Australian Labor Party Senator for NSW John Faulkner when delivering the annual Neville Wran Lecture at New South Wales Parliament House, Sydney on 9 June 2011:
When I joined the ALP, it was the political face of a broad social movement. Many of the tensions and disagreements within the Party were precisely the result of the depth and breadth of its appeal as a party that promised reform through government. All of us were deeply and passionately committed to the Labor promise of a “bringing something better to the people … working for the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand.”
Opinions, however, varied on what should take priority in that struggle, and what policies and legislation would best achieve it. Ending Australia’s involvement in Vietnam, defending unions and unionists in the workplace, fighting apartheid in South Africa, free tertiary education and health care, decriminalising homosexuality, better sewerage for the suburbs, workplace equality for women, preserving Australia’s environmental heritage, modernising Australia’s censorship laws, preventing nuclear proliferation – the list of Labor’s concerns was a long one.
People were attracted to the Labor Party because they wanted to make the world a better place. Their involvement in the Party was often only one facet of their pursuit of that goal. And, while the Party has never welcomed those who seek to make it the servant of another organisation’s agenda – and endured a devastating split for that very reason in the 1950s – the Party I joined accepted that membership was, for many, one aspect of active community engagement.
These days, as Party membership dwindles, ALP strategists talk about ‘reaching out’ to organisations active on particular progressive issues, ‘gaining endorsement’ of our policies.
That idea, with its implications of ‘us’ in Labor and ‘them’ in community organisations, is wrong. The frequency with which it’s raised by hand-wringing apparatchiks makes many wonder if Labor has lost its way.
Progressive, socially aware activists passionate about social and economic reform must never be outsiders to the Labor movement.
Labor cannot thrive as an association of political professionals focused on the machinery of electoral victory and forming, at best, contingent alliances with Australians motivated by and committed to ideals and policies.
A Party organisation staffed by experienced and competent strategists and managers is necessary to serve the campaign and organisational needs of Labor’s members and supporters, not to substitute for them.
Nor should Party membership be a useful and engaging experience only for those with ambitions to secure preselection…….
The Party has now become so reliant on focus groups that it listens more to those who don’t belong to it than to those who do. This makes membership a sacrifice of activism, not a part of it.
Full transcript overleaf here.
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