Alex White » alp

Pokies rout a call for grassroots action

Alex — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:13:37 +0000

Troy Bramston, former staffer for Prime Minister Rudd and author of Looking of the Light on the Hill, makes some salient points on the disappointing poker machine reforms:

That the ALP is unable to successfully advocate its policies or has the organisational capacity to campaign for them is causing concern in the party.

In an interview for this column, Bruce Hawker, one of the ALP’s most seasoned campaigners, said, “If you are going to take on a very powerful or a very wealthy opponent — like the clubs, the miners or the banks — then be prepared to have a fight because they will be prepared to use their dollars to get the outcome that they want.

“The problem for federal Labor,” Hawker said, “is that they don’t know how to campaign on issues any more. When they got a bit of heat over the poker-machine reforms, they had to backtrack, because they couldn’t win the argument for it.”

The pokie reform backdown is a terrible policy outcome, disastrous on a human scale, as well as having profound economic consequences for families, the community and the wider economy:

Speaking after the Prime Minister’s announcement of the compromise position on poker machine reform National Director of UnitingCare Australia, Lin Hatfield Dodds, said: “Problem gambling will continue to cause untold damage to the lives of people struggling with pokie addiction, with huge knock on impacts for their families and communities.”

“If the legislation outlined by the Prime Minister passes through Parliament we will have national legislation regulating pokies for the first time. This is a significant step in the right direction.

“The pokie industry profits from those most vulnerable in our community, relying on an immoral business model where 40% of the multi-billion dollar profits comes from less than 100,000 problem gamblers.

“The pokie industry and those who support it have thrown a lot of money at slowing down real reform. They may have saved their profits but not their standing in our community

“While we will not get the reform needed in this Parliamentary term, the pokie industry needs to be on notice that we will get there in the end. The human cost of the obscene pokies profit is just too high.

“Everyone is now on record agreeing that pokie reforms must be evidence based. Most of us, including the Productivity Commission, believe that the evidence for mandatory precommitment is already there and is unequivocal.

Like the mining tax, carbon pollution reduction scheme, and most other major reforms, this reform campaign was atrociously handled by the Prime Minister’s office and the cash-strapped ALP national secretariat:

And therein lies the rub. In addition to not being able to successfully advocate its policies, the ALP no longer has the membership, the local network or the capacity to organise at a grassroots level to campaign for its policies or to fight those who oppose them.

No other progressive group was able to mobilise community support for the poker-machine reforms. As usual, GetUp! only came in when it was too late and was ineffective. Paid advertising — almost exclusively what GetUp! does — was useless.

Saddled with debt from the 2007 election campaign and struggling to raise funds for the next election, the ALP is also strapped for cash.

Clubs, hotels and gaming interests were threatening a $40 million campaign in marginal seats. The money would fund television, radio and newspaper advertising. Unflattering life-size cardboard cut-outs of MPs would be positioned at the entrance to clubs.

Understandably, MPs beat a path to the Prime Minister’s office to get the reforms scuttled. While most independent MPs were not going to support the reforms, several government MPs were likely to cross the floor to vote against it or, more likely, abstain from voting.

Troy Bramston, in his book, advocates a revitalisation of the ALP focused on building grassroots campaigning capacity — in the mould of the US Democratic party, Organising for America and the various pro-Democratic organisations like Van Jones’ Rebuild the Dream group.

Unfortunately, while both the US progressives and conservatives are spending millions of dollars on activist training and leadership development (e.g. the right-wing American Majority and Leadership Institute or progressive Wellstone Action), there is almost no sign of this happening in Australia. Aside from Campaign Action (which is under-resourced) and the ACTU Education Centre, there is really no well-resourced group committed to activist training and leadership development.

If Labor wants to win any potential conflict with future special-interest groups that aren’t widely thought of as heinous (like Big Tobacco), then it needs to take activist and leadership development seriously — and not just ALP members but fellow travellers and progressives in general.

Gillard and the Labor leadership

Alex — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 03:47:39 +0000

Gillard makes history as Australia’s first woman prime-minister. Today marks an important historical milestone for Australian politics and civil society.

Julia Gillard is without a doubt Labor’s best political operative and most effective communicator. She has shown she can cut through. Ultimately, this is what sealed Kevin Rudd’s fate. Rudd was only able to communicate during campaign set-pieces – like the health debate with Abbott or during the election campaign. For the last two years he has mostly sounded like a technocrat – and Australia stopped listening.

While I welcome Julia’s prime ministership, I am deeply concerned about the circumstances surrounding her ascendancy.

The New South Wales Right faction demonstrated its dangerous level of clout. Sick of being ignored, they turned on the man they installed over Beasley. They have shown a remarkable tendancy to quickly do in the leaders that do not treat them with almost slavish attention – Nathan Rees, Morris Iemma and now Kevin Rudd. Rudd largely ignored the factions – now they have strongly reasserted themselves as central to the exercise of power in the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party.

The fact that the parliamentary leadership of the Labor Party is determined by the vote of only Members of Parliament is now shown to be open to the manipulation of powerful, unaccountable factional forces. The destabilisation of Simon Crean in 2003-04 is also testament to this, as was the dumping of Bob Hawke. Rudd’s downfall is testament to the fact that leaders can too easily be destabilised.

Australian Labor needs to broaden the pool of people involved in the election of the leader.

The UK Labour Party has a vote of Parliamentarians, union affiliates and members. Not only do MPs vote, but (of course) their Members of European Parliament vote, as do local “constituency” Labor Parties and affiliated socialist societies. A third of the vote goes to MPs and MEPs, individual party members and affiliated organisations.

This seems to me to be a far better system, ensuring a far greater mandate for the elected leader, as well as ensuring greater stability.

Federal Labor has had some terrible leadership tensions in the past (thankfully avoided in this current very quick leadership change).

Fundamentally Labor needs to modernise so as to become more resilient to the arbitrary exercise of power by a sole group within the Parliamentary Party.

Gillard is the right choice for Labor leader. She will lead Labor to victory. It is just as well that the NSW Right has made the correct decision in this case. But they will not always do so, and Labor as an organisation must secure itself against the possibility of future bad decisions.

Going local – social networking for politicians

Alex — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:20:37 +0000

While there’s a million and one articles on the internet about how Obama built his success on social networks.

There are fewer articles about how local candidates’ campaigns used social networking to promote their candidacy. I’ve previously written about one instance of a local campaign – the governor race in Virginia – using text message campaigning in an innovative way. However, even that case is an instance of a well resourced campaign of near-national significance (one step below a presidential race).

Over at Mashable, one of the essential resources for new media and social networking, there’s some great examples of how politicians in the US are using tools like Facebook and Twitter to engage with voters and constituents.

Just like in the corporate world, social media has created a two-way conversation between politician and electorate. One of the biggest adopters on the state level has been Massachusetts (D) Governor Deval Patrick. Brad Blake is the Governorâ€™s Director of New Media and Online Strategy, and holds the reins when it comes to any news/social media efforts coming out of the Governorâ€™s office.

So when thereâ€™s an update to the Governorâ€™s Twitter feed, YouTube channel, Flickr stream, a new blog post, an update to the web site, or even a media package that goes out with a major press release, heâ€™s involved. He said that heâ€™s â€œconstantly learning and listening to our users and those in both government and web 2.0 to tweak what we do and do it better.â€

Here in Australia, there’s some examples of politicians using Twitter and Facebook to break out of the traditional news and media cycle, to speak directly to the public.

Mike Rann is up there with one of the most accomplished users of Twitter of any Australian politician.

Rann uses Twitter to announce policy, to engage in attacks (and defence) against the Opposition, and also occasionally responds to questions.

I’m told Rann became a fan of Twitter after meeting up with Lance Armstrong during the Tour Downunder. As you can see, Rann has quite a strong Twitter following. He also has a customised Twitter background, which is a must for any politician. Rann also links his Twitter account to the official Premier’s website.

What makes Rann’s Twitter different from other premiers’ – like Brumby – is the personal touch. He doesn’t just use it to link to press releases. You get the feeling that Rann is really tweeting from his Blackberry. (Rann’s twitter updates are all via text message, suggesting that they are – mostly – written by him.)

Rann also updates his Twitter almost every day, keeping a steady flow of tweets for his followers.

At a local level, MPs can use Twitter to break through to constituents, rather than relying on traditional media. Carlo Carli for example is the Labor MP for Brunswick. In addition to a Facebook page and a blog, Carlo keeps his Twitter account regularly updated. Updates range from submissions to local reviews, to his views on political issues or European football.

Reading Carlo’s updates shows that he cares deeply about his local community, climate change and social justice. You can also see that he’s using Ecofon, demonstrating that the updates are likely written (mostly) by him.

There’s lots more examples. Local MPs can give live updates on their attendance at local community events, as well as twitpic or twitvid their activities. They can also give updates on legislation as it passes through parliament, or interesting

The Greens Party in Victoria for example are all on Twitter, and have their own websites, as well as a central Greens MP blog. The Liberals are also increasingly getting onto Twitter, especially the senior ones with leadership ambitions (e.g. Hockey, Abbott, Alex Hawke).

While most non-Minister (or shadow ministers, or leaders) have relatively few followers, I’m certain this will change once we hit election season. It remains to be seen if MPs integrate their online activities with their hard-copy campaign material. For example, letterboxing leaflets with Twitter and Facebook links, as well as website addresses. I’d also like to see more MPs websites include Twitter feeds and “Become a Friend” Facebook connect links.

Getting back to that Mashable article I mentioned at the start of this post: at the end of the article it shows a screen grab of the “real time results” for a Twitter search.

This is one of the most useful tools for MPs, who can use the “live” web to try to put their finger on the pulse of their local community. Using Twitter (and Facebook and other) search tools to local chatter about a local development, scandal or landmark can help politicians engage directly with the concerns of their constituents.

(NB, politicians beware: organised groups can manipulate this kind of thing, as we saw with the anti-CRPS campaign run during the leadership chaos of the Liberal Party.)

What about you? Do you know of any other good examples of local politicians (especially local council) using social networking?

More double dissolution speculation

Alex — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 07:57:13 +0000

With the spectacular self-immolation of the Liberal Party this week (see the spill Twitter chatter here), speculation about a double dissolution on climate change is mounting.

Last night, several political insiders expressed their belief that it was in Labor’s interests to go to a double dissolution when (if?) the Liberals delay the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) on Monday.

The latest Newspoll shows that the Liberals would lose twenty seats (most of them from the moderate Liberal faction).

I’ve written previously about the extreme unlikelihood of a double dissolution.

The view expressed is that if a DD was held, it would focus on leadership, rather than climate change or the CPRS. With polls showing catastrophic losses for the Liberals, they would be effectively reduced to a rump in the Lower House. Only their more reactionary elements (the Abbotts, Minchins, Abetzs and Mirabellas) would remain, rendering them unelectable for a generation. With the Greens with the balance of power, Labor would still be able to get things through, with the flexibility to turn to the Greens or Liberals, and avoid the fringe elements of the Xenophon No Pokies Party (who would get two senators from SA) and the Fielding Family First senator (who would replace a Liberal rather than Labor senator). (I should note that this theory was expressed before Possum’s cogent post on this issue.)

With ABCC election expert Antony Green holding the view that a DD is unlikely, Rudd has come out to rule it out:

“I’ve been elected by the Australian people to implement our mandate including the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. We intend to get on with the business of doing that,” he said.

“I’ve said consistently going back a long long time that my belief is the Australian people expect us to fill a full term. My view on that has not changed.”

He says he expects the Opposition to keep its commitment.

“Our strong and continuing resolve as a Government is to serve our full elected term,” he said.

“My expectation is the negotiated bi-partisan deal on climate change in Australia passes the Australian Senate and passes the Australian Parliament.”

(Emphasis mine.)

Of course, this could still see an “early” (half-senate) election in around August (or after July 1). Whoever emerges as Liberal leader from the party room meeting on Tuesday, is likely to face an electoral rout. Rudd can only get stronger from waiting until the earliest he can go for a half-senate election. Disunity really is death.

As a reference for people who believe that a DD is likely or even in Rudd’s interests, I recommend reading Antony Green’s articles on the issue, especially this one.

Labor must assert its economic credentials

Alex — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:16:13 +0000

The recent spate of reporting of polls demonstrates that Labor must continue to assert its strong nation building narrative and economic credentials.

Labor and Kevin Rudd correctly judged the public’s mood by decrying the excesses of extreme capitalism and neoliberalism, and forging a renewed social-democratic path.

Despite the baying of the press gallery and conservative columnists and opinion writers, Australians are confident that Labor has the right political and economic strategy to see us through the global financial crisis.

Labor must continue to hold firm and ignore the ideologues in New Ltd, and by nervous nellies in its own party, who worry each time Hockey or Pyne criticise Labor over debt and deficit.

Rudd and Labor are on strong ground – the Keynesian strategies are exactly what is needed in these times, and there is an army of economists backing them.

Doug Cameron on Parliamentary Lobbying

Alex — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:58:41 +0000

An insightful video of Senator Doug Cameron on lobbying Parliament in Australia.

Doug gave this talk at a forum organised by the NTEU Victorian Division at the end of February. He kindly agreed to talk to a camera afterwards.

Parliamentary Lobbying – Lessons from the other side – with Senator Doug Cameron from NTEU Victoria on Vimeo.

Australia needs strong collective bargaining

Alex — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 11:03:43 +0000

The right to collectively bargain was gutted by the Howard Government… unfortunately it looks like the Rudd Government may squib at fully restoring that right. Under the WorkChoices laws, Australian workers have no enforceable right to collectively bargain. Employers can indefinitely delay collective bargaining, denying their employees rights.

Collective bargaining at a workplace level is the most effective way to improve conditions and pay at work.

Paul Keating on collective bargaining:

If you go to 200 or 300 people in a factory or 200 or 300 people in a workplace and come to a three or four year bargain to the improve productivity and share it between wages and profits you’ve got a good chance of getting productivity from the whole enterprise. But if you just take one person at a time, bring them into the boss’ office and cut their wages there’s no chance of getting any productivity. That’s why trend productivity is now rapidly on the way down. It was 3 per cent under me. It’s now under 1 per cent. So how are we going to keep inflation low with, at the moment wages are running at about 4 per cent, productivity is under 1. This is consistent with an inflation rate of 3 per cent, or higher. The Reserve Bank knows that. That’s why they’ve got the rates on hold.

The great lie of the Howard Government in respect of workplace changes, they are simply a set of arrangements to keep unions out of workplaces. They’ve got nothing to do with productivity and the quicker we move away from that kind of discriminatory structure to a truly trust based co operative sharing of work and workloads, then we get back to reasonable levels of productivity and again, reasonable rates of growth in real wages. It’s no accident as you saw in today’s front page of The Sydney Morning Herald and other places that the wage share in the economy has gone down, and the profit share in the last four years has gone up because wages are now in real terms, are declining.

Labor’s policy is to legislate for collective bargaining rights, but it appears as more details come to light that no enforceable rights will be granted to Australia’s workers.

The ACTU is running a campaign to promote collective bargaining.

Labor needs a strong stand on emissions trading

Alex — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:59:01 +0000

Federal Labor needs to take a strong stand on emissions trading.

After the Garnaut Report and the Green Paper, it appears that Federal Labor may not make the Australian emissions trading scheme as robust as it needs to be to ensure that damaging climate change is mitigated.

An emissions trading scheme (ETS) is essential for Australia’s long term environmental and economic future.

A strong ETS with a high price on carbon is crucial. Introducing a cap in emissions creates scarcity; market forces then forces the price up. We need a cap that strongly restricts carbon pollution.

Victoria is well placed to take advantage of a strong ETS. Although we have enormous infrastructure that pollutes heavily, Victoria also has abundant natural resources. And we already have a number of emerging players in renewable technologies.

By setting a high cap, the Federal Government can ensure that market forces ensure that new technologies, particularly renewable energy and carbon capture and sequestration, have an opportunity to compete against lower-cost polluting energy and industries.