At the NSW state conference, Ed Husic warned the ALP is in danger of drifting the way of the US Democrats. Marcus Strom reports.
The NSW ALP conference came and went mostly according to script. The NSW Right (Centre Unity) and the NSW Left (sometimes called the ‘soft right’), had the headline outcomes tied up well before conference began.
There was one moment where the NSW Left broke ranks from the Right. On Sunday morning, ASU NSW Secretary Angus McFarland and MUA Sydney deputy branch secretary Paul Garrett challenged the agenda via a procedural motion to debate a motion for the NSW government to repeal the anti-protest laws.
A brief debate on the procedural ensued, with Gerard Hayes from the HSU and Member for Maitland Jenny Aitchison MP opposing the procedural motion, which failed. The draconian anti-protest laws did not rate a discussion.
Despite the Albanese ‘Left’ faction ascendant nationally – with a majority on National Executive and an expected slim margin at National Conference – in NSW the Right still dominates, with about 500 votes against the NSW Left’s 300 votes, including the ETU which is aligned with Anthony D’Adam’s ‘soft left’ sub-faction.
With the Left and Right factions uniting to exclude debate on AUKUS, Iran and Palestine, the soft-left-aligned Electrical Trades Union brought a motion to conference that would commit a NSW Labor government to oppose the construction of any nuclear port in NSW that would berth nuclear submarines or host any nuclear capable vessels.
With the ‘Australia and the World’ chapter set to be kicked into the grass without debate, the ETU moved this in the Building Sustainable Communities report. However, this was blocked by the NSW Right and NSW Left. The NSW Right chair and NSW Left deputy chair of this committee (Alex Classens and Linda Scott respectively), recommending no debate.
It was left to ETU delegate James Miranda to merely mention this in his address to conference.
Underlining the control-freakery and managerialism of the NSW Branch was the gagging of debate on AUKUS, Iran or Gaza, and the NSW Police Force wandering the halls, expelling peaceful dissenters and intimidating members of Young Labor for wearing keffiyehs.
On Saturday, two ALP members were physically thrown out of conference by police. One had merely displayed a Palestinian flag; the other had the misfortune of sitting alongside him, wearing a keffiyeh. They were barred from conference.
On Sunday, a delegate from Toongabbie branch defiantly displayed the Palestinian flag during Anthony Albanese’s address, walking herself off the conference floor. She was later allowed back in.
Husic addresses Labor Friends of Palestine
The Labor Friends of Palestine Fringe Event on Saturday was packed. Ed Husic, former cabinet minister and federal member for Chifley, gave a strident speech (see below), starting off by saying that the debate on Palestine should not be taking place in a fringe event, but centre stage on conference floor.
Husic warned the clampdown on debate threatened to push the ALP the way of the US Democrats.
“I grew up in a party that had these debates but still went on to win multiple elections,” Husic told the event. “What I am deeply concerned about is that there are elements of fear and loathing that drive the way we respond to these issues.
“Fear to have your own view. And loathing for those who do.
“This cannot be the way that we continue. Otherwise, we will see what happened to the US Democrats will happen with us as our members and supporters drift off. We cannot have that.”
To repeated rounds of applause, Husic outlined action against Israel that the Albanese government should take. He said:
- The time for statements is over. It is patently clear that statements will not cut it with the Netanyahu government;
- We cannot be engaged in defence relationships with a country accused of activity that has been described as plausible genocide.
- Defence relationships need to cease with the state of Israel.
- The sanctions regime needs to be ramped up considerably. It cannot be just a few people that are targeted. It should be those that are driving a lot of what we are seeing in Gaza and the West Bank, bearing in mind that our sanctions have largely targeted West Bank action.
- Finally, and I want to make this point very clear. We cannot have dual nationals leaving this country to go and be involved in that operation.
Husic said the government should establish a unit in the Australian Federal Police to track the movement of dual Australian-Israeli nationality who had undertaken military service in Israel, warning that if “a crime against humanity occurred, that’s a breach” and that Australia is “required to stop anything the breaches the genocide convention, direct or indirect”.
Labor Against War
Denied a fringe event at the 2024 state conference, LAW organisers were pleasantly surprised to be given space for an anti-AUKUS event in the Fringe Program. We weren’t surprised that it was at 3pm on Sunday as delegates were eyeing the door.
Despite the less-than-ideal time slot, the meeting room was full to hear from Major General Mike Smith (retired) and neurosurgeon Dr Ruth Mitchell, chair of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Unfortunately Gem Romuld from Wollongong Against War and Nukes was unwell, but LAW was very appreciative that ETU NSW policy officer James Miranda stepped in to outline the ETU’s commitment to ban any of its members from working on any nuclear submarine port.
Keynote speeches
The keynote speeches from the NSW Premier Chris Minns on Saturday and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese highlighted the minor reforms won by Labor in government, the divisions among the ‘three far right parties’ and for NSW preparing for the state election next March.
Despite having little left to distribute, it remains in the nature of Laborism to provide minor wins for workers, usually in the form of concessions to union demands. But there is little fat to share as capitalist decline leads to growing stagnation.
Minns highlighted the return of Northern Beaches hospital to public ownership and support for NSW trains to be manufactured in the Hunter. He said this was governance from the “sensible centre”, the “politics of delivery” versus the “politics of grievance”, “outcomes versus outrage”, with an eye to the electoral threat from One Nation’s populist far-right surge.
Minns had the cheek to claim that protestors outside the Town Hall were seeking to undermine the democracy of the ALP conference, at a meeting where police (invited in by the NSW party leadership) were expelling members from the observers’ seats for peaceful and quiet dissent on Palestine.
On Sunday, this credentialled observer to conference witnessed police harassing two Young Labor members, who were clearly shaken as police took photos of their ID. The NSW Police kept a helicopter hovering above Town Hall (at a reported cost of $100,000 an hour) on Sunday when there were no protestors in sight.
‘Delegate Albanese’ addresses conference
‘Delegate Albanese’ gave a speech aimed at the rusted-on faithful. Echoing Minns’ words, he targeted the ‘axis of grievance’ against Australia’s ‘successful multiculturalism’. It was a rally cry for the elections ahead and mostly hit the mark with this audience.
The biggest cheers during his speech were for free TAFE, reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax, and increases to paid parental leave.
With a nod to the working-class origins of the ALP, Albanese said “most Australians have nothing to sell but their time”. But proceeded to paint the height of working-class aspiration being to attend a medical clinic with a Medicare card and ‘buying your own home’. Our aspirations are to aim much higher.
Attacking the Liberal Party’s opposition to the ALP’s modest housing reforms, Albanese said of the tax reforms an example of having ‘ticker’ – and not leaving the problem for someone down the road.
Yet, Albanese and the NSW ALP party apparatchiks show they have zero ticker to debate AUKUS, let alone challenge it or United States warmongering. AUKUS is clearly going to be a problem for governments in the future, but Albanese has been happy to commit billions of dollars to the future disaster that is AUKUS. No ticker. Kicked it down the road.
Gambling reform
It must be noted that alongside the commitment to build NSW trains in the Hunter “with union labour”, the other main policy plant trumpeted was recommended gambling reform. Australia – and NSW in particular – has a massive gambling problem.
The move for change, championed by Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne (from the establishment ‘Left’) and UnionsNSW secretary Mark Morey (from the Right) was reported breathlessly in some areas of the press as a ‘rank-and-file rebellion’. Honestly, what tosh. While even minor reforms here are welcome, this was an ‘astroturfed’ campaign, whose outcome was without question.
The proposals urge the NSW government to place a moratorium on more gaming machine entitlements to clubs or pubs; for clubs with profits above $20 million to pay more tax and to ‘review regulatory settings’. Further it calls for a statewide exclusion register, facial recognition and to reduce the number of gambling machines by half over the next decade, among other recommendations.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Sunday 12 July that most of these recommendations are not new, but unfulfilled promises.
“The revamped platform includes four changes the government promised ahead of the 2023 election and has failed to deliver,” reported the Herald. The report also says the policy to place a moratorium on new machines is a bit hollow as there were no plans to increase the number of poker machines.
This falls short of binding the NSW government to do anything. Critically, it fails to recommend cashless ‘gaming cards’, that experts say would provide strong barriers. Nonetheless the policy shift does increase pressure on the federal government to remove the scourge of gambling advertising.
No doubt Premier Minns would prefer not to wrangle with the gambling lobby and the Australian Hotels Association, but moves to lessen the damage to working class communities from gambling are also a vote winner.
National Conference awaits
The ALP now moves its conference season to Adelaide for National Conference. Delegates and observers can again expect a stage-managed affair. AUKUS, we are told, will not get a look in. Without a rebellion by a member of caucus or an affiliated union, this is likely to be the case.
There will be some small discussion on Palestine, the parameters of which are being negotiated now. On Thursday 23 July at 4pm, Labor Against War is holding a Fringe Event with the Australia Institute.
Labor Tribune will be at Nation Conference. Come look for us.
Transcript of Ed Husic’s comments at the LFOP Fringe
Ed Husic addressed the Labor Friends of Palestine Fringe Event at NSW ALP state conference on Saturday 4 July.
He started his speech saying that discussing Palestine should not be a ‘fringe issue’, but debated on conference floor.
The rest of his speech is below. It is slightly edited to remove repetition and for some stylistic points.
ED HUSIC
We can and should do more – and that should be heard.
I grew up in a party that had these debates but still went on to win multiple elections.
What I am deeply concerned about is that there are elements of fear and loathing that drive the way we respond to these issues.
Fear to have your own view. And loathing for those who do.
This cannot be the way that we continue. Otherwise we will see what happened to the US Democrats will happen with us as our members and supporters drift off. We cannot have that.
This is a legitimate debate to have. And we will back you for having this debate.
Because what’s at stake and what brings us here is when you have a report – not a fringe report, not something done by a remote member of civil society, but when the UN says 20,000 children have been killed 44,000 have been injured – as a deliberate policy – then I cannot imagine what is worse.
That happening by a [country] that claims to be a member of the international community or that we are silent on it. We cannot be.
Australia has a proud legacy of standing up and pushing on these things.
What needs to be done is:
- The time for statements is over. It is patently clear that statements will not cut it with the Netanyahu government;
- The types of things we should be doing include – we cannot in an area that has been described as the subject of a plausible genocide, be engaged in defence relationships with a country accused of doing that.
- Defence relationships need to cease with the state of Israel.
- We cannot have [defence] trade – even when it comes to parts – despite the manufacturing complexity of that [F35] treaty. We cannot have that continue. If those parts were going to a major country in our region that we have differences with from time to time, I imagine we would have a different view.
- The sanctions regime needs to be ramped up considerably. It cannot be just a few people that are targeted. It should be the that are driving a lot of what we are seeing in Gaza and the West Bank, bearing in mind that our sanctions have largely targeted West Bank action.
- Finally, and I want to make this point very clear. We cannot have dual nationals leaving this country to go and be involved in that operation.
To give effect to that, two things why it is important. One: we need to set up as a government a body within the AFP to track the movement of dual nationals because – indirect – even if someone went there they weren’t actually in gaza they could contribute to activity that took place there – and a crime against humanity occurred, that’s a breach. We are required to stop anything that breaches the genocide convention – direct or indirect.
The second point and the last one – there is also a community safety element to this. People who have been there and been exposed coming back with PTSD or engaging in a prosecution of those issues here in a way that breaches community safety, we have seen with former [IDF] volunteers coming back and starting fights with pro-Palestian supporters on our streets in western Sydney. That is a serious issue and we need to treat it seriously.
The are not all, but some of the priority issues we should be addressing.