Article published, slightly edited, in the Australian Financial Review, 28 June 2024 under the heading ‘ALP should be Flexible Like UK Labour and Ditch the Three-line Whip’
Photo Credit: James Brickwood.
WA Labor Senator Fatima Payman’s crossing the Senate floor to vote for a Greens’ motion on immediate recognition of the state of Palestine and against the Government is highly unusual in the ALP.
Rigid caucusing in the ALP is a feature of the Australian political system. If a Labor MP votes on an issue in parliament without permission of the ALP Caucus or the party Whip, this action leads to automatic suspension or expulsion.
In Payman’s case it seems no drastic measures will be taken against her.
The ALP rule book states: “it shall be the duty of each member to attend and vote in their respective house in support of propositions upon which the party has established a collective attitude”.
The Government in the Senate decided to vote against the Greens’ motion. Payman did not give notice to her colleagues about how she would vote. Her penalty for rebellion is a ban on participating in caucus processes until the end of next week, effectively a single meeting.
Thrashed with a feather, you might say.
Given that Payman’s expulsion is off the agenda, does this create a precedent, space for Josh Burns, for example, the embattled Labor MP for Macnamara, to cross the floor in the House on anything to do with Israel?
Or, more fundamentally, should the ALP revisit its approach to caucusing? The Prime Minister’s actions surprised some factional leaders. But his reasons for trying to keep Senator Payman within the Labor tent are defensible, not only in crude terms, preventing a defection, a complete breach, and another troublesome personality on the cross benches.
Here’s why.
Labor, since 1916 during and after the conscription split has insisted on its representatives on all issues except for conscience votes, often narrowly defined (abortion, euthanasia, etc.), to vote as a bloc.
In the first Australian Parliaments, some Labor MPs from NSW, Western Australia, South Australia, and Queensland were free traders. Most, including the contingent from Victoria, believed in protection. The party allowed its MPs to vote how they saw fit on what were called “fiscal issues”. But after 1916, where every MP who voted for conscription in the referenda held in October that year, state as well as federal, was expelled by the party. Ever since, Caucus members are tightly disciplined.
This stands in contrast to UK Labour, for example, where there are so-called three-line whips, two- and one- line whips.
What this means is that the UK Labour Whips office (consisting of Labor MPs appointed by the Leader or elected by Caucus, i.e., the Labor MPs voting as a whole) issue directives to MPs on voting. A one liner means, please vote this way, if you are in the parliament; a two-liner means turn up, and vote this way, except if you can convince the Whips’ Office to vote otherwise (local or personal factors, for example). A three liner means you must turn up, vote this way, without exception. Though, even here, in rare cases, an appeal to the Leader might yield flexibility.
The UK tradition is much more fluid and respectful to MPs particular preferences than Australia’s.
Don Dunstan, in an article in The Australian Quarterly in 1964, stated the traditional Labor view:
“The early history of State Labor Parties and their struggle to ensure a united front to the public on policy and obedience by members to Caucus decisions is …well documented…The split over conscription, and the fragmentation of the Party at all levels during the depression, led the Party to make provision for the resolution of differences in point of view within the Party in a manner which would produce compliance with the decisions by elected Parliamentarians…”
Dunstan went on: “In a party which seeks largely to maintain the status quo, or even to restore the status quo ante, there is little need for such machinery. In a party of social reform… it is indispensable.”
But does every vote need to be, effectively in Australia, a three-line whip?
As noted, the Whips’ office in the UK Labour Party allows a lot of leeway to MPs to vote as they wish, even sometimes on three-line whips.
The very light touch given to Senator Payman stands in contrast to actions taken in NSW in 2010, for example, when then Labor MP Amanda Fazio was suspended for five months for crossing the floor, also when voting with the Greens on the Labor government’s censorship legislation.
“Social harmony” is a catchcry in the current discussion within the party on what to do about a problem called Fatima. So too are questions about hypocrisy, precedent, one rule for one and another for everyone else.
I suggest a different perspective: Senator Payman’s example recommends a long overdue and flexible reform which Labor should seriously consider.
Postscript (2024)
I’ve long advocated the one-, two-, and three- line whip concept as appropriate for the ALP MPs.
Left out of my article was whether the vote Senator Payman broke ranks on should have been a three-line whip item.
The broader debate was not helped by the way Senator Payman behaved.
But one day…
