The Three Narratives about NSW Labor

It’s been interesting to see the public debate come out in the past few days around who was responsible for the loss of the ALP.

I told a friend the other day that I believe there are not two narratives between right and left in the party about what went wrong. There are actually three narratives.

These are:

1. The Sussex Street Narrative – supported by the Head Office party machine.

2. The Macquarie Street Narrative – supported by the NSW parliamentary right faction, and other supporters of electricity privatisation.

3. The Rank and File Narrative – supported by the left faction, some unions, and other rank and file reformers.

The three narratives can be summarized by examining the following questions.

Why did Labor lose?

Who is responsible for it losing?

Should electricity have been privatized?

Where does the ALP go from here?

Lets examine the three arguments in detail.

The Sussex Street Narrative

Key Supporters: Sam Dastyari, Mark Arbib, Graham Richardson

Key articles/texts:

Sam Dastyari’s article in the SMH

Mark Arbib’s 7.30 report interview

Graham Richardson’s article in The Australian

Why did Labor lose?

Labor lost for two main reasons. Firstly, it was at the end of a natural political cycle of sixteen years. Secondly, Labor ran a bad government in the last four years, which made the loss much worse than it should have been. We went through an unnecessary public fight about privatization, which resulted in the downfall of a premier. We then went through two more premiers and a number of ministerial scandals, and took our eye off the ball on policy that helps working families.

Who is responsible for the ALP losing?

The parliamentary wing is primarily responsible. It pushed the privatization debate against the will of the party and the Unions. It attempted to defy the will of conference to get the policy voted up. It is also responsible for the poor behavior of MPs. Sussex Street is not to blame for any of this stuff happening.

Should electricity have been privatized?

Both the party members and the unions didn’t support it. The public were also strongly opposed. There was the risk the ALP would lose office over it. Therefore we were opposed.

The parliamentary wing persisted with the policy even when it was voted down at conference. This was technically against party rules and a breach of the McKell model. Eric Roozendal’s second attempt was also a bad idea. Both of these attempts resulted in a complete loss of confidence in us by the public.

Where does the ALP go from here?

Some reform is necessary to re-engage our base and grow our party at the grassroots, but not any reform that weakens Sussex Street’s hold over the party. People will come back to labor if we start talking about the issues that concern them.

The Macquarie Street Narrative

Key Supporters: Morris Iemma, Michael Costa, Paul Keating

Key texts:

Michael Costa’s Opinion piece in The Australian

Simon Bensen’s book, “Betrayal”

Paul Keating’s interview on the 7.30 report

Why did Labor lose?

Labor lost because our plans for privatization were blocked. This brought down Morris Iemma, Michael Costa and destroyed the government.

Who is to blame?

Sussex street, the unions and the ALP Left are all to blame. The unions and the left ganged up on the parliamentary wing to block the sale at conference. Sussex Street didn’t back the Premier, and instead undermined his position. They willfully and publicly supported the destruction of the government.

Sussex Street should never have intervened in the debate and stood against the Premier. Under the traditions of the McKell model, the party machine should have supported the government of the day in whatever policy it was putting forward, even if that meant it taking a stand against the Unions. Sussex Street are a soul-less policy free zone of hacks who just sit around listening to focus groups instead of helping the party tackle hard policy reform.

Should electricity have been privatized?

Yes. The sale would have allowed competition in the sector, driving prices down. Morris Iemma’s sale model also gave concessions to union members, but the Unions decided to say no. The sale would have delivered a windfall to government that could have been spent on Infrastructure. We were so convinced of the correctness of this policy that we pushed it even after conference voted it down.

Where does the ALP go from here?

Reforms need to be introduced to restrict the power of Unions and the Sussex Street machine to undermine the prerogatives of the Parliamentary Labor party. We need to get back to the McKell model where the party leadership stands with the parliamentary wing, not the industrial wing. Anyone involved in the destruction of the government from the Sussex Street/Unions side should not have any place in the party’s future. Mark Arbib, John Robertson, Bernie Riordan and others should not be in positions of influence.

The Rank and File Narrative

Key Supporters: Luke Foley, Andrew West, Paul Pearce, Rodney Cavalier, Darcy Byrne

Key texts:

Luke Foley’s Message to ALP members

Andrew West’s SMH article

Rodney Cavalier’s book “Power Crisis”

Paul Pearce statements

Darcy Byrne SMH article today

Why did Labor lose?

Labor’s loss can not be explained away as some end of a political cycle. The sheer scale of the loss can only be explained by deeper, more serious structural problems within the ALP.

The party stopped sticking up for workers and we failed to build the infrastructure and services that they need. We had no on the ground presence at the election and this made it worse. The ALP has completely lost touch with the concerns of the community, because we stopped being a party that has any presence or connection to the community.

The party should never have even started the debate about electricity privatization. It was never going to be supported by the community. Morris Iemma himself had said before the 2007 election that he wouldn’t do it.

Who is to Blame?

Sussex Street is primarily to blame. Macquarie Street was wrong to push privatization, but most of the MP’s in Macquarie street owe their careers to Sussex street anyway. For all intents and purposes they are the same machine called Centre Unity (the NSW Right), and they are just having an internal dispute.

Over the past few decades, Sussex Street has:

a) Wrecked the ALP’s grassroots base by taking power away from them over preselections and policy

b) run a corrupt patronage machine from head office via powerbrokers like Tripodi, Roozendal and Obeid

c) Promoted soul-less hacks, fundraisers and right wing ideologues to seats in state (and federal) parliament.

This machine created the debacle of the ALP in the last term.

Should electricity have been privatized?

No. Electricity assets are utilities and should be kept in public ownership, especially generators. Private ownership in electricity just pushes prices up with no guarantee of new assets. The policy did not have the support of unions, the party, or the electorate. Eric Roozendal’s second attempt was even worse than the previous model and led to the certain collapse of our base vote.

If the party wants to change policies on public ownership it must seek a mandate at conference. If this mandate is rejected by conference, further attempts are against the platform.

Where does the ALP go from here?

The ALP must grow as an organization if it is to survive and get back in touch with the community, and survive as a party of social democracy.

Reforms need to be introduced at the next State conference to take power away from Sussex Street and Macquarie Street and give it back to the rank and file. Party members must always have the say over rank and file pre-selections and the ALP platform, without Sussex Street intervention or defiance from Macquarie Street.

The party should implement the recommendations of the 2010 ALP National Review at the next NSW ALP conference in full. The party should also consider reforms that go even further than the ones contained in that document to promote the grassroots.

Conclusion

As can be seen, all three views share some common ground with each other. All parties agree that the fight over privatization, the way it occurred, was just plain dumb.

Sussex Street and the Rank and File were on the side of public opinion in opposing electricity privatization.

Macquarie Street and the Rank and File have no particular sympathy for Sussex Street’s Iron Grip on power in the ALP (but for different reasons).

Macquarie Street and Sussex Street may hate each other, but they aren’t particularly interested in grassroots democracy (apart from paying it lip service).

This is an argument about power in the ALP, and who controls it.

A solution to the issue will probably depend on debate and compromise, or else the rank and file getting more of the numbers to force change. John Robertson’s role in championing one view or the other will be key. Whether one argument wins the day will ultimately be up to the numbers at conference. Personally I'm a strong supporter of the Rank and File Argument.

If the party gets it right, it could be a real clause IV moment, and renewal and growth will come quicker. If not, Labor will spend a long time in the doghouse.

Blue South Wales

Yesterday Barry O'Farrell delivered the last rites to the NSW Government. Some conventional wisdom peddlers will state that the loss is due to natural political cycles. But as Luke Foley said on the ABC on election night: this is more than a conventional political cycle. A conventional political cycle would see Labor lose an election (like Victoria), not be completely annihilated like this.

There's a risk that this loss will prove to be structurally damaging to the Labor Party in NSW.

For starters, there's the lack of Labor MP's. This makes opposition more difficult, when nearly the entire parliamentary delegation will have to be shadow ministers.

Secondly, the Sussex Street Centre Unity machine that NSW Labor nurtured for over seventy years has been severely weakened by the events of the past 4 years. It may yet implode on itself. This would be a good thing. But until this machine is replaced by something else, there are some rocky roads ahead.

How did this all happen? It's true that much of the damage was self-inflicted. It's also true that Barry O'Farrell is a very underestimated politician. But before we touch on those things, it's important to understand a bit of history.

The NSW Labor Machine

NSW Labor has been in government for about 50 of the last 70 years. This is not an accident. It has consciously nurtured structural bases of power in NSW over many decades, both electoral power and money power.

Over long periods of government in office, NSW Labor has built up a large amount of connections in the public service. Departmental heads, senior advisors, and board directors of state-owned enterprises are often linked to the ALP in NSW. On Insiders on Sunday morning, Gerard Henderson called it a "Mates-ocracy". At the liberal party's campaign launch, Tony Abbott called it a "stinking patronage machine". Few within the party would disagree with this, especially those on the ALP Left.

So what exactly is this machine? It's simple - the ALP machine is an electoral coalition of right wing mates backed by powerful stakeholders. At various stages over the last 70 years, the NSW ALP has had backing from the Catholic Church, the Clubs industry, the Hotels Association, the gambling industry, the racing industry, property developers, real estate agents, and many other sections of the business community. It has also had the institutional backing of Unions, particularly right wing unions like the TWU, SDA, HSU and AWU.

The NSW Labor party has also been wise to seek out the support of many migrant communities in Sydney, to join their electoral coalition. In the western suburbs of Sydney, NSW Labor was able to tap into the concerns of migrants and bring them into its base.

People associated with many of the above groups belong to the Centre Unity faction - also known as the NSW Right. This is the faction that has had the numbers in NSW for a long time. It's no secret how it works. The aforementioned groups provide money, people, and votes - all of which the ALP uses to get itself re-elected. In return, the ALP passes policies friendly to these groups. To think anything else is completely naive. It's a 21st century Tammany Hall.

It's easy to see, with such a huge amount of institutional backing, how NSW Labor became the best resourced, most effective political machine in the country, delivering itself power over and over again.

The only problem has been this - Centre Unity is itself now an unstable political machine, struggling to justify its existence in the 21st century. It's malaise has been the Labor Party's malaise.

Decline of the NSW Right?

The NSW Right is being pulled in several directions, to such an extent that it doesn't know what it stands for any more.

Sixty years ago the faction did have a clear purpose - to oppose communist influence in trade unions, and to propose moderate, electorally successful (although still distinctly Labor) policies - as a way of keeping out liberal governments that would attack unions, Catholics, and later migrants. In other words, Centre Unity was the political coalition that opposed commies on the left and conservatives on the right.

But after the fall of the Berlin Wall, much of this reason for existence was undermined. A large debate then went on about what the right should stand for. Some wanted it to be more socially progressive, especially in its younger ranks. This rankled with old-school Catholics and many migrant groups, who correctly judge the political values of their communities as more conservative, and say that the party must accommodate and reflect those views in order to maintain its structural advantage.

People like Michael Costa wanted to turn the faction into the country's biggest cheerleader of neoliberalism. This doesn't sit well with the union movement, who know that it's generally their union members who lose out. It also clashes with the views of Labor's base working class voters. Unions themselves don't want to give up their power because they fear what a non-union dominated Labor party would look like.

And then of course - the stinking patronage machine. Big donors want to continue to have access and influence in order to make money. Property developers in particular. This clashes with the Labor party's progressive beliefs about big monied interests.

Where is the NSW Right faction now?

Most NSW Right faction leaders want the faction to continue to run the party with scant regard to the health of its grassroots. This clashes with the modern view of campaigning found in the Labor Party's 2010 National Review, which identifies the importance of community organising, local engagement, and involving rank and file Labor supporters in party decision making as much as possible.

In the absence of ideas or one clear and consistent direction, the faction merely acts as a soulless factional patronage machine without any clear ideology. It gets wheeled out at election time to raise funds and run attack ads. Then it disappears for a few years, quietly dishing out favours to mates and picking up a few barnacles as it sails aimlessly onward.

Because it doesn't know what it stands for (and it's not a machine with deep community links), the faction has to ask focus groups to figure out what to say. This would be softened somewhat if there was a stronger ALP Left faction. But sadly, the left is on the decline too - bleeding volunteers and young people to The Greens.

It's clear that this can't go on. Now that the ALP is out of government, it can't rely on big donors any more. It must rely on a grassroots base. But the ALP has been a party without members for many years now, due to Centre Unity's iron fist.

Now that its tentacles of influence have been removed from government and other power bases in NSW, the faction is going to seriously struggle. And rightly so! There's no point persisting with a political machine unable to justify its existence in 2011. The machine has lived well past its use-by date, despite what some of the hacks will try to say. Anyone who tries to defend it is on the wrong side of history.

Barry O'Farrell is underestimated

Barry O'Farrell understands much of the above. O'Farrell understands that his ability to run a long term government depends on his ability to keep key stakeholders on his side, while undermining any other structural support bases for Labor. Everything he's done over the past 4 years as opposition leader can be viewed through one prism: O'Farrell has maximised political damage to the ALP at any possible opportunity.

Going back to 2008 - he took a highly unprincipled decision (from a liberal point of view) to oppose the sale of electricity assets. He was highly criticised for that decision by many conservatives, but there can be little doubt that O'Farrell's decision ruined the political careers of Michael Costa and Morris Iemma. It also fatally weakened the state government, which never recovered in polling.

Since 2008, the Coalition has done some quiet, but very hard work getting key stakeholders on the coalitions side. Property developers sent a lot of money supporting the National Party, as did the clubs industry and racing industry. Even got the NRL on side back in December. One of his first acts as premier may be to beef up donations laws to more greatly restrict election spending by unions.

Most smartly of all, he moved to detoxify the liberal party's image in western sydney that it only stuck up for racist rednecks, or white men in pinstripe suits. Moderate candidates with local migrant backgrounds were preselected, like Tony Issa and Dai Le. O'Farrell went wining and dining with many migrant communities and asked for their support. He consciously tried to distance the state liberal brand from the federal liberal party (and ALP), and it worked. He was also assisted in this task by federal Labor's abandonment of multiculturalism at the last federal election.

The liberals have finally realised that some migrant groups are conservative, and would ordinarily vote liberal on their values if the ALP hadn't stuck up for multiculturalism. John Howard and Pauline Hanson drove many of these voters away from right wing politics - Barry has won some of them back.

Barry O'Farrell won the election by doing exactly the same thing NSW Labor has done over the years. Appear moderate. Win key stakeholders. Appeal to Sydney's large migrant community. Run negative campaigns against your opponent. It's not the most original strategy for winning government, but it's highly effective, and it worked.

The people left voting for Labor are people who truly do rely on Labor - poorer workers, unionists, public housing tenants, some migrants and the long term unemployed. Basically everyone else went to the liberal party.

Where to from here?

The election result was a catastrophe but it will allow once and for all for a debate about party reform to be had. John Robertson is likely to be made leader - he comes from a working class union background, and he understands grassroots campaigning in and out. In 2007 he and Adam Kerslake co-ordinated the Your Rights at Work campaign in NSW. He will hopefully understand the need for change. On the other hand, he will be in debt to the right wing machine that gave him his upper house spot, arranged for him to be made the candidate in Blacktown, and then sent every right wing hack and unionist in NSW to go and campaign for him.

He will not automatically do the right thing any more than Sussex Street or the other leadership candidiates. He must be forced to do it like everyone else.

On a broader point, Labor must soon make a choice about its future direction. Does it want to win the next election by doing what O'Farrell did, rebulding the lost political machine, the patronage network? I argue that now is the time when we can replace the rotten machine with something better.

We must reform and grow as a grassroots organisation

Now that Labor is out of power right across Sydney and NSW, it needs to rebuild a grassroots campaign network capable of running a huge grassroots campaign in every seat. That's not just hard, it's necessary. Labor only has about 20 seats. You need 47 to form government. That's a lot of seats we need to win back, and not a lot of money or people to do it with.

It's not a coincidence that some of the best ALP results in 2011 came in places where an active campaign was run with many volunteers. Huge Labor campaigns in Marrickville, Maroubra, Toongabbie, Wallsend, Granville and Blacktown helped Labor win seats or at least keep the swing lower. The same thing happened at the federal election in seats like Robertson and Lindsay, which saved the Gillard government.

This sort of saturation campaigning on the ground actually works - but it was only made possible because the party strictly prioritised where to send it's already thinning membership base to campaign. Everywhere else had no campaign at all, and the consequences of that were obvious. Bathurst swung over 30%. Parramatta by 29%. Resources were pulled from these seats ages ago, because there just wasn't enough money or volunteers to go around.

There's only one solution - more people. In particular, more ALP members. It's not enough to wheel out a whole bunch of Union Organisers at election time to run around marginal seats. That's a failure in itself, because it's an admission that we have nobody in the community. We must have a local community presence or we'll be dead.

If we're to be a grassroots movement, we have to actually address the real reasons people don't join the ALP and/or stick around. These come back to rules, the National Review 2010, and the way the NSW has run the party with an iron fist - crushing democracy and crushing hopes for a more progressive Labor party. These are the elephants in the room, and all players must recognise them.

The Sussex Street machine will no doubt attempt to cling on to its structural control of the party. It will propose some reforms, but none that threaten its control. Power is never given - it must be taken. This will require a grassroots campaign in itself - the left must be active and it must grow. Otherwise decisions will be taken without its input, and nothing will change.

Real change means the National Review 2010 being implemented in full, as a bare minimum. Preselection powers should be returned fully to membership, and Sussex Street should give up its veto. Members of the executive and conference delegations must all be elected. Without these things, people will still see no value in getting involved. Labor is supposed to be a party that believes in social democracy, but it's probably the least democratic political party of its type in the world.

Once this is done, the next step will be to regain local councils in NSW. There are council elections in NSW next year, and that will be a good opportunity for the party to come up with a consistent local government agenda that can be campaigned on at the grassroots in local communities. That can be a way we can re-engage people to get involved. That will be the key to oppose the likely liberal and national party orgy on some issues around local government matters.

There's also a practical reason for this - the next council elections after that won't be until 2016. With an O'Farrell re-election likely in 2015, (plus a possible Gillard defeat somewhere before then), that's five solid years in the doghouse in NSW. That amount of time spent out of any public office will be enormously damaging to the party and, perhaps, the state.

After council elections, we should do as Sam Dastyari proposed, and exploit some of the ideas the coalition have, like petitions to parliament to trigger parliamentary debates. Those would be great ways to assist the parliamentary labor party to set the agenda, despite its low amount of numbers.

To do all of this, we have to go back to our political roots - standing up for workers rights, cost of living issues, public services, and local community concerns. We can't do this without reform and fast change. It will be tough to regain credibility that quickly - it requires a real Clause IV moment, followed by a fundamental change in the way things are run. John Robertson may be the person to do this, but grassroots pressure still needs to be there from below to make it a reality.

There's a lot of work to do, and this moment seems dark. But this is an opportunity as much as a threat, to create something more hopeful out of the ashes. It need not be a Blue South Wales for long if we force our way down the right path.

What is Social Democracy?

I was thinking the other week about the crisis of conviction within Labor. Much has been spoken about a destructive internal party culture and a dysfunctional, soul-less organisation. A number of books have covered off the current crisis - for those interested, I recommend Rodney Cavalier's book as a very good take.

But the more I thought of it, the more I realised that these problems were mere by-products of something far greater. An organisation can be dysfunctional, and the Labor party has certainly been that way over many parts of its history. But there's only one reason that dysfunction would become the sole focus - and that's if there's nothing else to talk about. In the absence of a clear set of beliefs, these other things become amplified.

Labor's crisis is one of conviction - of not knowing what it stands for, as distinct from the Liberal Party on its right, and increasingly, as distinct from the Greens on its left.

This is not unique to Labor parties around the world - most social democrats in Europe now find themselves completely out of power as well. Since many went down the road of co-opting many of the doctrines of neoliberalism, what makes them different than conservative governments?

On social policy, the divisions have been clear. You could summarise them as "the culture wars". With such a wide ranging economic consensus between conservatives and social democrats, these culture wars have become amplified as the sole focus of politics. And yet, it's that very economic consensus, not spoken about, that actually makes a difference in people's day-today standard of living.

Perhaps we need to go back to a very fundamental question - what is Social Democracy? Why does it exist as an ideology? Why were political parties formed, with names like "The Labour Party", or the "Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SDP)", or "Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti"? Why was there a special place on the political spectrum called "social democracy, somewhere in between socialism and liberalism? And more importantly, knowing this, where does it sit in a modern context?

What does Social Democracy stand for, as distinct from:

1. Neoliberalism/conservatism on the right
2. Pure Socialism on the left
3. Green Politics

The difference between S.D. and Liberalism/Conservatism/Neoliberalism

Liberalism is about the individual rights and responsibilities of a person under the law. Neoliberalism is about the economics of an "individual" in the market. Both of these philosophies stress smal government and the promotion of the individual as an economic actor and his/her rational decisions. It rejets collectivism and government intervention as an "impurity", and that the economic good is best served when markets are allowed to function without state intrusion.

Social democracy stresses the rights and responsibilities of people, and the economics of common people and workers. Social democracy recognises that markets are fallible and don't produce the best social outcomes if left to themselves. Social democracy realises that there are powerful forces in society that screw over workers, and they thus must be reigned in by a state that pursues the common economic good.

The difference between Socialism and S.D

Socialism promotes ownership of the means of production by the state, and the abolition of private markets. It views the market as the problem - creating an unjust society that does not act in the economic interests of workers, and that the answer is to abolish the market.

Social Democracy accepts public ownership as necessary in public goods, utilities, and some industries. It believes in universal public services as a way of narrowig the gap between rich and poor.

Social democracy believes in markets as "creators" of wealth under the right circumstances but it does not believe that markets distribute wealth fairly and equitably due to unequal power relations. Therefore social democracy believes that government may have to act to soften to market through eithr government regulation or direct state competition to keep it running properly (eg Medibank Private, Australia post).

The difference between Green Politics and S.D.

This is a contentious area because the Australian greens have stolen a lot of political ground that used to belong to Labor. Putting this aside, Green politics comes from a slightly different political tradition.

Green politics grew out of the environmentalist movement - and particularly takes inspiration from the idea of conservation.

To "conserve" is actually a conservative instinct, applied to the environment. It states that the environment is worth saving, because the environment is beautiful, animals and plants and native flora and fauna are worth conserving in themselves.

Social democracy and green politics will often converge on matters of policy. But the thing that seperates the conservation movement from social democracy is the philosophical approach to the environment.

Green politics prioritises the environment above all other things, often regardless of the impact on other things. There are some environmentalists out there who would gladly see logging in old growth forests stopped tomorrow, without considering the impact on a worker's job or living standards. Many green activists and voters are (or were) people who would chain themselves to trees to try and stop it happening.

Social democracy views environmental issues not just from a conservation perspective, but also from a humanist perspective. It does not believe in saving the environment just for its own sake, but rather because environmental damage can also be bad for humans. For example, certain types of pollution disproportionally affect working people, like poor air and water quality. The destruction of the environment can be bad for humans as well, for example, declining fish stocks and coral reef damage will affect the living standards of communities. A lack of sustainability in something like the logging industry can also eventually destroy jobs. And of course, the big one, climate change - if not for the fact that climate change would negatively affect human beings, social democracy would view it as something to be managed or accomodated, rather than actively attacked head on.

So what is social democracy?

1. The common good for workers and the middle class - including taking on big, powerful interests. Collectivism, not individualism.

2. The reduction of inequality, by the state providing public services as a way of reducing the rich/poor gap

3. The Market as our servant and not our master. State ownership of public goods, state participating in some markets, state regulations in others to ensure good social and economic ends

4. A humanist approach to the environment

5. A foreign policy that acknowledges power relations, but is outward looking and multilateral

6. Social policies that aim to eliminate discrimination under the law and in society, particularly against working australians and minority groups

What isn't social democracy?

1. Liberalism and neoliberalism

2. Individualism over collectivism

3. "Choice" or "nudge" economics that assumes a fair and competitive playing field can be created simply by providing people with more information so they can make a "good choice"

4. Environmentalism without a human focus or perspective

5. Pure socialism or a command economy as the solution in all circumstances

My thoughts on Julian Assange and Wikileaks

There can be no doubt this man has made many enemies over his lifetime. Many powerful ones.

It is premature to suggest that his sexual assault allegations are "trumped up". Those sorts of allegations are serious and have to be investigated. The fact that he has turned himself in suggests that he's happy to face them down and protest his innocence.

Beyond those allegations, is Julian Assange guilty of any crime?

The answer, of course, should be no.

Anyone in the Australian public service who leaked such information be guilty of treason. At best, they would be protected under whistleblower legislation if the documents they leaked exposed gross corruption or negligence.

Julian Assange is neither a whistleblower, nor someone guilty of treason. He is not employed by any government. His organisation basically runs a "drop box" for people to provide leaks to, anonymously if necessary. He then publishes them on his website.

His organisation is basically a media organisation that reports the facts by publishing the documents. In the past, leaked documents would be handed to newspapers, who would then report on the story. Today, the documents themselves are freely accessable by anyone. What's the difference? the public still gets the information. In fact now, it's easier than ever. Which is probably the point, as far as many governments are concerned. It's too easy now. And governments don't trust Julian Assange to self-censor stuff that could be potentially explosive.

Assange is no more guilty of reporting sensitive information than the news organisations that have repeated his scoops worldwide. And many of his scoops have been substantial, from leaks of diplomatic cables on afghanistan, evidence of war crimes in iraq, evidence of corporate crime, and other juicy diplomatic cables like Saudi Arabia wanting to attack Iran, and Sweden being a secret member of NATO.

Julian Assange is guilty of nothing more than exposing the world's dirty laundry. For this we should thank him. If he is indeed guilty of sexual assault, he deserves to be punished.

The Conservative Era cometh

Much discussion has raged in recent months about Labor's identity crisis. What does it stand for any more, as distinct from the liberals or the greens? It's a good question.

What is less well acknowledged is that the Liberal Party has also had an identity crisis of its own for the past 15 years. It’s been well acknowledged that from 2002-2008 every state and territory government in Australia was run by Labor governments. Despite the success of the Howard government, the liberals have struggled to articulate how they’d be different – in a positive way – to the Labor Party when running state government coffers.

In Victoria, the long shadow of Jeff Kennett has hung over the liberal party ever since his government’s sudden end in 1999. For the past ten years, the liberal party in that state has been associated with huge public service cuts, privatizations, sell-offs, and service cuts. This brand became toxic after 1999, particularly in regional Victoria, and it fed into a narrative about the liberals in state governments around the country – if they get in, they’ll just cut everything.

We must remember that Kennett was able to get away with this sort of government because Victorian labor was in a state of total collapse in the early 1990’s. Kennett was given one of the largest majorities in Victorian history in 1992 and 1996, and he didn’t hesitate to use it with impunity. But his government also suffered a significant crash by the end, when voters got frightened of the scale of what was happening.

The liberals have attempted to run away from that legacy, but have not replaced that vision with anything else. This has merely created political space for Labor, who have been able to argue that only they understand the bread and butter concerns of voters, and they are able to run the state effectively.

Voters in state government are not looking for large scale cuts to services. They are looking for a vision for the future of their state – a vision for roads, public transport, better schools and hospitals, and well run community services. When the only brand the liberals have been associated with is the brand that says all of this stuff would be cut, it’s very difficult to win a state election.

The Victorian election, just completed, showed the first glimmer of a conservative political revival. Ted Baillieu and the coalition sent a very clear message to voters about who they are – ironically not by talking about what they’d do in office, but by announcing their preference deal to put the Greens last. This was a game-changer – combined with their messaging about public transport, law and order, safety, waste and mismanagement of important projects, it gave voters something to cling on to. The liberals sent the message that they are a moderate conservative party standing on a conservative platform of fixing some bread and butter issues. It worked, and they won by one seat.

“Fix The Problems, Build the Future” ended up being a surprisingly effective slogan. Voters didn’t have the same level of anger at the Brumby government that voters in NSW had. But they were angry with the botched delivery of a few major projects, and were frustrated with a lack of Labor vision on new infrastructure development.

Worryingly for Labor, the ALP lost this election because it didn’t have a good enough vision for people living in those outer suburban marginals. Regional Victoria did not swing sharply away from Labor – this is probably because Labor has put a lot of work into making these regional towns into livable cities with good infrastructure and transport. But people in outer suburbia did not feel the same way.

People in the outer suburbs are the “squeezed middle”, worried about their quality of life, and a whole range of social and economic policy concerns. They see their quality of life diminishing through a lack of government investment in their area around new infrastructure, public transport and services. They get stuck in traffic or on unreliable trains (if the trains exist). They also worry about rising utility bills and crime, and were unsatisfied with current service delivery from government.

Compared to NSW, the level of service delivery to these people in Victoria is top-notch. Voters in NSW who watched ABC News 24’s election coverage would probably have felt a bit miffed when the guy from Labor said it was “offensive to compare Victoria to NSW”. NSW voters must have thought voters in Victoria were spoilt brats.

Regardless, there’s nothing wrong with asking a government to do better. Voters didn’t hear a message that appealed to them, and felt their government could be doing better for them. The liberals were offering something else, so they concluded that it was time to flick the switch and give the other guys a go.

There’s already been the inevitable commentary about how Labor lost an election because it ran off to the left on some policy. This is misleading.

Labor is a party that believes in the removal of discrimination, and the protection of the environment. None of that is new. Labor has a record of both pragmatic social reform (Neville Wran, Bob Carr, ), and radical social reform (eg Whitlam, Don Dunstan, some of the Hawke-era reforms).

It’s important to remember that Labor can’t be defined solely by its social agenda. It also must have an economic agenda that appeals to working and middle class people. Without this, it would not be a party of the workers. All of the above governments had radical economic and opportunity agendas.

For a while now, Labor governments at a state level have been struggling with the needs of outer-suburban voters, who worry about their quality of life. These voters will not turn away from Labor just because it supports gay marriage. Some of these voters support gay marriage. But they will turn away from Labor if they see Labor only pushing those issues without delivering on things that will reduce their cost of living and improve their standard of living.

The great irony here is Labor has suffered from not being radical enough on delivering key services and infrastructure. Gough Whitlam spent much of his time talking about how the outer suburbs still had open gutters and sewage. Much of this was caused by the neglect of liberal governments at both a state and federal level.

Today, the modern concerns are a lack of roads, railways, bus services, trams, hospital beds and child care places. Or, if they do exist, they are inadequate. Privatised utilities are now jacking up the rates for electricity and water, causing economic stress. PPP's charge huge tolls for using the roads. People are crying out for basic services, yet Labor has been strangely silent.

All of these are expensive problems to fix, and state governments have not been willing to cough up money, or go into deficit out of a fear of the state losing a AAA credit rating. Governments have prioritised the balance sheet over people’s quality of life. Many voters don’t understand why they don’t have adequate roads and public transport and they are getting impatient.

For a long time the liberals have been silent about these problems. However, now they are the beneficiaries of failure. Labor has vacated the space, and the liberals have gladly filled it with other things.

Check out Ted Baillieu's agenda: nothing about building new infrastructure. In fact a lot of it is about shutting stuff down, like the North-South pipeline, and potentially the Desalination Plant. His improvements to services are mainly in the areas of policing and safety, such as more police, and putting more protective services officers on the train. His promises to improve the cost of living are cuts to stamp duty and royal ambulance service memberships. More urban sprawl. This is a classic liberal state agenda.

NSW, prepare yourselves.

Two significant maiden speeches

Two significant maiden speeches were given in the life of this parliament. One liberal, one Labor.

The first was given by Liberal Josh Frydenberg, the new Liberal Member for Kooyong.

The second was given by Andrew Leigh, the new Labor member for Fraser.

I find them both particularly interesting because they sought to carve out the ideological territory of their parties, and sought to define what their opposition really stand for.

Starting with this passage from Josh Frydenberg:

Each member for Kooyong has sought a tolerant, fair and prosperous Australia. I will be no different, for this is an honourable legacy. How would I like to see the future unfold? I want to see an Australia that is safe and secure. I want to see an Australia where the only relevant consideration is the content of a person’s character. I want to see an Australia where families are valued and encouraged. I want to see an Australia where each citizen has the opportunity to be the best that they can be. And I want to see an Australia where individuals, not governments, invent the future. This is why I am a Liberal, this is why I joined the Liberal Party and this why I am here.

What drives us as Liberals are notions of individual liberty, individual responsibility and a fairness borne out of a particular kind of equality. The equality which Liberals seek in a society is the equality of opportunity, not the other kind of equality—the equality of outcomes. It seems to me that these two notions of equality reflect the fundamental fault lines between us and the members opposite. It is not a thin divide. Let me illustrate.

How can we all be better off when a teenager loses his daily two-hour job at the local store merely because his employer cannot afford to pay the minimum three-hour shift? How can we all be better off when the government targets independent and Catholic schools merely because parents are exercising choice? How can we all be better off when the government discourages private health insurance at a time when the public system is overburdened? These examples go to the heart of the other side’s preoccupation with the equality of outcomes. By mandating outcomes, the state removes responsibility from individuals and denies the worker, the student and the patient the opportunity to be the best that they can be.

In the writings of John Stuart Mill, Edmund Burke and Adam Smith, I have found what I consider the best elements of both liberal and conservative traditions. Mill’s argument that the state only has the right to intervene in the affairs of the individual in order to prevent harm to others is a fundamental building block in my political philosophy. Burke’s defence of the traditions of society and the institutions of the state and his opposition to utopian notions of change for change’s sake are also critical to my understanding of what is an effective role for government. The opportunity to prosper is given its best chance through competitive markets—the insight reached by Adam Smith more than two centuries ago.

My vision is to achieve what Menzies termed ‘civilised capitalism’, unleashing the power of the individual and his enterprise while always providing a safety net for those who despite their best efforts are unable to cope. These are my motivations, my cause and my way, and they not negotiable."

I thought it was a very interesting speech that touched on some of the major themes of the Australian Liberal Party. Individualism, Family, National Security, Freedom of Choice, Small Government, and Equality of Opportunity. Interestingly he cites Deakin and talks about social safety nets.

He accuses Labor of being in favour of "Big Government" that stifles individual innovation, and promotes equality of outcomes, rather than equality of opportunity.

In this place we are painting the canvas of the nation and its future. We have a responsibility to dream large and think of what is possible in a difficult world. It may appear a paradox but the first of my large thoughts is that we need to limit the government. Our government is too big. For problems large and small, bureaucratic outcomes always seem to be the default option. This comes at a price—paralysing monopolies and a culture of dependence. It removes incentives for innovation and creativity. It often crowds out a capable private sector, impeding its ability to create jobs. The net effect is a less productive nation. We must always remember that whenever we create a new arm of bureaucracy or expand a field of activity, we are not spending our own money; we are spending the money of our citizens who look to us as the guardians of their wealth.

More than 30 years ago, Margaret Thatcher said that the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money. Thatcher’s nemesis was socialism; ours is bigger and bigger government. My goal is to ensure that government learns to live within its means.

Andrew Leigh outlines what he considers the cause of Labor:

As an economist, much of my research has been devoted to the vast challenges of reducing poverty and disadvantage. I believe that rising inequality strains the social fabric. Too much inequality cleaves us one from another: occupying different suburbs, using different services, and losing our sense of shared purpose. Anyone who believes in egalitarianism as the animating spirit of the Australian settlement should recoil at this vision of our future.

But my research has also taught me that good intentions aren’t enough. As a professor-turned-politician, one of my role models is the late great US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Moynihan was innately sceptical about every social policy solution presented to him. Indeed, his starting point was to expect that any given social policy would have no measureable effect. But these high standards didn’t make him any less of an idealist, and Moynihan never lost his optimism and passion. What we need in Australian policy today is not more ideologues, convinced that their prescriptions are the answer, but modest reformers willing to try new solutions, and discover whether they actually deliver results...

...To me, the Australian project is about encouraging economic growth, while ensuring that its benefits are shared across the community. It is about making sure that all Australians have great public services, regardless of ethnicity, income or postcode. And it is about recognising that governments have a role in expanding opportunities, because no child gets to choose the circumstances of their birth...

...As elected representatives, one of our most important jobs is to speak out on behalf of those who struggle to have their voices heard. The Labor Party has a proud tradition of defending individual liberties. Past Labor governments outlawed discrimination on the basis of gender or race. This Labor government has removed from the statute books much of the explicit discrimination against same-sex couples, and strengthened disability discrimination laws. And all Labor governments strive to protect the right of workers to bargain collectively for better pay and conditions. Our party also stands firmly committed to democratic reform, including the simple yet powerful notion that every Australian child should be able to aspire to be our head of state.

The Labor Party today stands at the confluence of two powerful rivers in Australian politics. We are the party that believes in egalitarianism – that a child from Aurukun can become a High Court Justice, and that a mine worker should get the same medical treatment as the bloke who owns the mine.

But what is sometimes overlooked is that we are also the party that believes in liberalism..."



As that last sentence notes, what I found most interesting about both speeches is both Frydenberg and Leigh both lay claim to Alfred Deakin's liberalism.

Frydenberg:

"The history of Kooyong tells a powerful story about Australian liberalism over more than a century. On 18 March 1895 Alfred Deakin addressed a public meeting at St Columb’s Church in Hawthorn with a speech entitled, ‘What is liberalism?’ His speech was an early enunciation of the attributes which we now identify as a fair go. His clarion call for equality of opportunity and a society tempered by a safety net for those in need has resonated through the decades. The members for Kooyong have taken heed of Deakin’s words—many have been giants in this place..."

Leigh:

...what is sometimes overlooked is that we are also the party that believes in liberalism – that governments have a role in protecting the rights of minorities, that freedom of speech applies for unpopular ideas as for popular ones, and that all of us stand equal beneath the Southern Cross. The modern Labor Party is the true heir to the small-L liberal tradition in Australia.

Alfred Deakin was one of the earliest Australian leaders to make the distinction between liberals and conservatives. Deakin argued that liberalism meant the destruction of class privileges, equality of political rights without reference to creed, and equality of legal rights without reference to wealth. Liberalism, Deakin said, meant a government that acted in the interests of the majority, with particular regard to the poorest in the community.

As for conservatives, to quote Deakin’s description of his opponents, they are:

‘a party less easy to describe or define, because, as a rule it has no positive programme of its own, adopting instead an attitude of denial and negation. This mixed body, which may fairly be termed the party of anti-liberalism, justifies its existence, not by proposing its own solution of problems, but by politically blocking all proposals of a progressive character, and putting the brakes on those it cannot block.’

A century on, it is hard to escape the conclusion that if Deakin were in this parliament today, he and his brand of progressive liberalism would find a natural home in the Australian Labor Party. (And given the numbers in today’s parliament, I am sure my colleagues would welcome his vote.)"

Interesting indeed.

Keneally is right about NSW OHS Laws - plus, happy anti-poverty week

One of the things that frustrates me about media coverage of state political issues is the lens that they currently view anything being done by the NSW government. They've already concluded that the NSW government is incapable of making a good decision.

On the rare occasion that the NSW Government does get something right, the media don't know how to handle it. So they either choose not to inform themselves of the facts about the policy, or they wilfully ignore them and just attack the government.

The media love nothing more than conflict, especially if it's between two members of the same political party. A public spat between Julia Gillard and Kristina Keneally is like feeding the monster.

This morning Kristina Keneally announced that she would not be implementing the national OHS laws in NSW over concerns about NSW powers that would be lost under the legislation. In response, Gillard has threatened to withhold $140 million in tied federal grants.

The media have already come out this morning and described the move as an attempt to "shore up the unions support before the March 2011 election".

What frustrates me is the "sop to the unions" meme has already bounced around the media, but none of them have actually looked at the policy.

If they did 5 minutes of homework, they would discover:

1. Keneally has valid policy concerns about protections that workers in NSW will lose
2. the NSW government has voiced these concerns for over 12 months, initially under Nathan Rees. Their position has been consistent the whole time.

With this said, of course Unions have concerns about the harmonised policies. it would be hardly surprising if they didn't have an opinion on an issue like workplace safety.

The ACTU put out a policy statement at its conference last year. It supported the harmonisation process but had grave concerns about some parts of the new policy.

A short summary can be found here (recommended reading):

http://www.unionstas.com.au/News/2009/ACTU_OHS_Fact_Sheet_May09.pdf

Shortly afterwards, the ACTU launched a campaign called "Don't Risk 2nd Rate Safety". Unions NSW held a protest a few weeks after in Martin Place, and similar protests were held across the country.

The dispute between Keneally and Gillard focuses on two of the matters in that policy document. The first is the Union right to prosecute, and the second is the reverse onus of proof.

Union Right to Prosecute Employers over OHS Breaches

The Union right to Prosecute is a power that has existed in NSW for a long time. It allows a union to prosecute an employer in court over alleged breaches of OHS legislation.

If you are a union member (and even if you aren't), this is a very important power to retain. Without it, you will be forced to rely on your state/federal safety authority, or your own pocket, to prosecute an employer for breaches of safety legislation. In NSW, Unions can also prosecute - giving workers a third way to make their workplaces safer.

These powers have improved workers safety. The example often used is that of the banking Industry. In 2002, an important case initiated by the Finance Sector Union found that the Commonwealth Bank had not taken all available steps to ensure the safety of its Bank Tellers from the risk of bank robberies. The FSU won the case, and the Commonwealth bank had to spend over $100 million installing new safety screens, non-jumpable desks and other measures to ensure the safety of staff. Other banks then followed.

This power is in ther interests of workers. NSW state legislation includes it. Other states don't have it. The federal government wants to take this power away from NSW in the harmonisation process - and nobody can understand why, other than the cost to business of making the NSW laws apply nationally. Keneally is right to fight for this.

"Reverse Onus of Proof"

This law means that in any legal action on safety, the onus is on the employer to prove that they acted in accordance with OHS law.

This has been criticised in the past and is a little bit more contestable, at least on legal precedent grounds.

The reverse onus of proof effectively means that an Employer (who would be the defendent in the majority of cases) is found responsible (guilty) until proven innocent (they can show that they took all reasonable steps to ensure safety).

There is a valid criticism to be made here, which was repeated on ABC radio this morning, which is that our legal system operates on a principle of "innocent until proven guilty". The argument could run that it's This piece of legislation effectively reverses that, and that it's unfair to anyone in Australia that a law like this could enshrine that principle.

On the flipside, the effect of these laws is strong. It enshrines a principle that employers are undoubtedly responsible for the safety of their workplaces. This is a principle the Union movement has been fighting for for a long time. It's been very easy for an employer to blame an employee for poor safety standards, saying that "it was the fault of the individual for not acting safely", rather than the responsibility of an empoyer to ensure their staff are properly trained, disciplined and acting safely. Studies have shown that the "safe worker" theory is flawed and without merit. When employers take responsibility, workers are safer.

Secondy, the law provides an enormous legal and economic disincentive for an employer to take risks, and an enourmous incentive to practice diligence to the highest degree. This is the sort of culture you want to encourage in a workplace and an industry. If an employer has been slack or reckless, it will be shown up immediately in court. remember, they must show that at all times they followed all reasonable steps to ensure workplace safety.

The purpose of any OHS legislation must be to reduce death and injury in the workplace. You do that by creating an economic disincentive for employers to be slack about safety. The NSW legislation contains strong disincentives. The national harmonised laws take away some of those disincentives. These may threaten safety in NSW workplaces.

The NSW government is fighting against the laws for this reason. the media should pay more attention to the facts. There's nothing wrong with having a go at the NSW government, but it should be an informed policy debate, not this childish stuff about cowtowing to unions or a spat between two Labor leaders. Talk about the policy, examine the policy, even disagree with the NSW government's policy if you must.

Anti-Poverty Week

However, the media don't always get it wrong on trade union rights.

Today, the firfax press pleasantly surprised me. The Age published a wonderful opinion piece in defence of Unions and workplace rights in the third world. It's written by an ASU delegate and you can read it here:

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/workplace-rights-can-alleviate-poverty-20101015-16n6q.html

What prompted this change of heart, you say? Well:

http://www.antipovertyweek.org.au/

Happy anti-poverty week.

The New Generation takes control of UK Labour

On Tuesday, Ed Miliband caused a political earthquake when he upset his brother to claim the UK Labour leadership.

Immediately, the right-wing press found their soundbyte – “Red Ed”.

In his keynote to conference, Ed Miliband immediately rubbished that suggestion. It’s a bit of an insult to call him a “Red” when Labour spent many years trying to boot Communists like Militant Tendency out of the party – let alone the fact that “Red Ken” has been given another shot at becoming Labour’s mayor of London (and even that tag is a bit of a joke these days).

Ed should be called a conventional social democrat, who believes in equality and collectivism and using the power of the state to change society, as opposed to the strong strains of liberalism, neoliberalism and individualism that often ran through New Labour.

The press were obviously trying to label him before he had a chance to define himself. They were also angry about how their preferred candidate, David Miliband, had not won. The howls of outrage grew even bigger when Ed Miliband won via the union vote. What these people failed to understand was that the “union vote” is actually a vote of members of affiliated societies. The union vote isn’t some stack of union secretaries, it’s a vote of ordinary union members – teachers, nurses, cleaners, public servants, manufacturing workers. They also include members of small think tanks like the Fabians and compass, who did break for Ed Miliband as well. The fact Ed Miliband won this section wasn’t an accident. He went after their votes and talked about issues that they cared about. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Perhaps there’s a bigger point to make, though. The attacks on Ed Miliband before he has even spent a week in the job show that many in the media think that “New Labour” is the only credible or electable version of Labour. Anything else is illegitimate or “red”. Perhaps more of a worry – many in “the new Labour establishment” feel exactly the same way.

EdM was absolutely spot on when he called them an “establishment”. To this day, none of that establishment have any idea just how bad some of their policies were to the country and to Labour’s credibility. ”. To me this was brought to life when David Miliband was spotted whispering to Harriet Harman about why she clapped Ed’s condemnation on Iraq. When Ed Miliband told conference that Iraq was wrong, conference gave a half-hearted applause, almost like they were in shock.

When he talked about how Unions fight for justice, and how labour market flexibility was not always the answer, and that marketisation of public services had gone too far, and that the gap between rich and poor was too wide, again the New Labour establishment was shaken up. Part of the New Labour brand was to not worry about these things – but as Ed said in an earlier speech a few weeks ago – “New Labour got stuck in it’s own dogma”.

In Australia we wouldn’t view such opinions as out of place or unfashionable in the ALP. In fact, they would be mainstream even in sections of the NSW right faction. Ed Miliband’s comment that the Iraq War was wrong because it undermined international institutions was precisely the opinion of the ALP in 2003 and it remains so today. Yet in British Labour it remains controversial, because Blair spent an enormous amount of his (and Labour’s) political capital in selling it. To call that decision wrong took an enormous amount of bravery to but Ed was absolutely right to do it.

Ed’s task is to remove the “New” from Labour, and then make “Labour” credible. This will not be easy. It was a task that proved too big for Neil Kinnock. It will be resisted by the political and media establishment.

Part of the problem he has is a problem of Labour’s own making. By branding itself “New Labour” in 1996, the Labour party did two things.

First – the term “New” was an appropriate way of showing people that Labour had changed from the era of strikes, militant tendency and Clause IV. In 1996, it was useful way of wrapping up the changes Labour had made in one brand that was easy for people to understand.

On the other hand, “New Labour” implied that everything about Labour before 1996 was “old” or “bad, or at least “unelectable”. When Ed Miliband criticizes New Labour, it will make it easy for people to say he wants to take Labour backwards.

This is a big problem, but one that he simply must overcome.

The only way he can do it is to outline specifically what he liked about New Labour, what he’s going to chuck in the bin, and then rebuild the vision by adding some things of his own.

In his speech yesterday, he went a surprisingly long way to doing that.

He picked the things that New Labour got right, and outlined most of their first term agenda – the minimum wage, peace in northern Ireland, saving the NHS, fixing public services through increased expenditure, its record on equality for women and gay people, and it’s (then) solid foreign policy agenda, and balancing all this with a stable economy.

Then he trashed the things they got wrong. Flexible Labour markets, tuition fees, trashing civil liberties, housing, immigration, marketisation in public services, banking deregulation and the Iraq War.

Ed Miliband basically argued that Labour was at its best when it implemented things that you’d expect a Labour government to do – and it stuffed up when it strayed too far from its core values. Then they wasted an opportunity during the Brown era to move on and reform the economy.

He also added some of his own vision on top. A graduate tax to replace tuition fees, taxes on the banks, a living wage, changes to basic labour market changes to stop the undercutting of wages, green investments, a defense of unions, and a foreign policy based on values, not alliances.

The press will obviously focus on his deficit reduction plan as being the first hurdle for his leadership. Luckily, some of the work has already been done for him via Alistair Darling’s plan. A good first step would be to stick to that plan as a base, oppose cuts that are likely to harm the poor or sacrifice economic growth, outline tax increases for the rich, and then start hammering the airwaves on what the rest of his policy vision should be.

Ed Miliband above all things is at his best when he speaks with passion and conviction. The speech he gave on Tuesday could not have been delivered by David Miliband. There’s no way he could have repudiated sections of the New Labour policy program with any credibility. It’s not just the policy vision, it’s also the sense of humility, passion, honesty and sympathy, yet delivered with a sturdy and calm backbone. Labour has made a courageous decision to elect him, but I believe they made the right one. He is a clean break – some might say a premature break.

Many in the New Labour establishment will feel a sense of entitlement that has now been taken away from them too early, and they won’t appreciate the critique. But in the long term, the Labour party will be better off for electing him. There would have been little point continuing with a model under David Miliband that had been rejected by the electorate, only to see it rejected again. Even if this experiment ultimately fails, Labour will be better off for doing something different, and it will be better off by having an honest conversation about past failures.

Given the fall of a number of social-democratic governments in Europe, the defeat of NZ Labour, the recent near-death experience of the ALP, and the difficulties president Obama is facing, part of Ed Miliband’s task must be greater. Now that he has begun to dismantle New Labour, he must rebuild what a credible social democracy in the 21st century should look like. He has already told the New Statesman that this is what he wants to do.

The Con-Dem coalition should not underestimate the importance of this. Nor should it be underestimated. Labour has seen a huge amount of members join since the general election – 35,000 in just 4 months. Yesterday Eddie Izzard announced that 2,000 more had joined in the 2 days since Ed Miliband became the leader.

If these people are involved as party members in the party’s organization and the future direction of the party, that will be a huge advantage for Labour. Not only will it create a massive organisational movement that can turn out at election time, it can also help shape the vision. If Labour wants to get back to power quickly, having a growing and vibrant organization will be a huge advantage on the ground.

Figures like Bob Hawke, Bill Clinton, Gerhard Schroeder, Neil Kinnock, Tony Blair, Paul Keating, Helen Clark and David Lange defined social democracy in their own time. Social democratic parties during the 80's and 90's warmly embraced the third way as an alternative to both Thatcherism and socialism – even if that meant compromising traditional beliefs about public services, unions, the role of the state, and equality.

That era of social democracy seems to be ending, with Conservatives on the march through almost every western country with a vision of cuts to the state. The third way vision of Blair has, for the most part, reached the end of its shelf life. It was always going to reach a point where someone drew a line and said "this isn't working" or "this isn't labour". Now that Ed Miliband has done that, a new era must now begin. Obama showed part of the way forward through collective organising, but he has now become stuck in a quagmire in government. From opposition, that vision can be renewed and made fresh again, and the sooner this is done the better it will be, and the sooner Labour will come back to government.

Early Predictions for the 2011 state election

With the federal election now done and dusted, the attention of voters in NSW will be on the state election to be held next year.

Opinion polling has been absolutely horrid for NSW Labor for most of its current term in office, as you can see from the wikipedia website.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales_state_election,_2011

As you can see, at the last election Labor won exactly 39% of the primary vote. Despite how unpopular the state government was, the coalition could only scrape together 37% (with 26% belonging to the liberals and 10% belonging to the Nationals). The greens polled about 8%, and there was a high vote for independents, reflecting the six that currently sit in parliament.

(One thing before we continue - newspoll has the nationals vote on 5%, even though they got double that at the last state election. this is probably a reflection of the places newspoll call - which would most likely be urban seats where the liberals are running. The combined coalition vote, however, should still be reasonably correct. The nationals are hardly going to lose 5% of their vote compared to last time - if anything it will increase).

The beginning of the rot began to occur in around about May 2008. This was the time where anger about electricity privatisation was at its highest. Around that time, NSW Labor conference was held, and there was much public bloodletting on display. Labor's primary vote in polling fell down to around 32% - a 7% swing away from labor, which washed out into a 52-48 lead for the coalition. At this stage, the situation was bad, but not unsalvageable.

The real damage began in September 2008, when privatisation fell over and Morris Iemma was replaced as premier by Nathan Rees. Immediately, Labor's primary vote fell to 29% - a 10% swing from 2007. The coalition's combined primary vote rose to 42% - an increase of 6%. The greens vote also spiked up 4 points. This meant that Labor was bleeding voters both ways - 40% were disaffected Labor voters going to the greens, and the other 60% were going to the coalition. In december 2008, Labor's vote went to 26% - a record low.

During 2009, the Nathan Rees experiment seemed to have settled things down. labor's vote rose again and hovered around the low 30's for the rest of the year. The coalition's vote was up to around 41%.

Such polling would still have seen Labor headed for a solid defeat. But worse was to follow later.

In december, Rees himself was knifed. Immediately Labor's vote plummeted back to 26%. It would briefly revive in the new year to back around 30%, but it has since falled back to 25% in the past two newspolls (taken over the past 4 months).

Since Keneally took over as premier, Labor's primary vote has been between 25%-30%. If we take the average, that's about 27%. The last two polls have had Labor at 25-26%.

That result represents a whopping 12-13% swing away from Labor on the primary vote. About 8-9% of it seems to be going straight to the liberals. And the rest has gone to the greens, up about 4-5%.

What does that mean for the election?

Given how awful these polls are, how bad can it really get for NSW labor?

Obviously, if this polling was reflected on election day 2011, Labor would be devastated. Exactly how bad would it get?

Well, firstly we need to consider a couple of variables.

Federal election

In metropolitan Sydney, Labor suffered absolutely enourmous swings at the federal election. In many safe Labor seats, there were primary vote swings away from Labor of anywhere between 7-11% - and some were even bigger. Labor could not perform well anywhere. The reasons for it are complicated and varied. But I honestly believe that if people were willing to kick the federal government by that much, they must also be willing to kick an even more unpopular state government.

The Greens vote - where will it increase?

It will be important to also make a distiction in the polling. The high greens vote may very well be a reflection of a state wide trend. Or it may not. One thing we have to take into consideration is that the greens vote is likely to increase hugely in the inner city - especially in seats like Balmain and Marrickville.

The big question of this election won't be how big the anti-labor swing will be on the primary vote. We now know that consistently there has been a 9-14% away from the ALP in polling since Keneally was premier. During Rees's reign, the swing was anywhere between 7-14%.

The big question will be - if Labor's vote drops by that much, where will the swing go? How much will go to the liberals, and how much will go to the greens? And in what seats will there be differences?

Balmain and Marrickville

One reason why we need to be cautious about the higher greens vote in polling is that these two seats are likely to fall to the greens. This could be skewing the current opinion polling. The liberal vote may in fact be even stronger than that in some areas.

At the last state election, there was a swing against Labor, but the vast majority of it in both seats went to the greens. If the same ratio was reflected this time, a 12% swing against Labor would go to the greens by about 8%. The rest would go to the liberals - but given the liberals will likely preference labor behind the greens, and the greens will likely finish ahead of the liberals, any preferences will go from liberal to green. An 8% swing to the greens would see them easily unseat Verity Firth in Balmain and would put Carmel Tebbutt in big trouble in Marrickville.

Immediately Labor loses 2 seats and would only need to lose 2 more to see it's majority gone.

The Rest of NSW - Coalition sweep

However, what we might find in the rest of Sydney is that the swing to the greens is much smaller - perhaps even less than the uniform swing the current polls predict. The liberals could get a much bigger ratio of the swing.

In the recent penrith byelection, there was a 25% swing away from Labor on primaries - double the current swing in polling (probably reflecting the scandal surrounding Karen Paluzzano). Interestingly though, although the swing was double current opinion polling, the actual ratio of where the anti-labor swing went wa very reflective of opinin polling. 18% of it went to the liberals. Most of the rest went to the greens. That very accurately reflects polling, where 3/4 of the anti-labor swing seems to be picked up by the coalition with the rest going to the greens.

But tere is another problem for Labor - optional preferentia voting. In penrith, 65% of greens voters decided not to direct preferences - what's called "exhausted preferences". Only 21% of greens voters preferenced Labor. 14% preferenced the liberals. This made the anti-labor swing worse.

What's the scenario?

If we consider the ratio - the liberals got about 75% of the anti-labor swing in penrith. Incidentally, this also happened in quite a few sydney seats at the federal election. And it's being reflected in current opinion polling.

If the anti-labor swing on the primary vote is 13%, we would see almost 9.75% of that swing belong to the liberals, with 3.25% of the swing going to the greens. (note: in Balmain and Marrickville this would be the other way around).

If greens preferences exhaust at the same rates as Penrith, Labor would be in a world of hurt.

If we remove Balmain and Marrickville - a uniform swing of that magnitude (9.75% to the libs and 3.25% greens) across the state would see Labor lose 25 seats - that is - every seat on the pendulum up to (and possibly including) the seat of Oatley (but not including Macquarie Fields, which has already had a big byelection swing in 2008 and probably won't happen again - and a few other seats where Labor went up against independents last time), plus balmain and marrickville to the greens.

Under the above scenario, Labor would lose the following seats:

Miranda
Menai
Wollondilly (Phil Costa)
Camden
Gosford
The Entrance (Grant McBride)
Monaro (Steve Whan)
Londonderry
Wyong
Coogee (Paul Pearce)
Drummoyne (Angela D'Amore)
Heathcote (Paul McLeay)
Riverstone (John Aquilina)
Rockdale (Frank Sartor)
Swansea
Blue Mountains
Granville (David Borger)
Mulgoa
Kiama (Matt Brown)
Cessnock
Bathurst
Parramatta
East Hills
Balmain (Veity Firth) - to the greens
Marrickville (Carmel Tebbutt) - to the greens

Labor would lose 25 seats and most of its ministerial talent.

That would leave it with 25 seats in the lower house. The coalition would have 60 (+23), te Greens would have 2 (+2) and Independents would retain 6 (unchanged).

A slightly bigger swing in some individual seats towards the liberals could also see Labor lose:

Oatley (Kevin Greene)
Toongabbie (Nathan Rees)
Strathfield (Virginia Judge)
Smithfield
Wallsend
Maroubra (Michael Daley)
Kogorah (Cherie Burton)

So when the media have been saying Labor could lose 20 seats - that scenario is actually believable on all polling done in the last 9 months - and even beforehand.

Look out, NSW Labor.

Election 2010: What the hell happened?

Yesterday, Australia elected its first hung parliament since 1940.

The media will try to say that this vote was a vote for Tony Abbott's liberal party. I wouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions.

I believe the result does not reflect well on either party. But it does reflect very accurately the will of the people. In fact I believe the reason for the result was far more fundamental.

Above all things, I believe Australia voted yesterday against politics as usual.

It was reflected in the big swing against Labor in Queensland, which saw it's home town Prime Minister ousted in a brutally efficient coup only weeks ago.

It was reflected in a massive anti-labor vote in metropolitan Sydney, who have wanted to remove their state labor government for 3 years and were sick of a federal campaign being run by the same state labor goons.

It was reflected in the nation-wide vote for the greens, who picked up a senate seat in every state and a lower house seat in Melbourne.

It was reflected by the likelihood that the 6th senate spot in Victoria could be won by the DLP or Family First.

It was reflected in the large amounts of voters who opted for minor parties or independents. Tellingly, each sitting independent recorded a big swing towards them.

It was reflected in O'Connor, where the nationals took out Wilson Tuckey. Similar to their state government stance, they pledged to not sign coalitions and to be indepentent of the rest of the National Party.

It was reflected in the fact that - unbelievably - an independent may win the safe seat of Denison.

It was reflected in the record informal vote of almost 6% nationally - a new record. In some seats, it was 8%. In Werriwa, it was 10%. Many of these ballots were submitted blank. In the booth I scruitinised, 140 out of 1665 votes were informal. 34 of them were submitted blank, and many more with crosses, comments, "none of the above", or other shows of discontent.

Yesterday, Australia had an enourmous tantrum at the visionless negativity of their political system, and they responded by awarding a victory to nobody. The Australian people got it right - neither party deserved to win.

Why did this happen?

Well, firstly lets look at the stats.

The Southern States stay progressive

In Victoria, Labor's vote was mostly up - but so was the Greens. There can be little doubt now that Victoria is no longer the "jewel in the liberal crown". On the contrary - it has now proven itself to be the most politically progressive state in Australia. It has an 11 year old Labor government that has a decent chance of re-election in a few months. It responded well to a Victorian Prime Minister, and won two seats off the liberals. It mostly rejected the social hysteria of Abbott's government on boat people. And it responded very well to the pitch by the Greens, picking up a lower house seat in Melbourne and decicively winning a senate spot.

It also baffingly returned a DLP senator (probably) on family first preferences. The fact people are willing to vote for these two parties in big enough numbers says that people aren't happy with the liberals in Victoria, and sent their conservative vote elsewhere.

In South Australia, Labor's vote stayed steady and strong. No seats were lost or won - although Boothby came close. Again, the greens picked up a senate seat. Labor was narrowly re-elected on seats at the state election earlier this year, although it lost the 2PP vote.

In Tasmania, Labor won every seat with a swing towards it - except for the boilover of the night in Denison. Counting is still going on, but Independent Andrew Wilkie could win on green and liberal preferences. The Greens, as always, won their senate spot. And the state government is a Labor-green coalition.

In the ACT, Labor's vote went down, and the greens picked up all of it. But the seat status quo remained.

In each of these states, there was a swing to the greens. But they remained solidly in the Labor/Green camp, and mostly rejected Tony Abbott's pitch.

NSW, QLD and WA turn feral

The rest of Australia reacted angrily against Labor. In most of Queensland, and in Metropolitan Sydney, there were 10% swings away from Labor on the primary vote. Labor lost 8 seats in QLD and 2 more in NSW.

WA was already bad for Labor and got worse. It may yet lose Hasluck - and if so, Australia will have it's first Aboriginal in the Federal House of representatives. A liberal. (Note: Labor also ran an Aboriginal candidate in Boothby in SA - but they narrowly lost).

When I was doorknocking in Macquarie, there was a palpable sense of disenchantment. People were not switched on to national issues, or were visibly hostile to even talking about the subject of national campaigning. Lots of people I spoke to just hated all the attack ads and had switched off. People were angry about Rudd. The only time I was able to have a good convo with anyone was when I switched off the national campaign and just talked about local issues and local promises. People didn't want to know about anything else. And everywhere I went, people had policy complaints about issues that were the state labor government's responsibility.

The only time I had a positive experience leafleting was when I was handing out a positive flyer on Labor's health policy at a railway station. People were genuinely interested in knowing what Labor stood for on health. It's a shame we didn't talk about it more.

Labor's campaign

I honestly believe that much of this result has been driven by the incredibly negative tone of the election. The tone of this election was not positive from the start - arguably, ever since the knifing of Rudd, or even before that, with his many policy backdowns.

Labor certainly understood that Abbott was a big minus for the liberals. But you can't just attack - you also have to contrast. Abbott was always going to go negative - in fact his entire election campaign was based around it. His ads were just as bad as Labor's. Many voters sitting in their lounge rooms, by the final week of the campaign, must have been putting fingers in their ears and screaming at their TV to shut up. Worse, the attack ads were so similar that people forgot which party was which.

I honestly believe that Labor went far too hard. In fact it went completely overkill on the negative, without offering anything on the positive. Part of the reason was because it went to the election not quite knowing what it stood for. It's slogan was "moving Australia forward". But in what sense?

Labor has a very good economic story to tell - but because Rudd was knifed, it couldn't tell it.

Then Gillard had to talk about the future, but beyond a few new soundbytes on key policy areas, she didn't articulate the big vision. There actually was no new policy direction. Labor's best election policy, the National Broadband Network - was an idea from the Rudd era that Abbott was dumb enough to oppose. That policy probably saved Labor from losing government completely, by shoring up regional marginals like Page and Eden-Monaro.

The other new Gillard policies - the citizens assembly on climate, and the east timor solution on asylum seekers, were ridiculously half-baked policies that were rightly ridiculed. They actually lost Labor votes at both ends. Swinging voters thought they were bullshit and voted Liberal. Progressive voters thought they were betrayals and voted Green. Labor's primary vote fell in every state. In the southern states, it went to the greens. In NSW, QLD and WA, the liberals and greens shared it. That wasn't an accident.

The Rudd-Gillard Leadership change

I said earlier this year to people that "leadership change without policy change is electoral suicide". NSW Labor has now proved that three times. Federal Labor has proved it again. The lesson still has not been learned.

The people who orchestrated the leadership coup obviously had no idea about how badly it would go down in QLD and NSW. QLD is a deeply conservative state where Labor is already unpopular. It's also deeply parochial - and they would not have like the manner of Rudd's removal.

Only 6 months previously, powerbrokers brought down Nathan Rees in much the same fashion.
Gillard obviously didn't know how bad it would go down when she called the election too quickly, before fully fleshing out her policy agenda.

The people who ran Gillard's campaign obviously had no idea about how badly it would go down in NSW, when you knifed the leader, didn't change any policies, trundled out a few soundbytes, and then tried to win on a honeymoon period.

It had already been proved wrong with Kristina Kenneally in the Penrith By-election. NSW voters have seen that all before and did not take kindly to being treated like idiots for a third time.

State labor and stupid factional deals cost Labor votes in Sydney

Sydney voters in particular are deeply cynical of Labor promises on anything to do with infrastructure. When Gillard announced funding for the Parramatta-Epping rail link, it actually backfired. People thought it was bullshit straight away. And it linked Gillard with state Labor even more. I personally think that actually lost us votes. In Metropolitan sydney seats, Labor's primary vote fell around 7-10%.

In some places it was even worse - check out Fowler. Chris Hayes lost 15% of the vote, because he was previous the member for Werriwa. Laurie Ferguson contested Werriwa, suffered a big swing, and the informal vote was over 10%. Chris Bowen lost a big chunk in the redrawn McMahon (formerly Prospect).

Why? well, maybe one reason is because the NSW powerbrokers played musical chairs in south west sydney to accommodate Laurie Ferguson after his seat was abolished - thus depriving seats of their sitting local labor MP's. In each seat where it happened, the swing against Labor was enormous, to the point where some seats would now have to be called marginal. Labor powerbrokers - you have been warned.

Labor's national campaign looked like an exact replica of Labor at a state level in NSW and QLD over the past few years. Although people do differentiate between state and federal labor on issues, people do tend to notice when something looks and smells the same. And this did look and smell exactly the same. Negative ads. New leader. No clear policy.

Even the slogans were similar. The 2007 NSW state election slogan was "more to do but we're heading in the right direction". Gillard's slogan was "Moving Australia Forward". Where have we heard that before?

Maybe the slogans were the same because the same people who ran the NSW state Labor campaign in 2007 were running this one. Is it any wonder, then, that people in Metro Sydney and QLD decided to pull out their baseball bats a bit early?

Tony Abbott's campaign

Tony Abbott had a very negative message too - stop this, stop that, end this, end that, labor is incompetent, labor is wasteful, labor assassinated their prime minister. Labor is a bad government that stuffed up.

People hated Abbott's ads as much as they hated Labor's. But the key difference was policy. Abbott was very clear about what he wanted to stop in his "Action Contract". Everyone could name one of the four things in it. End the waste. Pay off debt. Stop the big new taxes. Stop the boats.

Tony Abbott's action contract did not resonate much in the southern states, because people there didn't think these issues were a problem. Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania were busy voting for more greens. Regional NSW mostly stuck with Labor.

But in Metro Sydney, QLD, and WA, the promise of "real action" chimed brilliantly.

Abbott's campaign was a success in NSW and Queensland because he tapped into a very deep feeling in those states that Labor at a state level was all spin and no substance, or all talk and no action. Instead, he was offering "real action".

Labor's campaign message was "don't trust Abbott". Okay, sure he's untrustworthy. But what will Labor do on policy? Labor had no answers. They just banged on about workchoices.

Abbott's campaign message was "Labor is a bad government that stuffed up on these four things, and I'll fix them".

In NSW and QLD, it worked.

So Where did the Policy Vision go?

Clearly, Labor wasn't ready to fight this election.

Its agenda got sidetracked earlier this year when it dumped the ETS and went down the Mining Tax line. Then when Rudd was knifed, Gillard raced to the polls too early, still on her honeymoon, and thought that'd be enough. In hindsight she got that badly wrong and should have taken some time to think about her positions.

In the UK, David Cameron spent three years selling what he stood for to voters. In 2007, Kevin Rudd spent 11 months hammering his message - sign kyoto, rip up workchoices, an education revolution, fix hospitals, I'm an economic conservative. It was very successful.

In 2010, Australian Labor had only 8 weeks to do all this. Tony Abbott had 6 months.

So was it Labor's campaign, or was it about something more?

There can be little doubt that this was the most dysfunctional election campaign the Labor party has run in the last 30 years. Mark Latham's campaign produced a bad result, but many commentators observed that it was mostly professional and a reasonably tight ship. Latham was on message, it's just that the message was wrong, and Howard's message was more effective.

The difference between 2004 and 2010 is that Labor had absolutely no campaign message at all.

Federally, Labor would have to go back to the 1977 election or the 1971 Victorian election to have witnessed such a pulverizing example of stupidity on the campaign trail. No policy vision, damaging leaks, a dramatic leadership change that didn't seem to mean anything, and nothing but constant attack ads that looked far too similar. The liberals even stole labor's thunder on a major social policy issue - paid parental leave, and made it look like their idea, even though Labor had already passed their bill through parliament.

The Hollowmen

There's already been commentary in the media about the "Hollowmen", specifically, Mark Arbib, Karl Bitar and the NSW Right, and their role in the events of this year. This morning, Morris Iemma has publicly called for Bitar's resignation. For the first time in three years, I agree with Morris Iemma on something.

Karl Bitar and Mark Arbib were heavily involved in Morris Iemma's re-election campaign in NSW in 2007. They were credited for winning an election Labor really shouldn't have won - although they were greatly helped by the surge to federal labor, workchoices, and a very poor campaign from Peter Debnam. For their efforts, they were hailed as some sort of genuises, and so after Tim Gartrell left after 2007, Karl Bitar got the gig.

In 2008, they were thenn instrumental in bringing down Morris Iemma over privatisation. This can explain why Morris is bitter at Bitar and Arbib. But he was brought down when they showed everyone polling they had done which showed a catastrophic loss of support for Labor. Costa and Iemma also made bad tactical errors when they didn't bring the party and unions with them, and instead tried to be adversarial. this was a big mistake.

In this instance, Arbib and Bitar were right about the policy. Nobody in NSW wanted privatised electricity - it would have killed Iemma and Labor if it had gone through. Look at what has happened to Anna Bligh after she announced her big round of privatisations. Also important to note is that Bligh and Iemma never told their respective voters they were going on a round of privatisations before the election. They shredded their goodwill with voters much in the same way Howard did when he brought in workchoices.

There is, however, one important point to make. If Arbib and Bitar had thought that electricity privatisation was a vote winner or vote neutral, they would have been all for it - Labor values be damned.

Earlier this year, Arbib saw polling that Labor had lost support on it's ETS. He then saw Tony Abbott's "great big new tax" soundbyte. He then probably saw polling where people started to get scared because of tony abbott's claim. He then saw the irresponsible headlines in the daily telegraph about rising electricity prices.

Falsely sensing danger, he concluded that the ETS was a vote loser, and started campaigning relentlessly in the party for the ETS to be dropped. Knowing Rudd would not listen to him, he went and hassled Swan and Gillard instead to have it dropped. After months of inaction, and against his political instincts, Rudd caved.

This decision turned out to be Rudd's downfall. The ETS was a key plank of brand Rudd - and voters brought out their baseball bats and smashed Labor's primary vote down to 35%. Gillard replaced him, but then didn't change the policy. She then made it worse by announcing a "citizen's assembly". This entire process, from start to finish, from Copenhagen to Hung Parliament, had Mark Arbib's grubby fingerprints all over it.

But again, I stress - If Arbib had thought the ETS was a vote winner, he would have been all for it. But he mistakenly thought it was a vote loser, so he told Rudd to drop it. Labor values be damned.

Arbib, Bitar, and anyone else from the NSW Right faction who were associated with the running of our campaign should no longer be in any position of influence in the labor party.

Equally though, Labor had nothing to say

It's only natural that a party goes negative when it doesn't have a strong vision. Gillard didn't have time to develop it. What would have a good campaign have looked like? One with better ads? One with no leaks? One with more campaign footsoldiers? Well, that's not that hard. But again, Labor had nothing to say. People already didn't trust Abbott - they didn't need reminding. They needed to know why Julia Gillard deserved to be prime minister, and what she stood for.

My English housemate made a great point to me yesterday - no British political party would have raced to an election without a Policy Manifesto and a pledge card. People debated about whether Gordon Brown was the right party leader - but criticisms of him were more about his communication performance as Prime Minister, not about what he stood for. Policy was a problem too, but there was never any question of blurring the two. The party wrote policy. Labour's leader might have been unpopular, but Labour as a party stood for something at that election. If you wanted to know what, you could read the manifesto and the pledge card.

Labor went to this election without a clear manifesto or pledge card on a number of key policy areas. Many of it's key policy promises were half baked, and would never have been put in a policy manifesto as a serious suggestion. The citizens assembly, sustainable australia and the East Timor solution were not serious policy ideas - they were soundbytes designed to get Labor through the election.

On the same day Howard called the 2004 election, he immediately framed it as an election about "who do you trust to keep interest rates low?" Nobody was in any doubt about what howard stood for. Even if it was totall bull.

Julia Gillard had "Moving Forward". On what? She didn't define the election. In fact, the liberals and the greens defined what the election was about. The Greens said it was about climate change. The Liberals said it was about waste, debt, taxes and boats. Labor was caught with it's pants down - only late in the piece did it campaign on the economy, the NBN, and workchoices. But by then it was too late.

And what about health care? Foreign affairs?

What's going to happen now?

I personally believe the Independents and Green will side with Labor. Labor has a more helpful program for these electorates on issues like Health, the NBN and the environment.

Tony Windsor and Bob Katter are agrarian socialists, but they have been no fans of the nationals Warren Truss and Barnaby Joyce. Bob Katter is a protectionist in his economic philosophy, and he is libertarian on things like fishing, shooting guns and camping, so wooing him could be fraught with difficulty for both sides. He is, on the other hand, supportive of Unions and Labor's Industrial laws.

Tony Windsor, a former national, is positive about Labor's agendas on regional health care and the National Broadband network.

Rob Oakeshott, although rural, is generally the most progressive of the three. He seems to want to talk about reform of the house of representatives, and again is positive about Labor's NBN. Of the three, he would probably be the most willing to support a Labor government.

Adam Bandt, the Green, has stated that he'd prefer to work with Labor. As a former industrial lawyer, and as someone who just took a seat off labor, it would be hard for him support the coalition.

Andrew Wilkie, the potential fourth independent, has previously been both a member of the liberal party 30 years ago, and a candidate the greens in 2004. An intelligence officer who blew the whistle on Howard over Iraq, he later split with the greens over a few environmental issues and a perception he was more economically moderate. Personally, I think he'd be more likely to support labor, especially since Labor would normally have won his seat (and may still do so).

Relying on these four would be embarassing for Labor, but it could end up being positive for our democracy.

Where does Labor go from here?

I believe this election has demonstrated, loudly and clear, that the Labor party in NSW needs serious and long lasting reform. It needs to revise it's policy agenda, and stick to it. Hollowmen like Arbib and Bitar need to be swept away. Corrupt hangers-on like Tripodi and Obeid need to go too.

I think this election has been a very striking repudiation of the NSW Labor Right faction brand of politics. Their political style is actually causing the party a lot of self-harm.

"Whatever it takes" ceased to be a tactical campaign strategy, and started to become the party's ideology. The local party is moribund in many areas. The political class has taken over the reins and runs everything with an iron grip. Strong values and policy beliefs are not compulsory - in fact, they are a luxury. Idealism is scoffed at. A University degree and a job as a staffer is more important than the personal achievement you have made campaigning for change in workplaces, in your community, in law and social justice, or in broader society for the benefit of others.

These problems are products of long labor domination of politics in NSW. Only an amazingly arrogant party could assume it could treat it's own party members with disdain, and then treat the electorate the same, and assume nothing bad will happen. Only an arrogant party could feel that changing a premier or prime minister is no big deal - oh please, we did that last week! They have had power for too long and don't fear losing it.

The push for reforming this system could only ever come when this very political culture caused Labor to lose an election. Well, now it nearly has. And next year, they'll lose another one.

They need to stop assuming people are mugs, and will vote for Labor when it has no positive policy agenda just because there'll be a leadership honeymoon. Rudd's honeymoon with voters lasted from december 2006 until April 2010. Gillards lasted 3 weeks until the campaign leaks. Leaders and their honeymoons come and go - what matters are the things the party stands for.

In this election, Tony Abbott was very negative. But he had his policy agenda - the four point action contract.He even put it on the back of his how to vote cards on polling day.

What did Labor have? "Moving Australia Forward"? "Don't trust Abbott"?

Hollowmen believe that people vote for leaders and don't care about policy. Thus, you can solve a policy problem by changing a leader. Hollowmen also believe you can decide all your policies on polling, and win an election by negative attack ads alone.

The 2010 federal election, and the 5 NSW state by-elections since 2007 have now proved that philosophy of politics to be complete and utter rubbish.

That philosophy has nearly made Tony Abbott prime minister - and it will cause the complete destruction of NSW Labor next year.