146 00:06:56.780 --> 00:06:58.940 without an effective opponent, which is never good. 147 00:06:59.160 --> 00:07:01.380 And as we know, it's more of a problem now 148 00:07:01.380 --> 00:07:03.760 that the government maybe controls the Senate. 149 00:07:03.880 --> 00:07:05.720 I'm saying that maybe because the press has been going 150 00:07:05.720 --> 00:07:06.960 on about them controlling the Senate. 151 00:07:07.060 --> 00:07:09.100 I'm not actually so sure that it looks like control. 152 00:07:10.120 --> 00:07:13.200 But an effective opposition is a check on executive power 153 00:07:13.800 --> 00:07:15.600 and a government which faces a strong opposition 154 00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:17.400 and that has a realistic chance 155 00:07:17.400 --> 00:07:20.540 of being defeated behaves very differently from one 156 00:07:20.540 --> 00:07:22.520 which faces weakness and disunity. 157 00:07:22.880 --> 00:07:25.760 And as well, a lot of Australians didn't vote for Howard. 158 00:07:25.880 --> 00:07:26.300 So, I think that's a good point. 159 00:07:27.060 --> 00:07:28.900 Remember the two party preferred vote 160 00:07:28.900 --> 00:07:31.020 at the last election is 52.74. 161 00:07:31.400 --> 00:07:35.820 That is 5% swing Labor would be in government. 162 00:07:36.060 --> 00:07:42.520 So, this, there's a way in which the media writes which is a sort 163 00:07:42.520 --> 00:07:45.060 of winner takes all way of writing. 164 00:07:45.220 --> 00:07:48.380 And they write about Australia is now Howard's territory sort 165 00:07:48.380 --> 00:07:48.680 of thing. 166 00:07:48.820 --> 00:07:51.820 As if somehow the whole of Australia is now convinced 167 00:07:51.820 --> 00:07:53.080 by the way Howard is governing. 168 00:07:53.260 --> 00:07:56.460 And I, you just, every time I see that I say, well, you know, 169 00:07:56.460 --> 00:07:57.480 it was a few percent. 170 00:07:58.580 --> 00:08:00.940 And so, I think we have to remember that. 171 00:08:04.960 --> 00:08:07.380 Hang on, I've put my pages out of order. 172 00:08:07.440 --> 00:08:07.840 Sorry about this. 173 00:08:08.040 --> 00:08:13.680 I want to, I thought, so, there's, it's, I think, and Chris 174 00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:16.760 has in a sense already said, made one point about this 175 00:08:16.760 --> 00:08:20.820 that we shouldn't, Labor supporters should not be 176 00:08:20.820 --> 00:08:25.780 too pessimistic about the state of Labor at the moment. 177 00:08:25.780 --> 00:08:28.400 I was writing in the 1980s and I was writing 178 00:08:28.400 --> 00:08:29.480 about the Liberal Party then. 179 00:08:29.660 --> 00:08:32.240 And I was almost tempted to write articles 180 00:08:32.240 --> 00:08:33.840 which said the party was over. 181 00:08:34.440 --> 00:08:38.860 Remember the, the, the 80s and what a mess they were in and how, 182 00:08:39.020 --> 00:08:43.560 you know, Howard and then Peacock and then Houston and Downer 183 00:08:43.560 --> 00:08:44.320 and then Howard again. 184 00:08:44.380 --> 00:08:46.340 And they really were, particularly 185 00:08:46.340 --> 00:08:48.580 after the 1993 election, in a terrible way. 186 00:08:48.960 --> 00:08:50.920 And things can turn around very quickly. 187 00:08:51.020 --> 00:08:52.260 And then the other thing, of course, 188 00:08:52.300 --> 00:08:55.420 is to remember is the fact that Labor's got all the states. 189 00:08:55.420 --> 00:08:59.480 So that if you actually add up all the seats in all the 190 00:08:59.480 --> 00:09:02.460 legislatures in Australia, Labor's got more of them than 191 00:09:02.460 --> 00:09:04.320 the Liberals or the coalition. 192 00:09:05.540 --> 00:09:09.520 And of course, because particularly the Australian is 193 00:09:09.520 --> 00:09:13.280 so focused on national politics and our, our commentary is so 194 00:09:13.280 --> 00:09:16.020 focused on national politics, they write about Australia as 195 00:09:16.020 --> 00:09:18.520 if somehow it's now totally Howard territory. 196 00:09:19.100 --> 00:09:21.960 Now, I thought that I should, I wanted to say something 197 00:09:21.960 --> 00:09:23.140 about where I was coming from. 198 00:09:23.360 --> 00:09:25.400 I just, I'm a political scientist. 199 00:09:25.420 --> 00:09:25.620 I'm a political historian. 200 00:09:26.020 --> 00:09:27.740 And I've published two books on the Liberal Party. 201 00:09:27.960 --> 00:09:31.280 I published a book called Robert Menzies' Forgotten People, 202 00:09:31.500 --> 00:09:34.340 which was an essay about, about Menzies. 203 00:09:34.480 --> 00:09:37.260 And I've just published, or I published a year or so ago, 204 00:09:38.060 --> 00:09:41.520 a book that I've got a postcard of called Australian Liberals 205 00:09:41.520 --> 00:09:42.840 and the Moral Middle Class. 206 00:09:43.160 --> 00:09:46.040 Now, I dedicated this book to my grandparents, 207 00:09:46.500 --> 00:09:49.880 none of whom voted Labor, and their grandchildren, 208 00:09:50.120 --> 00:09:53.480 most of whom do, including myself. 209 00:09:54.420 --> 00:09:55.400 I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, 210 00:09:55.420 --> 00:09:58.440 just to protect them for the next year 211 00:09:58.440 --> 00:09:59.260 and to protect them for the next year and to protect them 212 00:09:59.260 --> 00:10:01.580 for the next year and to protect them for the next year 213 00:10:01.580 --> 00:10:05.160 and to protect them for the next year 214 00:10:05.160 --> 00:10:08.880 and to protect them for the next year 215 00:10:08.880 --> 00:10:09.580 and to protect them for the next year 216 00:10:09.580 --> 00:10:10.360 and to protect them for the next year 217 00:10:10.360 --> 00:10:10.720 and to protect them for the next year 218 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:12.460 and to protect them for the next year 219 00:10:12.460 --> 00:10:12.980 and to protect them for the next year 220 00:10:12.980 --> 00:10:13.460 and to protect them for the next year 221 00:10:13.460 --> 00:10:13.480 and to protect them for the next year 222 00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:13.760 and to protect them for the next year 223 00:10:13.760 --> 00:10:13.840 and to protect them for the next year 224 00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:14.600 and to protect them for the next year 225 00:10:14.600 --> 00:10:15.560 and to protect them for the next year 226 00:10:15.560 --> 00:10:16.100 and to protect them for the next year 227 00:10:16.100 --> 00:10:17.340 and to protect them for the next year 228 00:10:17.340 --> 00:10:20.260 and to protect them for the next year 229 00:10:20.260 --> 00:10:24.340 and to protect them for the next year 230 00:10:24.340 --> 00:10:25.400 and to protect them for the next year 231 00:10:25.400 --> 00:10:27.040 friends and relations and your students. 232 00:10:28.040 --> 00:10:32.620 And this is not just about writing a book that people are not so interested in, 233 00:10:32.680 --> 00:10:37.820 but it's because I think to understand the history of both Labor and Liberals, 234 00:10:39.680 --> 00:10:43.280 I think of the party system as being made like two boxers 235 00:10:43.280 --> 00:10:47.280 who are totally intent on boxing each other 236 00:10:47.280 --> 00:10:49.880 but like to pretend that neither of the other one exists. 237 00:10:50.540 --> 00:10:53.760 But actually they only make sense of where they are, 238 00:10:53.760 --> 00:10:55.080 where they're aiming, 239 00:10:55.960 --> 00:11:00.340 what the surrounding context is that they're trying to respond to 240 00:11:00.340 --> 00:11:04.580 if you also see that everything they do is they have one eye on the opponent. 241 00:11:05.340 --> 00:11:10.960 So Chris talked about the way in which academics have written the story of Australian politics 242 00:11:10.960 --> 00:11:12.540 very much from the left perspective. 243 00:11:13.020 --> 00:11:16.660 And I think what it's done, and I think it's one of the reasons 244 00:11:16.660 --> 00:11:20.960 not just the Labor Party but the left in general is floundering around at the moment, 245 00:11:21.060 --> 00:11:23.300 it means they actually don't understand. 246 00:11:23.760 --> 00:11:28.020 They don't understand where Liberals, they don't understand where Liberalism and the Liberal parties come from, 247 00:11:28.120 --> 00:11:32.460 they don't understand the historical experiences that it's drawn on 248 00:11:32.460 --> 00:11:38.800 and that means that they are not able then to be politically effective. 249 00:11:40.020 --> 00:11:43.000 Because you know you have to understand your opponent 250 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:46.580 and you don't understand your opponent by name calling them, 251 00:11:46.680 --> 00:11:52.280 which is what I think has been a lot of what's gone on with the left's response to Howard. 252 00:11:52.360 --> 00:11:53.740 I've got a quarterly essay coming out, 253 00:11:53.740 --> 00:11:59.080 which is called Relaxed and Comfortable, The Liberal Party's Australia. 254 00:11:59.680 --> 00:12:06.040 And it is in some sense an attempt to try to give a more rounded portrait of Howard. 255 00:12:06.100 --> 00:12:09.420 To say Howard is not actually a sort of xenophobic racist 256 00:12:09.420 --> 00:12:12.780 who's got all of these ideas from American right wing think tanks 257 00:12:12.780 --> 00:12:15.920 or the various other caricatures of Howard that have been around. 258 00:12:16.060 --> 00:12:18.940 Because if that's what you think, you're never going to land a punch at all. 259 00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:22.860 You actually have to look long and hard at 260 00:12:22.860 --> 00:12:30.920 where he has drawn his ideas and the experiences from which he's speaking. 261 00:12:31.420 --> 00:12:37.480 But as a political historian, it seems to me that the central task that I've given myself 262 00:12:37.480 --> 00:12:42.140 is that you have to be able to move around and inhabit the different positions in a political conflict 263 00:12:42.140 --> 00:12:47.540 and see that they have their own internal logic and consistency. 264 00:12:49.020 --> 00:12:52.360 Because you know people are not on the whole, 265 00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:53.820 hypocrites and liars. 266 00:12:54.260 --> 00:12:56.460 Generally most people who are in politics 267 00:12:56.460 --> 00:13:01.440 are motivated by a combination of ideals and ambition. 268 00:13:01.820 --> 00:13:05.560 You know I don't even buy that the factions are as bad as... 269 00:13:06.920 --> 00:13:09.520 You know that there's a combination and those ideals 270 00:13:10.440 --> 00:13:13.440 have sources in our shared national experience. 271 00:13:13.720 --> 00:13:15.640 And that's what I think it's important to understand. 272 00:13:15.800 --> 00:13:19.020 Anyway, that's the end of my promotional rave. 273 00:13:20.400 --> 00:13:22.340 And I've got some postcards to encourage you to read. 274 00:13:22.360 --> 00:13:23.120 I encourage you to buy my book. 275 00:13:24.420 --> 00:13:27.120 Now, back to the topic of today, 276 00:13:27.380 --> 00:13:30.780 which is what can the Labor Party learn from the Liberal Party? 277 00:13:30.940 --> 00:13:33.740 The Liberal Party has in the past learned from the Labor Party. 278 00:13:33.940 --> 00:13:39.820 In 1944-45, when the party that was then in the sort of political space 279 00:13:39.820 --> 00:13:43.060 that the Liberals are now in, the United Australia Party, 280 00:13:43.160 --> 00:13:45.800 was in a worse state than the Labor Party now is, 281 00:13:45.940 --> 00:13:47.120 much worse state, 282 00:13:48.980 --> 00:13:52.080 Menzies looked hard at what were some of the things 283 00:13:52.080 --> 00:13:54.740 that Labor had going for it at that stage. 284 00:13:54.860 --> 00:13:56.840 One was it had a unified national organisation. 285 00:13:57.220 --> 00:14:00.580 Two was it had a reasonable branch structure 286 00:14:00.580 --> 00:14:04.940 and a degree of financial autonomy. 287 00:14:05.400 --> 00:14:07.320 It wasn't at that stage the United Australia Party 288 00:14:07.320 --> 00:14:10.540 basically was run by a lot of big business interests 289 00:14:10.540 --> 00:14:12.940 who called in favours for political donations. 290 00:14:13.660 --> 00:14:15.900 So Liberals have learned from Labor. 291 00:14:15.980 --> 00:14:19.920 I think now that there are some things that Labor can learn from the Liberal Party. 292 00:14:23.920 --> 00:14:27.400 Essentially what I'm going to talk about is much more to do with winning elections. 293 00:14:27.740 --> 00:14:29.760 We might want to talk about some of the other issues 294 00:14:29.760 --> 00:14:31.360 about the party in the discussion. 295 00:14:31.900 --> 00:14:35.640 But the argument in a nutshell that I want to put is that 296 00:14:36.200 --> 00:14:39.180 the electorate has changed in ways that the Liberal Party 297 00:14:39.180 --> 00:14:41.900 has been able to respond to much better than the Labor Party. 298 00:14:42.680 --> 00:14:47.920 This is because the Liberals have always had to work harder for their votes than Labor. 299 00:14:48.120 --> 00:14:49.940 I suppose that's the crux of my argument. 300 00:14:50.820 --> 00:14:52.060 So that has meant that the party has changed. 301 00:14:52.060 --> 00:14:54.300 I think that they've been a more electorally savvy party. 302 00:14:56.400 --> 00:14:59.600 I did think that there was going to be an overhead projector here 303 00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:01.140 and I was going to be able to show you a table. 304 00:15:01.540 --> 00:15:02.540 However, there isn't. 305 00:15:04.620 --> 00:15:08.820 I just want to report on a few statistics. 306 00:15:09.080 --> 00:15:14.920 In 1967, Don Aitken, who was a political scientist at the ANU, 307 00:15:14.980 --> 00:15:19.400 did the first of the big national surveys of Australian political opinions. 308 00:15:19.680 --> 00:15:21.920 It was when, you know, computer surveys, 309 00:15:21.920 --> 00:15:26.680 were still done on those great big cards with hole punches and stuff. 310 00:15:26.900 --> 00:15:30.140 But it was the first use of that sort of mass, 311 00:15:30.480 --> 00:15:34.060 being able to use computer technology to do some of this mass survey research, 312 00:15:34.240 --> 00:15:37.260 which for historians working, you know, pre about 1960, 313 00:15:37.740 --> 00:15:40.260 you just don't have, apart from the censuses, 314 00:15:40.300 --> 00:15:43.020 you don't have that sort of access to opinions. 315 00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:45.880 Now what he found in 1967, 316 00:15:46.280 --> 00:15:49.420 he asked people about the strength of their party identification. 317 00:15:50.360 --> 00:15:51.900 And he found that, you know, the party was a political party. 318 00:15:51.900 --> 00:15:55.320 And he found that, you know, the party was a political party. 319 00:15:55.320 --> 00:15:57.980 That for the, when you ask Labour Party people, 320 00:15:58.100 --> 00:16:01.500 who said they voted, you know, that they were Labour Party identifiers, 321 00:16:01.680 --> 00:16:03.240 how strongly they identified, 322 00:16:03.520 --> 00:16:08.200 37% of people who voted Labour said they identified very strongly. 323 00:16:08.320 --> 00:16:12.320 That is, they picked the most extreme point on the five point scale. 324 00:16:13.500 --> 00:16:15.380 In contrast for the Liberal National Party, 325 00:16:15.620 --> 00:16:18.920 only 27% said they identified very strongly. 326 00:16:19.320 --> 00:16:21.200 And I suspect, unfortunately, 327 00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:24.400 he hasn't separated the old country party and the Liberals, 328 00:16:24.440 --> 00:16:27.620 but I suspect that much of that will have been boosted by the fact 329 00:16:27.620 --> 00:16:31.100 that country party people were very strong identifiers with their party. 330 00:16:33.160 --> 00:16:38.020 When you get to 1996, you find that 19%, 331 00:16:38.020 --> 00:16:42.840 only 19% for both parties choose the very strong identifier. 332 00:16:44.080 --> 00:16:49.040 So that means that fewer of us now identify strongly with the party than in the past, 333 00:16:49.100 --> 00:16:51.180 but this is a bigger change for the Labour Party, 334 00:16:51.180 --> 00:16:52.300 than it is for the Liberal Party. 335 00:16:57.800 --> 00:17:03.900 Labour's lost essentially nearly 20% of its support base, 336 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:07.600 who once felt passionate and now feel much less passionately Labour. 337 00:17:07.900 --> 00:17:12.180 Now this drop in passionate Labour people is identified, 338 00:17:12.500 --> 00:17:16.000 or is linked with another change in the electorate since the 1960s. 339 00:17:16.620 --> 00:17:20.180 The electorate is now much better informed about politics, 340 00:17:20.220 --> 00:17:21.160 and much more interested in politics. 341 00:17:21.160 --> 00:17:21.960 It's much more interested than it used to be. 342 00:17:23.180 --> 00:17:25.280 And as political interest has increased, 343 00:17:26.140 --> 00:17:27.640 loyal partisanship has declined. 344 00:17:27.960 --> 00:17:29.960 That is, the more we know about our political leaders, 345 00:17:30.040 --> 00:17:32.700 the less passionately attached we feel to them. 346 00:17:34.080 --> 00:17:36.340 This is not necessarily a bad thing, 347 00:17:37.220 --> 00:17:40.400 but it has had bigger implications for Labour than the Liberals. 348 00:17:41.360 --> 00:17:48.640 In 1967, Liberal identifiers were much more likely to be interested in politics 349 00:17:49.360 --> 00:17:50.780 than people who voted Labour. 350 00:17:51.160 --> 00:17:56.160 One Labour voter in seven was both strongly committed to Labour, 351 00:17:56.260 --> 00:17:59.060 yet took almost no interest in day-to-day politics. 352 00:17:59.340 --> 00:18:01.360 The Liberal equivalent was one in 13. 353 00:18:02.060 --> 00:18:03.420 Now, why does this matter? 354 00:18:03.520 --> 00:18:06.520 A person who's strongly identified with a party, 355 00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:08.480 but has no other interest in politics, 356 00:18:08.580 --> 00:18:13.100 is actually unreachable by persuasion, by electoral techniques. 357 00:18:13.500 --> 00:18:18.360 And in the 1960s, Labour had two and a half times more of these people than the Liberals did. 358 00:18:19.020 --> 00:18:21.140 So for those Labour supporters, it's a big change. 359 00:18:21.140 --> 00:18:21.280 And it was a big change for those Labour supporters 360 00:18:21.280 --> 00:18:24.120 who knew almost nothing about politics except that they were Labour. 361 00:18:24.580 --> 00:18:26.940 Being Labour was like an aspect of their identity. 362 00:18:27.540 --> 00:18:30.940 And it was as little open to change as their religion or their football team. 363 00:18:31.600 --> 00:18:35.220 They were Methodist, they were Catholic, they voted for Richmond or Collingwood, 364 00:18:35.320 --> 00:18:38.060 and they... they barracked for Richmond or Collingwood, sorry, 365 00:18:38.160 --> 00:18:39.440 and they voted for the Labour Party. 366 00:18:39.540 --> 00:18:43.400 But it was the same type of traditional, socially-based act, 367 00:18:43.520 --> 00:18:48.340 which was supported by a whole range of their work associations where they lived, 368 00:18:48.340 --> 00:18:49.660 family associations. 369 00:18:49.900 --> 00:18:53.340 It was, you know, multiply supported by their social experience. 370 00:18:56.780 --> 00:19:00.600 Now, the Liberals have always known this, and it's driven them mad. 371 00:19:01.440 --> 00:19:05.420 Since 1910, when the current two-party system took shape, 372 00:19:05.660 --> 00:19:07.880 both parties have met various disasters. 373 00:19:08.280 --> 00:19:09.680 The Labour Party split twice. 374 00:19:09.880 --> 00:19:12.640 The Liberal Party collapses in 1916. 375 00:19:12.680 --> 00:19:14.620 It collapses in a way in 1929. 376 00:19:14.840 --> 00:19:16.280 It collapses again in 1943. 377 00:19:18.340 --> 00:19:23.060 The Liberals sit there watching Labour go through what they regard as sort of terminal incidents 378 00:19:23.060 --> 00:19:24.680 that they shouldn't recover from, 379 00:19:24.780 --> 00:19:29.520 and there's this solid core of voting that just stays there, whatever they do. 380 00:19:32.120 --> 00:19:37.420 Whereas Liberals were much quicker to desert their party when it hit trouble 381 00:19:37.420 --> 00:19:41.140 because their greater interest in politics made them realise it was in trouble 382 00:19:41.140 --> 00:19:43.820 and made them more open to external influence. 383 00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:47.360 Even after the disastrous split with the DLP, 384 00:19:48.340 --> 00:19:49.860 the DLP was still a very important party in the 50s for the Labour. 385 00:19:50.020 --> 00:19:53.520 And when it was led by the erratic and increasingly paranoid Doc Everett, 386 00:19:53.660 --> 00:19:55.380 Labour's core vote held up. 387 00:19:56.220 --> 00:19:58.380 In 57, Harold Holt complained, 388 00:19:58.700 --> 00:20:02.500 we have never experienced the fervour and the unquestioning loyalty 389 00:20:02.500 --> 00:20:08.680 which Labour could confidently expect for so many of its better years from a great mass of people. 390 00:20:09.420 --> 00:20:15.560 Now, the conclusion then to all of that is that the Liberals have always had to work much harder for their vote 391 00:20:15.560 --> 00:20:16.480 than Labour did. 392 00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:22.740 And this has made them a much more electorally savvy party from which Labour has to learn. 393 00:20:23.460 --> 00:20:26.440 Now, I want to now do a little bit of sort of back history 394 00:20:26.440 --> 00:20:31.360 because this difference has deep origins in the... 395 00:20:31.880 --> 00:20:33.940 or deep sources, I should say. 396 00:20:34.240 --> 00:20:35.600 Sorry, I'm sort of going a bit... 397 00:20:35.600 --> 00:20:36.860 Am I talking too fast? 398 00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:38.780 It feels... 399 00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:42.480 Anyway... 400 00:20:44.380 --> 00:20:45.100 It has... 401 00:20:45.100 --> 00:20:45.600 It has... 402 00:20:45.600 --> 00:20:46.460 It has... 403 00:20:46.460 --> 00:20:50.020 Deep origins in the history, if you like, the deep history of the party, 404 00:20:50.940 --> 00:20:53.560 to understand the differences for this reasons in core loyalty. 405 00:20:54.700 --> 00:20:56.920 The Liberal Party is essentially a parliamentary party. 406 00:20:57.540 --> 00:21:02.600 Its core is the parliamentary leadership, centred ideally around a strong leader. 407 00:21:02.960 --> 00:21:05.820 When the leader is strong, the Liberals are very, very strong. 408 00:21:06.020 --> 00:21:08.780 And when he's weak, the Liberals disintegrate. 409 00:21:08.820 --> 00:21:09.720 It's almost nothing. 410 00:21:10.620 --> 00:21:14.460 The prime purpose of the extra parliamentary party for the Liberals 411 00:21:14.460 --> 00:21:16.080 is to get the parties endorsed, 412 00:21:16.460 --> 00:21:17.160 to get the candidates elected, 413 00:21:18.060 --> 00:21:19.100 and to win government. 414 00:21:19.600 --> 00:21:21.620 It's got no direct role in policy making, 415 00:21:21.840 --> 00:21:24.740 which is up to the parliamentary party and ultimately the leader. 416 00:21:24.920 --> 00:21:27.860 But it's essentially an organisation in the electorate 417 00:21:27.860 --> 00:21:30.140 to win votes and raise money for campaigns. 418 00:21:30.840 --> 00:21:33.720 It can advise the parliamentary party and the leader, 419 00:21:33.840 --> 00:21:35.700 but the leader can take it or leave it. 420 00:21:36.100 --> 00:21:37.940 Now, the Labour Party's origins are very different, 421 00:21:38.020 --> 00:21:39.820 and some of you will know this well, but I just... 422 00:21:40.460 --> 00:21:40.560 To... 423 00:21:40.560 --> 00:21:44.320 So that we all can share where this argument's going, 424 00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:46.400 so you can see what you think of it, I want us to get... 425 00:21:46.400 --> 00:21:46.660 I want us to get you in. 426 00:21:47.060 --> 00:21:49.740 Labour developed as the political wing of the trade unions 427 00:21:49.740 --> 00:21:52.480 after the failure of the great strikes of the 1890s. 428 00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:56.020 The union movement organised to stand working men for parliament, 429 00:21:56.760 --> 00:22:00.000 where they could pursue Labour's goals of better wages 430 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:01.580 and conditions for working men. 431 00:22:02.140 --> 00:22:03.320 The Labour movement... 432 00:22:04.120 --> 00:22:06.360 Or the Labour Party sends representatives into the parliament, 433 00:22:07.280 --> 00:22:09.000 and it was concerned that when they got there, 434 00:22:09.040 --> 00:22:10.640 they remembered who had put them there. 435 00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:14.120 So it developed very early in its parliamentary history, 436 00:22:14.760 --> 00:22:16.380 distinctive organisational features, 437 00:22:16.380 --> 00:22:19.380 the pledge, the policy made in the conference, 438 00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:22.960 in the bodies of the external party, 439 00:22:23.980 --> 00:22:26.360 caucus control over the selection of the ministry. 440 00:22:26.700 --> 00:22:29.700 These features which ensured that the parliamentary party 441 00:22:29.700 --> 00:22:34.540 was to some extent beholden to the external parts of the party. 442 00:22:34.800 --> 00:22:38.720 So, I mean, this draws on what I find a very fruitful distinction 443 00:22:38.720 --> 00:22:41.620 that a political scientist called Maurice de Verger 444 00:22:41.620 --> 00:22:44.080 made between internally and externally formed parties. 445 00:22:44.260 --> 00:22:45.960 And if you can think of... 446 00:22:45.960 --> 00:22:48.040 If you can think of the Liberals starting off in parliament, 447 00:22:48.160 --> 00:22:49.480 reaching out to the electorate, 448 00:22:49.520 --> 00:22:53.060 and the Labour starts off in the electorate 449 00:22:53.060 --> 00:22:54.960 and sends its candidates into the parliament, 450 00:22:55.260 --> 00:22:57.540 it seems to me that gets you a long way in understanding 451 00:22:58.340 --> 00:23:01.500 the way in which their deep histories, if you like, still resonate 452 00:23:01.500 --> 00:23:03.960 in the current way in which they imagine themselves 453 00:23:03.960 --> 00:23:05.580 in relationship to the electorate. 454 00:23:06.800 --> 00:23:10.420 Now, the metaphor of the machine in relationship to the Labour Party 455 00:23:10.420 --> 00:23:12.700 has been used since the beginning. 456 00:23:13.200 --> 00:23:14.940 It was coined very early, 457 00:23:14.940 --> 00:23:17.660 with its connotations of men without souls 458 00:23:17.660 --> 00:23:19.460 manipulating men with weak hearts. 459 00:23:20.200 --> 00:23:21.220 And it's... 460 00:23:22.440 --> 00:23:23.000 Sorry. 461 00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:24.560 And... 462 00:23:25.660 --> 00:23:29.780 But it's there and it's got all of modernity's ambivalence about machines. 463 00:23:30.180 --> 00:23:32.200 You know, the machine is what... 464 00:23:32.200 --> 00:23:34.340 is the metaphor that was used really for organisation. 465 00:23:34.380 --> 00:23:35.880 And from its earliest days, 466 00:23:36.080 --> 00:23:39.100 Labour was better at organisation than the Liberals. 467 00:23:39.420 --> 00:23:41.300 But the... I think it's important to remember 468 00:23:41.300 --> 00:23:44.420 the origins of this organisation was in party democracy. 469 00:23:44.940 --> 00:23:48.120 To involve the party members in policy-making and pre-selection 470 00:23:48.120 --> 00:23:50.200 and to keep the parliamentarians responsive. 471 00:23:51.120 --> 00:23:53.660 Now, the second aspect of Labour's early history, 472 00:23:53.740 --> 00:23:55.180 which is relevant to my argument, 473 00:23:55.220 --> 00:23:57.360 would be shown by the second table I was going to show you, 474 00:23:57.380 --> 00:24:02.080 but it's to show how rapidly Labour's vote rose 475 00:24:02.080 --> 00:24:05.260 in the first decade of the 20th century. 476 00:24:05.560 --> 00:24:07.940 Now, this can seem a long way in the past, 477 00:24:08.080 --> 00:24:10.260 so in order to imagine this, 478 00:24:11.460 --> 00:24:13.840 imagine these dates are actually 1991. 479 00:24:15.220 --> 00:24:19.060 In 1991, the Green vote was 19.24%. 480 00:24:19.780 --> 00:24:20.960 I'm just going to... 481 00:24:20.960 --> 00:24:23.260 I'm talking about the Labour vote, but... 482 00:24:23.260 --> 00:24:23.740 Um... 483 00:24:24.840 --> 00:24:26.800 I won't do that. I'll just do it for Labour. 484 00:24:27.420 --> 00:24:28.960 We're talking about a decade, OK? 485 00:24:29.200 --> 00:24:32.720 In 1901, the Labour vote is 19.24%. 486 00:24:32.720 --> 00:24:35.100 Labour parties have been in existence at this point 487 00:24:35.100 --> 00:24:37.380 for about nine years at the most. 488 00:24:37.460 --> 00:24:41.380 In 1903, two years later, it's 30.95%, 489 00:24:41.380 --> 00:24:44.460 and Labour goes into a minority government. 490 00:24:45.760 --> 00:24:49.800 Next election, 1906, it gets 36.64%, 491 00:24:49.800 --> 00:24:52.100 and the pundits at The Australian are thinking, 492 00:24:52.140 --> 00:24:54.040 maybe it's levelled off, you know? 493 00:24:55.060 --> 00:24:59.840 1910, it's got 49.97%. 494 00:24:59.840 --> 00:25:01.340 That is nearly 50% of the vote, 495 00:25:01.360 --> 00:25:04.020 and it becomes the first party to hold a majority of seats 496 00:25:04.020 --> 00:25:05.860 in the new federal election. 497 00:25:06.020 --> 00:25:06.780 Now, that's a decade. 498 00:25:07.080 --> 00:25:11.420 In a decade, its vote's gone from 19% to 50%. 499 00:25:11.420 --> 00:25:13.120 Imagine if that Greens had done that, 500 00:25:13.180 --> 00:25:14.580 or the Democrats had done that, 501 00:25:14.580 --> 00:25:16.820 between 1990 and 2000. 502 00:25:17.280 --> 00:25:20.360 It's a complete overturning of the political landscape. 503 00:25:20.840 --> 00:25:22.880 The existing parties, 504 00:25:23.100 --> 00:25:25.880 the old free traders and protectionists, 505 00:25:25.880 --> 00:25:27.920 have to totally reform themselves. 506 00:25:28.040 --> 00:25:30.580 The cleavages of Australian politics 507 00:25:30.580 --> 00:25:31.900 are completely transformed. 508 00:25:32.320 --> 00:25:35.140 Now, the question is, what does that tell us 509 00:25:35.140 --> 00:25:37.620 about the nature of Labour support? 510 00:25:38.180 --> 00:25:40.640 What it tells us, the story it tells me, 511 00:25:40.700 --> 00:25:43.460 is that although it's formed by the union movement, 512 00:25:43.460 --> 00:25:46.380 that can't explain the runaway electoral success. 513 00:25:46.680 --> 00:25:49.840 What it's explained by is the fact that the Labour Party 514 00:25:49.840 --> 00:25:51.620 connected with already formed aspects 515 00:25:51.620 --> 00:25:52.800 of people's social identity. 516 00:25:53.120 --> 00:25:55.560 People already thought of themselves as working class. 517 00:25:55.680 --> 00:25:57.380 It was already part of their experience. 518 00:25:59.460 --> 00:26:02.120 And it gave that identity a new political meaning. 519 00:26:02.520 --> 00:26:04.680 No longer, the Labour Party said, 520 00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:07.120 should you workers vote for middle class men 521 00:26:07.120 --> 00:26:08.280 who were friends of the workers, 522 00:26:08.500 --> 00:26:09.860 which is what they'd been voting for. 523 00:26:09.940 --> 00:26:10.480 I mean, you've got to remember, 524 00:26:10.600 --> 00:26:12.780 Australian working men had had the vote since the 1850s. 525 00:26:13.300 --> 00:26:13.440 It was a great thing. 526 00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:14.740 It wasn't as if you can explain this 527 00:26:14.740 --> 00:26:15.840 because they'd just got the vote. 528 00:26:16.160 --> 00:26:18.680 They'd had the vote 50 years. 529 00:26:18.820 --> 00:26:20.700 They'd changed all of a sudden in a decade 530 00:26:20.700 --> 00:26:21.700 the way they used it. 531 00:26:22.680 --> 00:26:25.480 They would vote for their own. 532 00:26:25.900 --> 00:26:28.680 And this is the origins of those Labour voters 533 00:26:28.680 --> 00:26:31.360 who ate confound, who knew nothing about politics 534 00:26:31.360 --> 00:26:32.520 except that they were Labour. 535 00:26:32.800 --> 00:26:36.220 That is, Labour mobilised essentially a social movement. 536 00:26:36.380 --> 00:26:39.280 I mean, Labour sweeps into power as social movements 537 00:26:39.280 --> 00:26:42.760 hope to, on the basis of aspects of people's social identity, 538 00:26:42.760 --> 00:26:46.180 which are very deeply anchored in their daily experience. 539 00:26:48.040 --> 00:26:51.600 Now, Whitlam began the process of Labour's organisational reform 540 00:26:51.600 --> 00:26:54.860 in the 1960s, and it's been continuing in fits and starts. 541 00:26:55.240 --> 00:26:57.220 But the electorate's been changing faster. 542 00:26:58.140 --> 00:27:01.120 Class no longer organises the social and political landscape 543 00:27:01.120 --> 00:27:02.500 in the way it once did. 544 00:27:02.900 --> 00:27:07.960 It still figures, but it has to compete hard with other ways 545 00:27:07.960 --> 00:27:09.520 in which people now think about themselves, 546 00:27:10.220 --> 00:27:12.740 other bases, if you like, of our society. 547 00:27:12.740 --> 00:27:13.240 And that's the way Labour has changed its social identity. 548 00:27:13.800 --> 00:27:18.200 Ethnic, regional, religious, gender-based, generational, 549 00:27:18.940 --> 00:27:21.860 and with pervasive common-sense understandings 550 00:27:21.860 --> 00:27:23.540 of people's core political interests 551 00:27:23.540 --> 00:27:25.940 as based in their private domestic concerns 552 00:27:25.940 --> 00:27:27.380 in their homes and their families. 553 00:27:29.100 --> 00:27:30.740 So instead of... 554 00:27:30.740 --> 00:27:34.380 If you think about the period when Labour's formed, 555 00:27:34.580 --> 00:27:37.980 when class did, in a sense, provide two blocks 556 00:27:37.980 --> 00:27:41.660 of fairly different experience, working class and middle class. 557 00:27:41.800 --> 00:27:42.640 And one of the things I've... 558 00:27:42.740 --> 00:27:47.980 I've done in the book is try to give a reasonably rich historical description 559 00:27:47.980 --> 00:27:52.840 of the basis of middle-class life in the period before the Second World War. 560 00:27:53.820 --> 00:27:56.140 Where it did make sense to think... 561 00:27:56.140 --> 00:27:59.100 We know quite a lot about what organised working-class life, 562 00:27:59.200 --> 00:28:01.440 but to try to get a sense of what were the institutions 563 00:28:01.440 --> 00:28:04.180 and self-understandings that organised middle-class life. 564 00:28:04.300 --> 00:28:07.400 And it did make a lot of sense to understand the society 565 00:28:07.400 --> 00:28:09.740 in terms of two blocks, if you like. 566 00:28:10.500 --> 00:28:12.720 And you can see it still in the way in which... 567 00:28:12.740 --> 00:28:13.860 cities are laid out. 568 00:28:13.960 --> 00:28:14.780 The relation... 569 00:28:14.780 --> 00:28:16.300 You know, Melbourne particularly, you know, 570 00:28:16.300 --> 00:28:18.380 which side of the Yarra and that sort of thing. 571 00:28:20.200 --> 00:28:24.860 This has been changed by migration, 572 00:28:25.960 --> 00:28:26.920 by shift... 573 00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:28.800 changes in the nature of work, 574 00:28:28.940 --> 00:28:31.200 by changes in the role of women, 575 00:28:32.360 --> 00:28:35.240 by a whole range of things which have now meant that 576 00:28:35.240 --> 00:28:37.820 our social structure, if you like, is now so complex 577 00:28:37.820 --> 00:28:39.820 that it's extremely difficult to imagine... 578 00:28:39.820 --> 00:28:41.120 to get a grip on it. 579 00:28:42.620 --> 00:28:45.040 And this, I think, is the reason that we've now got 580 00:28:45.040 --> 00:28:47.600 this metaphor of Australia as basically all being the middle. 581 00:28:48.020 --> 00:28:48.880 Middle Australia. 582 00:28:49.900 --> 00:28:52.680 The way I think you need to think about middle Australia 583 00:28:52.680 --> 00:28:55.960 is that most people imagine the society as a bell curve. 584 00:28:56.740 --> 00:28:59.140 They essentially chop off the top 10% 585 00:28:59.140 --> 00:29:00.580 and they chop off the bottom 10% 586 00:29:00.580 --> 00:29:02.180 and they put everybody else in the middle. 587 00:29:02.320 --> 00:29:05.340 But they don't mean by the middle actually the 50%, 588 00:29:05.340 --> 00:29:06.660 you know, the statistical norm. 589 00:29:06.840 --> 00:29:11.100 It's actually now just a way of imagining the consensual situation. 590 00:29:12.060 --> 00:29:13.100 And that's the way that we've got to think about it. 591 00:29:13.100 --> 00:29:13.820 And we can talk about that. 592 00:29:13.880 --> 00:29:16.060 I mean, that's posed a lot of problems, I think, 593 00:29:16.060 --> 00:29:20.420 for some of Labor's traditional social ways of imagining the society. 594 00:29:22.020 --> 00:29:24.360 Class has also been loosened for people 595 00:29:24.360 --> 00:29:26.580 by changes in the experience of work. 596 00:29:26.740 --> 00:29:30.480 In particular, the greater occupational mobility across a lifetime, 597 00:29:30.840 --> 00:29:34.240 which has meant that fewer people have got that sort of stable 598 00:29:34.240 --> 00:29:37.480 occupational identity which, if you like, locks them into a place 599 00:29:37.480 --> 00:29:40.780 in a social structure and which grounds their political interests. 600 00:29:41.900 --> 00:29:46.580 So many people are now very loosely identified with the parties 601 00:29:46.580 --> 00:29:48.960 and base their voting decisions, I think, 602 00:29:49.100 --> 00:29:53.100 on striking a sort of balance between what's good for them 603 00:29:53.100 --> 00:29:56.560 across a range of issues and their general impression 604 00:29:56.560 --> 00:29:59.380 of the leader's comparative capacities to run the country. 605 00:30:00.040 --> 00:30:04.660 The electorate is thus much more fluid than it was in the past. 606 00:30:07.580 --> 00:30:11.100 Different issues, only some of which the parties 607 00:30:11.120 --> 00:30:13.480 can control, and I think it's important to remember that, 608 00:30:14.120 --> 00:30:16.560 now focus people's attention on different aspects 609 00:30:16.560 --> 00:30:17.760 of the political agenda. 610 00:30:18.140 --> 00:30:19.660 And these can change very quickly. 611 00:30:19.840 --> 00:30:23.580 And foreign policy, foreign events, as we found in the 2001 election 612 00:30:23.580 --> 00:30:27.020 with the September the 11th and with the Tampa, 613 00:30:27.160 --> 00:30:32.820 they can quickly change things for parties that are quick on their feet. 614 00:30:32.920 --> 00:30:36.080 That is, politicians like Howard, who are swift on their feet, 615 00:30:36.260 --> 00:30:38.180 can work an issue to their advantage. 616 00:30:38.820 --> 00:30:40.880 A couple of weeks ago, Nick Mitchum, 617 00:30:41.120 --> 00:30:45.900 warned the Liberals of taking their current political supremacy for granted. 618 00:30:46.620 --> 00:30:48.740 John Howard's strength as a leader, he said, 619 00:30:48.880 --> 00:30:51.600 is masking the very fluid state of the Australian electorate. 620 00:30:51.760 --> 00:30:55.080 And that comment of Holt's that I had earlier was in the same context. 621 00:30:55.220 --> 00:30:58.080 Look, we've got Menzies, but remember, without Menzies, 622 00:30:58.860 --> 00:31:01.720 much of our support will disintegrate. 623 00:31:03.400 --> 00:31:06.900 Because the Liberals have always had to work harder for their vote than Labor, 624 00:31:07.400 --> 00:31:11.100 I think they've been better campaigners and more astute at working 625 00:31:11.120 --> 00:31:13.800 and at reading and responding to shifts in the social landscape. 626 00:31:14.280 --> 00:31:16.280 And it's from this that Labor has to learn. 627 00:31:16.700 --> 00:31:19.380 And I'm going to end with a couple of practical suggestions. 628 00:31:20.580 --> 00:31:22.660 And I'm sure people will have plenty of others. 629 00:31:22.760 --> 00:31:25.700 I mean, there's heaps of suggestions we could all make to the Labor Party 630 00:31:25.700 --> 00:31:26.580 about what they need to do. 631 00:31:27.900 --> 00:31:29.680 But the first one that I want to make, 632 00:31:29.760 --> 00:31:33.260 which I think has not really been made in this form, 633 00:31:33.300 --> 00:31:37.120 is that Labor has to stop thinking that the problem is their disappearing heartland. 634 00:31:37.980 --> 00:31:41.020 Winning elections today is about building coalitions, 635 00:31:41.020 --> 00:31:44.620 there is no one magic group which is the key to electoral victory. 636 00:31:45.020 --> 00:31:48.020 I think that Labor is still preoccupied with social structure. 637 00:31:48.100 --> 00:31:55.640 That the memory of that decade in which it mobilised people's social identity 638 00:31:55.640 --> 00:31:56.800 still haunts it. 639 00:31:56.880 --> 00:32:00.960 And it thinks that if only it could work out which group to mobilise, 640 00:32:01.020 --> 00:32:03.360 that somehow its problems would be over. 641 00:32:04.280 --> 00:32:08.140 As I've said, social structure is infinitely more complex now 642 00:32:08.140 --> 00:32:10.220 than the simple two class models of the beginning. 643 00:32:10.220 --> 00:32:14.160 And I don't think that sort of mobilisation is possible. 644 00:32:16.220 --> 00:32:21.140 But secondly, nowadays a lot more people are like the ideal voter of democratic theory. 645 00:32:21.420 --> 00:32:23.540 That is, there's an election coming up, 646 00:32:23.620 --> 00:32:27.680 they think, hmm, I'll see which party is offering what, 647 00:32:27.760 --> 00:32:29.820 and I'll make my decision. 648 00:32:29.940 --> 00:32:31.380 That is, they're open to persuasion. 649 00:32:31.620 --> 00:32:33.700 Now some will be persuaded by reason, 650 00:32:33.820 --> 00:32:37.380 as the really ideal voter of our democratic theory was always rational. 651 00:32:37.560 --> 00:32:40.200 But others will be persuaded by appeals to the Senate, 652 00:32:40.220 --> 00:32:40.900 or by appeals to their hip pockets. 653 00:32:41.080 --> 00:32:42.760 Sometimes they'll be moved by fear. 654 00:32:42.920 --> 00:32:46.920 But the point is, actually their voting decision has to be influenced. 655 00:32:47.780 --> 00:32:50.720 Most of them will be influenced by some sort of shifting combination, 656 00:32:51.200 --> 00:32:54.380 as well as by habitual patterns of loyalty. 657 00:32:55.300 --> 00:32:57.280 So in a loosely anchored electorate, 658 00:32:57.320 --> 00:33:00.380 electoral victory depends more than ever on coalition building. 659 00:33:00.660 --> 00:33:04.100 And this requires political skills and political room to manoeuvre. 660 00:33:04.480 --> 00:33:08.580 Shoring up this batch of votes on the basis of a life stage based hip pocket nerve, 661 00:33:08.580 --> 00:33:11.520 as Howard's so good at doing with elderly people. 662 00:33:11.920 --> 00:33:15.100 That one on the basis of local concerns over a new freeway. 663 00:33:15.740 --> 00:33:19.000 Another through attention to the concerns of a producer group. 664 00:33:19.560 --> 00:33:23.600 In this context, I think too much concentration on this supposed middle 665 00:33:23.600 --> 00:33:27.300 is a big mistake, where the middle is thought of as actually some sort of point, 666 00:33:27.360 --> 00:33:29.080 you know, around 50% in the middle. 667 00:33:30.920 --> 00:33:33.860 What Labor needed to do to win in 2004, 668 00:33:34.080 --> 00:33:35.540 you don't need the middle, you need the majority. 669 00:33:36.080 --> 00:33:38.280 And that's what I think has to be kept in mind. 670 00:33:38.280 --> 00:33:41.060 And in building majorities, you need, loosely speaking, 671 00:33:41.220 --> 00:33:42.740 a majority in a majority of groups. 672 00:33:43.440 --> 00:33:49.000 So you don't throw away one group because you're trying to please another. 673 00:33:49.480 --> 00:33:53.160 It does seem to me it was extraordinarily foolish in that 2004 campaign 674 00:33:53.160 --> 00:33:58.000 for Labor to have alienated its traditional base in the union movement 675 00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:01.240 to the extent that it had no clear advantage among blue collar workers. 676 00:34:01.700 --> 00:34:05.760 And I think that Labor's concentration on this sort of illusory middle 677 00:34:06.280 --> 00:34:07.040 was a misguided... 678 00:34:08.280 --> 00:34:12.420 and a misreading, a misguided misreading of the Australian political landscape, 679 00:34:12.780 --> 00:34:15.520 which the more politically canny Liberals would never have made. 680 00:34:15.800 --> 00:34:17.880 You don't sacrifice one for the other. 681 00:34:19.060 --> 00:34:21.980 And there's been a lot of loose speculation like this again 682 00:34:21.980 --> 00:34:25.220 from Labor figures recently about the social group that you've got to get 683 00:34:25.220 --> 00:34:26.680 that holds the key to electoral power. 684 00:34:27.080 --> 00:34:31.020 Maybe it's the self-employed professionals and these new contractors 685 00:34:31.020 --> 00:34:32.920 who they're always talking about who are living out there 686 00:34:32.920 --> 00:34:35.060 in those Mac mansions in the outer suburbs. 687 00:34:35.820 --> 00:34:37.700 Maybe if we could get them, Labor thinks, 688 00:34:38.280 --> 00:34:38.760 they'll be back in. 689 00:34:40.400 --> 00:34:42.020 Perhaps it's the aspirational voters. 690 00:34:42.120 --> 00:34:45.500 So there's these names and the journalists love it 691 00:34:45.500 --> 00:34:50.680 because that's the sort of sociology, pop sociology that they are comfortable with. 692 00:34:51.460 --> 00:34:53.540 The point is it's all and it's none of them. 693 00:34:53.840 --> 00:34:57.180 The Liberal Party's always claimed to represent the nation as a whole, 694 00:34:57.360 --> 00:35:00.760 not to be a party of a sectional group or of a class. 695 00:35:00.980 --> 00:35:04.380 And because of that, it's embraced coalition building 696 00:35:04.380 --> 00:35:08.240 as a way of making good their claim to represent the interests of the nation. 697 00:35:08.280 --> 00:35:13.700 So it's not a matter of Labor just finding which group should it now be standing for, 698 00:35:13.820 --> 00:35:14.320 I think. 699 00:35:14.360 --> 00:35:18.740 It is a matter of Labor actually recognising that electorally now 700 00:35:18.740 --> 00:35:21.900 the game is about skilful coalition building. 701 00:35:23.180 --> 00:35:25.920 And the accumulation of small percentage margins, 702 00:35:26.260 --> 00:35:30.620 not on winning the adherence of any magic group to replace the one 703 00:35:30.620 --> 00:35:32.620 they once had in the blue collar working class. 704 00:35:33.240 --> 00:35:38.260 Now the second suggestion I want to make based on my reading of the 705 00:35:38.260 --> 00:35:42.520 reasons for the Liberal Party's success over the last, since 1996, 706 00:35:42.820 --> 00:35:46.020 is that Labor has to have policies out there and it has to have them now. 707 00:35:48.380 --> 00:35:49.580 Yes, I think that. 708 00:35:49.840 --> 00:35:54.680 But in persuading the electorate and building an electorate winning coalition then, 709 00:35:54.780 --> 00:35:59.400 Labor has to project itself more forcefully because if the game is actually about 710 00:35:59.400 --> 00:36:03.620 persuading voters to vote for you, it's not then about, in a sense, 711 00:36:03.700 --> 00:36:08.040 finding the bit of the social structure and matching a policy as if these people are not actually 712 00:36:08.260 --> 00:36:08.840 rational agents. 713 00:36:09.100 --> 00:36:13.180 You've got to treat the electorate as if it's made up of rational agents 714 00:36:13.180 --> 00:36:14.620 who need to be persuaded. 715 00:36:14.740 --> 00:36:18.000 And if you've got to persuade them, you've got to actually have things to tell them that you're going to do. 716 00:36:19.800 --> 00:36:25.840 So if you look at the recent occasions when Labor won Federal Office after, 717 00:36:26.980 --> 00:36:30.900 in 72 with Whitlam and then in 83 with Hawke, 718 00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:33.400 they came after periods of sustained policy development. 719 00:36:36.600 --> 00:36:38.240 There's a general reading of how the 720 00:36:38.260 --> 00:36:40.080 Howard's 96, am I running out of time? 721 00:36:40.620 --> 00:36:41.420 Five minutes, okay. 722 00:36:41.780 --> 00:36:47.900 Yep, there's a general reading of Howard's 96 election victory that he presented a small target 723 00:36:47.900 --> 00:36:49.860 that he somehow coasted in. 724 00:36:51.000 --> 00:36:53.520 Whatever the truth of that is about the election victory, 725 00:36:53.780 --> 00:36:58.360 what you have to remember is that he actually, there'd been quite a lot of policy work done before that. 726 00:36:58.420 --> 00:37:05.040 The Liberals brought out fight back, future directions and the things that matter 727 00:37:05.040 --> 00:37:08.120 in that period from 88 through, 728 00:37:08.260 --> 00:37:11.560 that is there were policy, there was policy work going. 729 00:37:11.780 --> 00:37:15.620 There's not been something similar coming out of Labor that we can all get. 730 00:37:15.740 --> 00:37:19.440 And there's been this idea that somehow you have to wait for the election 731 00:37:19.440 --> 00:37:23.560 when everybody's paying attention and then the policies will come out. 732 00:37:23.660 --> 00:37:26.540 But policies need time to settle. 733 00:37:26.660 --> 00:37:32.260 People need time to, within your own party, they need time to absorb them. 734 00:37:32.320 --> 00:37:34.400 The journalists need time to understand them. 735 00:37:34.520 --> 00:37:36.940 You need time to get the kinks and bumps out of them 736 00:37:36.940 --> 00:37:38.240 and the silly mistakes in the papers. 737 00:37:38.260 --> 00:37:38.500 And the statistics. 738 00:37:39.000 --> 00:37:46.260 So I think really what there needs to be is really concerted work being done on policies now. 739 00:37:47.020 --> 00:37:49.560 The last point I'll make, and I'll make this quite quickly, 740 00:37:49.740 --> 00:37:55.440 is that I think Labor, if part now leadership is absolutely crucial 741 00:37:55.440 --> 00:37:59.020 for the way in which the electorate makes judgements, 742 00:37:59.120 --> 00:38:02.260 the Labor leader has to be given control to choose his own ministry. 743 00:38:03.200 --> 00:38:07.420 I think if you think about what was going on with Beazley's last, 744 00:38:08.260 --> 00:38:09.800 half-hearted reshuffle, 745 00:38:12.080 --> 00:38:18.940 that really he needs to be, the Labor leader has to be able to actually put together the team 746 00:38:18.940 --> 00:38:22.900 to support himself in Parliament as a way of being able to project himself 747 00:38:22.900 --> 00:38:28.820 as someone who's an effective leader, if you like, to the electorate. 748 00:38:32.180 --> 00:38:36.360 My reading of the loss of the last, Labor's loss of the last election 749 00:38:36.360 --> 00:38:38.240 was very simple. 750 00:38:38.260 --> 00:38:40.460 It was, I just think that Mark Latham was unelectable. 751 00:38:40.640 --> 00:38:45.680 And that it's actually leadership itself is much, much more crucial. 752 00:38:46.120 --> 00:38:48.560 I mean, Labor knows it needs a leader in some ways, 753 00:38:48.600 --> 00:38:52.300 but it's also not really prepared to give the leader the degree of space 754 00:38:52.300 --> 00:38:56.820 that I think they need in a contemporary electorate. 755 00:38:57.480 --> 00:39:00.520 Okay, I might stop there, because there's probably lots more things I could say, 756 00:39:00.780 --> 00:39:02.420 but I'm running out of time, aren't I? 757 00:39:03.420 --> 00:39:04.140 Thanks Judith. 758 00:39:04.340 --> 00:39:05.980 Thank you Judith Brett very much. 759 00:39:11.720 --> 00:39:12.260 Thank you. 760 00:39:13.860 --> 00:39:15.860 We'll go straight to questions. 761 00:39:16.180 --> 00:39:18.980 Please make them questions or if they're a comment, very short. 762 00:39:19.180 --> 00:39:22.220 There is a microphone in the middle and there's a microphone in the back. 763 00:39:22.840 --> 00:39:27.120 And if you just go to the microphone, as I say, make the questions, comments very short. 764 00:39:27.380 --> 00:39:28.700 We've only got about 10 minutes. 765 00:39:28.940 --> 00:39:30.420 And would you say who your name is? 766 00:39:30.620 --> 00:39:33.800 And if you've got any other political interests you want to declare, we'll hear from them as well. 767 00:39:34.200 --> 00:39:34.760 Thank you. 768 00:39:34.800 --> 00:39:36.420 Well, I wasn't going to make declarations. 769 00:39:36.440 --> 00:39:38.240 I've been in the Labor Party for 40 or 50 years. 770 00:39:38.240 --> 00:39:39.960 In and out, resigning. 771 00:39:40.100 --> 00:39:47.560 But what I wanted to ask you was, what do you think the future in history will be of this revisionism 772 00:39:47.560 --> 00:39:54.020 that's going on about Curtin by Downer and yesterday in the Australian by John Howard about Whitlam? 773 00:39:54.160 --> 00:39:55.120 It's a whole revision. 774 00:39:55.140 --> 00:39:59.220 I think it'll be just regarded as, I think it won't even be visible as a footnote. 775 00:39:59.520 --> 00:40:01.100 I mean, the point is it's wrong. 776 00:40:03.260 --> 00:40:05.760 So, I don't, I mean, they're not historians. 777 00:40:05.760 --> 00:40:09.380 It's just party ideological moves. 778 00:40:10.500 --> 00:40:12.480 So, I wouldn't worry about it. 779 00:40:13.520 --> 00:40:14.280 Thank you. 780 00:40:14.860 --> 00:40:15.460 Next. 781 00:40:16.600 --> 00:40:17.520 Colin Mitchell. 782 00:40:17.840 --> 00:40:20.200 I just, about on policy development. 783 00:40:20.620 --> 00:40:24.920 I don't know whether there's some good mechanisms for developing policies in the Labor Party. 784 00:40:25.060 --> 00:40:26.440 I don't really know much. 785 00:40:26.500 --> 00:40:28.080 Well, I get the feeling that there isn't. 786 00:40:28.180 --> 00:40:35.740 What do you think of the idea of progressive people within the Labor Party going public with their ideas for good policies? 787 00:40:35.760 --> 00:40:37.480 I think that's a very good idea. 788 00:40:37.720 --> 00:40:42.580 Because to some extent, I mean, one of the things we haven't really talked about in this festival, 789 00:40:42.660 --> 00:40:47.540 because there is this idea of the festival ideas that the big problem is getting, having the idea. 790 00:40:47.780 --> 00:40:55.180 The big problem, it seems to me, is getting ideas understood and accepted and broadly spread. 791 00:40:55.420 --> 00:41:02.660 And so, wherever policy ideas come from, if they are got out in public, they can go into the Labor Party perhaps. 792 00:41:02.720 --> 00:41:04.800 But they have to become part of a sort of, 793 00:41:04.800 --> 00:41:06.260 they have to have a constituency. 794 00:41:06.540 --> 00:41:10.460 Now, one person, I don't, one person with a great idea does not change the world, in my view. 795 00:41:11.540 --> 00:41:19.360 I think they have, that the idea has to somehow connect with an organisation or with, you know, be taken up in the media and discussed. 796 00:41:19.440 --> 00:41:20.460 So, that's a good idea. 797 00:41:21.200 --> 00:41:21.800 Thank you. 798 00:41:24.480 --> 00:41:24.920 G'day. 799 00:41:25.140 --> 00:41:26.000 Peter Botsman. 800 00:41:26.960 --> 00:41:29.080 Judith, I found that extremely helpful. 801 00:41:29.220 --> 00:41:31.680 And I really commend your work. 802 00:41:31.760 --> 00:41:34.700 It's really useful to hear that, hear that analysis. 803 00:41:34.800 --> 00:41:37.580 And, but I want to challenge you a little bit. 804 00:41:38.700 --> 00:41:47.140 Because I think in some ways the implication of what you're saying is that we create a kind of empty Labor Party. 805 00:41:47.320 --> 00:41:52.800 You know, in the sense of the loss of the class sort of base. 806 00:41:52.960 --> 00:41:59.700 And we move to a kind of a mirror image of liberal, you know, parliamentary focused party. 807 00:42:00.840 --> 00:42:04.380 I do agree with you though that we would need a massive change. 808 00:42:04.380 --> 00:42:06.040 In the nature of the Labor Party. 809 00:42:06.140 --> 00:42:10.840 But I just hope we don't move to a kind of US Democrat style party. 810 00:42:11.720 --> 00:42:16.980 But I think we're in this situation where Labor, for most of us now, is part of the problem. 811 00:42:17.160 --> 00:42:19.480 It's not necessarily part of the solution. 812 00:42:19.820 --> 00:42:21.240 And so we've got two options. 813 00:42:21.420 --> 00:42:24.820 We either treat Labor as a problem. 814 00:42:25.080 --> 00:42:27.960 And treat it as if it is the Liberal Party. 815 00:42:28.080 --> 00:42:31.520 Or we actually try and work within the Labor Party to change what it is. 816 00:42:32.380 --> 00:42:33.360 Changing what it is. 817 00:42:34.380 --> 00:42:46.180 I think it comes down to, you know, the coalition building that I think you're doing, you're talking about, needs to be reflected in the way in which the membership of the party can operate. 818 00:42:46.320 --> 00:42:51.260 And at the moment there isn't an equal vote of equal value for every party member. 819 00:42:51.540 --> 00:42:57.520 And I think that every party member should elect the federal leader as is happening in the UK. 820 00:42:58.380 --> 00:43:02.140 And I think we've got to completely break down the state machines. 821 00:43:02.140 --> 00:43:19.340 So that if you're a rank and file member of the Labor Party, you have an absolutely equal vote on who the federal leader is, on every single policy position within the party, and on who the officials are in the party. 822 00:43:19.460 --> 00:43:26.760 Because if we could do that, we would actually build a bridge to the coalitions that you're talking about. 823 00:43:27.060 --> 00:43:31.600 But, you know, of course, breaking that old structure down is very difficult. 824 00:43:31.760 --> 00:43:32.000 Yeah. 825 00:43:32.140 --> 00:43:33.100 It's the alternative. 826 00:43:33.240 --> 00:43:34.240 You see what I'm saying? 827 00:43:34.240 --> 00:43:35.160 Yeah, you know, I see what you're getting at. 828 00:43:35.160 --> 00:43:35.300 Alternative. 829 00:43:35.300 --> 00:43:45.940 Because I realise, I mean, the weakness of my position, and I've been talking to John Caine during this period, is that I am, I know, I am advocating that they become a successful parliamentary party. 830 00:43:46.560 --> 00:43:55.180 And in a way my minimal position is, and it's a very minimalist position, it can only be an improvement if we have an effective two-party system. 831 00:43:55.400 --> 00:43:57.360 And this seems to me is a minimum of what they do. 832 00:43:57.440 --> 00:43:59.020 But I realise it's a change. 833 00:43:59.760 --> 00:44:01.920 We're back really at the 19th century. 834 00:44:01.920 --> 00:44:14.200 And I think it's a very elementary idea that the parties are rival teams of parliamentarians, of leaders, offering themselves on the basis of their ideas and personal judgement. 835 00:44:14.460 --> 00:44:18.960 But I just think that Labor has to become much more electorally savvy. 836 00:44:19.200 --> 00:44:23.960 But I also, I don't actually think the party should control the policies of the parliamentary party. 837 00:44:24.180 --> 00:44:28.080 I really think that it's too, it's a problem. 838 00:44:28.300 --> 00:44:28.840 I mean, there has to be. 839 00:44:28.840 --> 00:44:51.080 But I think your idea of some reforming to bring, to reinvigorate the parliamentary democracy within the party in ways that connect with the way we now understand democracy, rather than the sort of century-old democratic structures which are now totally ossified and are actually making the party undemocratic, I think you're right. 840 00:44:51.880 --> 00:44:52.640 Thank you. 841 00:44:54.900 --> 00:44:58.820 Pam Andretakis, member of the Labor Party and President of the Labor Party. 842 00:44:58.820 --> 00:45:01.220 I'm the President of the ASU in South Australian and Northern Territory. 843 00:45:01.260 --> 00:45:02.680 If I can make a couple of comments. 844 00:45:02.760 --> 00:45:08.240 Nice to see former Minister Diana Laidlaw sitting in the audience of the opposition, former opposition. 845 00:45:09.640 --> 00:45:11.200 More a statement, I think. 846 00:45:11.320 --> 00:45:26.360 I'm not sure that the, being obviously a strong advocate for the Labor Party, I'm not sure that there are any lessons to be learnt, other than the Australian electorate will learn their lessons very soon through the industrial relations changes that John Howard hopefully will not pass. 847 00:45:26.500 --> 00:45:28.800 But I fear that they will be passed. 848 00:45:28.820 --> 00:45:42.920 So the Australian electorate will learn real fast what's about to happen, which will unify the Labor Party, make them stronger, and their supporting force that has always been, there has been, the unions. 849 00:45:43.600 --> 00:45:50.240 I'd like your opinion as to what role you think the unions will play in the very short-term changes that we're about to see. 850 00:45:50.620 --> 00:45:54.060 Well, I think, firstly, the unions are now 20% of the workforce. 851 00:45:55.440 --> 00:45:56.480 So, Labor. 852 00:45:56.920 --> 00:45:58.800 But I also think that, you know, I think that the unions are now 20% of the workforce. 853 00:45:58.820 --> 00:46:01.220 So, I mean, I've been very impressed with Greg Combey. 854 00:46:01.720 --> 00:46:04.480 I think he's doing a really, he's been a very good job. 855 00:46:04.540 --> 00:46:13.660 So the unions, I see the role of the unions now as being in a way more like a peak pressure group, that they can put particular positions and put them strongly. 856 00:46:15.500 --> 00:46:18.160 So I think their role is absolutely crucial. 857 00:46:19.860 --> 00:46:28.800 I mean, I'm actually quite, I think that this is, I know this is a bit off point, but that it'll be very interesting to see whether these industrial relations reforms, and I think that they're going to be very important. 858 00:46:28.800 --> 00:46:30.580 I think that the unions are Howard's bridge too far. 859 00:46:30.920 --> 00:46:46.480 Because there was an article in Today's Australian which says, oh, well, of course, public opinion's against him now, but once they unlaunch their advertising campaign, and they can just advertise and advertise and advertise until everybody's convinced, as if that will solve the problem. 860 00:46:46.620 --> 00:46:51.940 Now, this is not like foreign policy where people have got no first-hand experience. 861 00:46:53.780 --> 00:46:58.200 The working life is something that everybody has, is engaged with. 862 00:46:58.200 --> 00:46:58.780 They're children. 863 00:46:58.920 --> 00:47:03.040 Lots of people know people in these sort of very vulnerable workplace situations. 864 00:47:03.560 --> 00:47:08.180 And I, so I don't think he's going to be able to advertise his way out of the whole East, though, for himself. 865 00:47:08.360 --> 00:47:09.760 That's my optimistic reading. 866 00:47:10.020 --> 00:47:14.700 Just quickly, I guess, from the inside, ironically already, for John Howard, things are changing. 867 00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:16.880 Union membership is already on the increase. 868 00:47:17.100 --> 00:47:23.260 So although he's trying to black, black-ban union organisers from coming into workplaces, membership is on the increase already. 869 00:47:23.580 --> 00:47:24.260 Yeah, that's right. 870 00:47:24.340 --> 00:47:27.240 And also, the people who are the most vulnerable are not in the unions. 871 00:47:27.300 --> 00:47:27.520 But, 872 00:47:28.200 --> 00:47:29.640 lots of people know them, you know? 873 00:47:30.560 --> 00:47:34.220 And can I just put in a plug for Elizabeth Winehausen's book? 874 00:47:35.160 --> 00:47:35.560 Yeah. 875 00:47:35.860 --> 00:47:37.000 Is it Dirt Cheap? 876 00:47:37.200 --> 00:47:37.580 Dirt Cheap, yes. 877 00:47:37.620 --> 00:47:42.200 It's a book of her, she lived sort of in disguise as a minimum wage worker. 878 00:47:42.660 --> 00:47:43.180 For a year. 879 00:47:43.480 --> 00:47:48.100 Yeah, and it is, I mean, I think, you know, we should send one to every member of the Federal Cabinet. 880 00:47:48.180 --> 00:47:51.340 It shows how little power these people have got in the workplace. 881 00:47:51.620 --> 00:47:58.180 It's a terrifically good book because it gives the human story, which is how, you know, you can get out of the job. 882 00:47:58.180 --> 00:47:59.480 It's a book that can convince people more than statistics. 883 00:48:00.700 --> 00:48:01.260 Thanks. 884 00:48:01.320 --> 00:48:03.920 Look, my name's Mark Henley and I'm interested in generational change. 885 00:48:04.240 --> 00:48:05.580 And perhaps just one aspect. 886 00:48:05.860 --> 00:48:12.660 And my understanding is 20 years ago, the majority of new voters, 18 to 25s, would vote Labour. 887 00:48:13.020 --> 00:48:19.640 Last couple of elections, majority, around 50%, are voting Liberal and more interested in Democrats than other parties. 888 00:48:19.860 --> 00:48:23.280 So I suppose my question is, can baby boomers engage Generation Y? 889 00:48:24.200 --> 00:48:27.680 Well, I think that, I've thought about that. 890 00:48:27.680 --> 00:48:35.360 See, I think that incumbency is the great source of strength in our current political system. 891 00:48:35.460 --> 00:48:36.680 And it makes sense to me. 892 00:48:36.780 --> 00:48:38.340 I've noticed the shift with my students. 893 00:48:38.780 --> 00:48:40.580 They've, you know, they're 18. 894 00:48:40.760 --> 00:48:42.200 They can't remember a Labour government. 895 00:48:43.240 --> 00:48:45.120 So they were voting for Howard. 896 00:48:45.200 --> 00:48:49.880 But the same age group was voting Labour during the Hawke-Keating period. 897 00:48:50.160 --> 00:48:55.300 So I think when the wheel of fortune turns, you know, of political luck, 898 00:48:55.300 --> 00:48:57.760 because Howard's had an amazingly good run of political luck, 899 00:48:57.880 --> 00:49:00.560 and it, I mean, it just can't last statistically. 900 00:49:03.760 --> 00:49:04.920 It seems to me. 901 00:49:05.660 --> 00:49:10.000 Then I think that generational thing, you know, I think will shift a bit. 902 00:49:13.120 --> 00:49:18.820 I'm interested in your prognosis in the sort of long view of history, which I found quite interesting, 903 00:49:18.900 --> 00:49:23.280 especially the early 20th century that you went into. 904 00:49:23.360 --> 00:49:25.280 If you take that longer view, what's your prognosis? 905 00:49:25.280 --> 00:49:28.140 I think I'm going to take a prognosis for the phenomenon of the Greens. 906 00:49:28.520 --> 00:49:36.340 For example, recently in West Germany there's been a coalition that's developed of two left parties, 907 00:49:36.400 --> 00:49:40.000 and they're now commanding around about 9% to the left of the Social Democrats. 908 00:49:40.140 --> 00:49:43.360 And that's happening, you know, around the Western world. 909 00:49:43.660 --> 00:49:49.360 I'm just wondering where you see that phenomenon, say, in Australia, and perhaps internationally too. 910 00:49:49.460 --> 00:49:51.120 Do you see that as a growing thing or not? 911 00:49:51.380 --> 00:49:53.240 Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. 912 00:49:53.240 --> 00:49:57.820 I mean, I think it partly depends on what happens with environmental disasters. 913 00:49:58.460 --> 00:50:06.640 You know, I mean, it's a thing where a lot of people are still, I think, in denial about the extent of environmental problems, 914 00:50:06.780 --> 00:50:09.440 which, and I think, but I think that's shifting. 915 00:50:09.580 --> 00:50:21.600 So I would expect that Green support will grow, but it probably, it's like it maybe will be a party of the left. 916 00:50:21.700 --> 00:50:22.680 It's hard to know. 917 00:50:22.680 --> 00:50:30.860 I can't see it changing in the way Labor did because the Greens are similar to Labor in that they're an externally formed party, 918 00:50:30.940 --> 00:50:35.320 but they don't connect with issues in people's social identity in the same way. 919 00:50:36.200 --> 00:50:43.060 So I don't think they've got that sort of social power behind them, but I think it will gradually shift. 920 00:50:43.280 --> 00:50:49.520 I mean, in Victoria they've just reconstituted the upper house and there's going to be multi-member electorates. 921 00:50:49.560 --> 00:50:52.660 And they are predicting, looking at the results, that they're going to be a party of the left. 922 00:50:52.660 --> 00:50:57.200 And I think that's the way the electoral boundaries, there'll be, you know, three or four Greens will get elected to the upper house. 923 00:50:57.280 --> 00:51:02.340 So I think that's the sort of thing we'll see, that they do become a sort of third force. 924 00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:06.240 Two more questions to go, then I think we're getting wound up by the organisers. 925 00:51:07.560 --> 00:51:11.240 For the benefit of you, Chris, I'm a practised swinging voter. 926 00:51:13.040 --> 00:51:19.440 For Judith, I'd like to ask why it is that both parties seem to be more concerned, 927 00:51:19.620 --> 00:51:20.420 or sorry, 928 00:51:20.420 --> 00:51:27.180 their strategic policies appear to be driven by accountancy rather than the other way round. 929 00:51:27.720 --> 00:51:29.140 Would you like to comment? 930 00:51:29.540 --> 00:51:31.420 I'm actually not quite sure what you mean. 931 00:51:33.060 --> 00:51:41.100 Strategic policies which should be used to drive Australia are driven by accountants. 932 00:51:41.240 --> 00:51:50.400 I see, yeah. I mean, I think in some ways the sort of issues of infrastructure is where we're seeing it. 933 00:51:50.400 --> 00:51:56.880 I think that in some areas, though, their policy, in some areas their policies are driven by accountants, 934 00:51:56.940 --> 00:51:58.420 in other areas they're not. 935 00:51:58.720 --> 00:52:00.640 You know, I think it's a bit simple. 936 00:52:00.760 --> 00:52:06.660 I've just read a book on the Howard governments which says that although they talk small government, 937 00:52:06.860 --> 00:52:12.320 they've actually been spending up quite big, which is interesting. 938 00:52:12.540 --> 00:52:13.880 Yes. Last question. 939 00:52:15.760 --> 00:52:17.520 Bernard Wimpress, Judith. 940 00:52:17.520 --> 00:52:24.800 A question that often sort of concerns me is the lack of media sophistication in the reporting of politics. 941 00:52:25.320 --> 00:52:33.680 In particular, we're talking, you were mentioning about small target strategy that's being used by Labour in recent elections. 942 00:52:34.640 --> 00:52:41.840 Probably the most honest, it seemed to me, political strategy was fight back by John Hewson in 1993. 943 00:52:42.240 --> 00:52:44.600 And when he lost the unlosable election, 944 00:52:45.520 --> 00:52:47.500 it seemed the media immediately saw that, 945 00:52:47.520 --> 00:52:53.420 as purely down to, you know, to that fight back issue and GST and everything else. 946 00:52:53.620 --> 00:52:59.360 My two major reasons for not voting Liberal in 1993 were one, Howard's industrial policy, 947 00:52:59.560 --> 00:53:02.080 which, you know, we're now seeing 12 years later, 948 00:53:02.160 --> 00:53:04.540 and secondly, no environment policy at all. 949 00:53:04.800 --> 00:53:12.500 So, you know, but most people, you know, perception of 1993 is, oh, it was all about fight back, 950 00:53:12.620 --> 00:53:16.740 and that Hewson's mistake was actually going out with a policy 951 00:53:17.660 --> 00:53:18.660 far too early. 952 00:53:18.820 --> 00:53:23.040 And so it's, that sort of idea's been, you know, I think, promoted in the media 953 00:53:23.600 --> 00:53:28.500 about what a terrible political mistake it is to actually go out and put cards on the table 954 00:53:28.500 --> 00:53:31.500 and give someone, you know, which you've alluded to there, 955 00:53:31.600 --> 00:53:34.620 is you're saying that the parties are not developing policy early enough. 956 00:53:34.820 --> 00:53:38.240 Yeah, I actually think they lost the election in 1993 because of Hewson. 957 00:53:38.520 --> 00:53:39.860 I don't think it was the policies. 958 00:53:39.960 --> 00:53:43.400 I think it was Hewson's political narrowness and ineptness. 959 00:53:43.480 --> 00:53:46.720 And the reason they've been winning since is because Howard is such an experienced politician. 960 00:53:46.740 --> 00:53:48.900 He knows when to back off. 961 00:53:48.980 --> 00:53:54.080 I mean, you can remember the visual images from that 1993 campaign 962 00:53:54.080 --> 00:53:58.360 when he was ranting and raving like he was at some sort of revival meeting. 963 00:53:58.600 --> 00:54:01.620 You know, he came over a bit like Latham did in the last election. 964 00:54:01.720 --> 00:54:07.100 He didn't know how to temper his sort of political tone. 965 00:54:07.500 --> 00:54:13.460 And it seems to me, you know, and the thing about the media is they actually seem to like to think they know. 966 00:54:13.780 --> 00:54:16.380 So they're always making these statements. 967 00:54:16.380 --> 00:54:20.500 They're always making these statements which are un-nuanced and also in very short time frames. 968 00:54:20.680 --> 00:54:22.540 I mean, apart from Paul Kelly and Michelle Grattan, 969 00:54:23.460 --> 00:54:27.600 very few of them have got a really sophisticated understanding of history. 970 00:54:29.800 --> 00:54:30.620 Thank you, Judith. 971 00:54:31.480 --> 00:54:32.540 Could I just... 972 00:54:38.200 --> 00:54:44.040 In closing this session, I just want to say as a Labor Party activist, Judith, 973 00:54:44.040 --> 00:54:48.160 you gave me more than a fair amount of food for thought. 974 00:54:48.240 --> 00:54:49.480 There are two points I would make. 975 00:54:50.180 --> 00:54:52.720 One is your comment about policy development. 976 00:54:53.540 --> 00:54:56.960 Whitlam in 1967 announced he was going to have a national health scheme. 977 00:54:57.100 --> 00:55:01.200 And he campaigned on it for six years, refining it, refining it. 978 00:55:01.280 --> 00:55:04.160 And it's now still embedded in the public psyche. 979 00:55:04.280 --> 00:55:05.720 They like Medibank, Medicare. 980 00:55:06.220 --> 00:55:08.100 Dunstan did the same in South Australia. 981 00:55:08.540 --> 00:55:12.120 And he won five elections in a row where he got over 50%. 982 00:55:12.120 --> 00:55:14.020 Not only the two-party preferred election, but he won the two-party preferred election. 983 00:55:14.040 --> 00:55:17.980 He won the third vote, but in four elections, he got over 50% of the first preference vote. 984 00:55:18.340 --> 00:55:19.780 Something like halcyon days. 985 00:55:20.200 --> 00:55:21.520 My other comment... 986 00:55:21.520 --> 00:55:23.900 So, I think that's one lesson. 987 00:55:24.840 --> 00:55:27.760 Structurally, your comments about the early days of the Labor Party. 988 00:55:28.020 --> 00:55:32.420 You've got to remember, when you joined the union in 1900, you joined the Labor Party. 989 00:55:32.620 --> 00:55:33.900 It was the same act. 990 00:55:34.120 --> 00:55:38.820 You joined the union, you got a ticket in the union, it meant you were a member of the Labor Party. 991 00:55:39.220 --> 00:55:42.600 Because of various developments now, when you join the union, 992 00:55:42.600 --> 00:55:45.180 that in no way joins the Labor Party. 993 00:55:45.540 --> 00:55:51.300 And though we still have union affiliation, there is a disconnect from the membership of the union 994 00:55:51.300 --> 00:55:53.260 to about joining the Labor Party. 995 00:55:53.360 --> 00:55:54.320 It's quite distinct. 996 00:55:54.640 --> 00:56:00.640 And that is an issue in the long term and structural issues about how we reconnect. 997 00:56:00.760 --> 00:56:04.800 How do you get those union members to actually believe when they join the union, 998 00:56:04.960 --> 00:56:06.900 they're actually joining the Labor Party? 999 00:56:07.160 --> 00:56:09.640 And I'm not sure that that's an easy question to deal with. 1000 00:56:09.880 --> 00:56:12.580 So, there are a couple of things that... 1001 00:56:12.580 --> 00:56:13.560 You've brought to the... 1002 00:56:13.560 --> 00:56:18.640 Far as my mind is concerned, Judith, you've brought to the fore in this discussion. 1003 00:56:18.980 --> 00:56:26.080 I just remember in finishing, Mayor Daley, a Democrat mayor of Chicago, ran the whole machine. 1004 00:56:26.420 --> 00:56:28.480 He always had a good way of winning elections. 1005 00:56:28.780 --> 00:56:33.840 He used to say on election day or the night before to all his troops in the Democrat Party in Chicago, 1006 00:56:34.240 --> 00:56:38.040 remember, we'll win the election if you vote early and you vote often. 1007 00:56:38.180 --> 00:56:39.100 Thanks very much.