One can define the Left as the non-conservative forces in society; one can also define it more narrowly as the Left traditions within the labour movement. It is apparent that there are various traditions that make up the Left of the labour movement in this country.
The notion of ‘industry policy’ conjures various ideas, prejudices and doctrines. The debate is charged with rhetoric, polarised and constrained by key-words. We inhabit a world of picking winners and level playing fields.
The 1990 National ALP Conference rhetoric lived up to expectations. However, the mood of most delegates seemed to this participant to be fairly relaxed. Even though some of the words were fiery, the hearts of most delegates were not alight with passion.
Soon after the formation of the Labor Party there was an intense debate about what it means to be Labor. How could it be otherwise? After the Labor Party won 36 seats in the NSW Legislative Assembly elections in June 1891 splits occurred over the issue of caucus solidarity. Questions arose as to the right alliances and tactics to be pursued.
As a young boy William John McKell watched a procession of men and women marching by the Sydney Town Hall on 26 January 1901. They were celebrating Australia’s birth out of the six federated colonies.
There is a large irony about the composition of the Third Hawke Labor government. Although it is sometimes said that the NSW ALP dominates the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party, the fact is that NSW enjoys its lowest representation in a Federal Labor ministry since the formation of the Scullin Cabinet in 1929.
In many ways, Lloyd Ross was the odd man out. In the Australian trade union movement he was the first and only man to hold a Doctorate of Letters and a leading position in a blue-collar union.
The trade union movement, as Engels once said of the proletariat, has discredited itself terribly at various moments of human history.
First circulated at the NSW ALP Council Meeting held at the NSW Teachers’ Federation auditorium in September 1977 Labor Leader was unmistakably a NSW ALP right wing factional newspaper, with various attacks on the Left and statements and articles articulating a social democratic approach.
The chief virtue of Machine Politics is its revelations concerning hitherto difficult to obtain information on factions within the ALP and on trade union affiliations and party membership in each of the state and territorial branches.