Yahoo Finance Labor members need 'sense of agency', says Clare O'Neil
A federal Victorian frontbencher says giving members more say over the direction of the Labor party will help solve its membership woes, as the branch prepares for its day of reckoning on Friday.
Clare O’Neil believes further democratisation of the Labor party is one way to better engage with true believers.
“Let them make more decisions … Labor’s decision to allow its members to vote for a leader, for example, was a step in the right direction,” federal Labor’s innovation spokeswoman said at the National Press Club on Wednesday.
“Trying to give people a sense of agency in the party is a really important thing and something that I think we can do a bit better.”
Related: Labor review into branch stacking in Victoria set to recommend mass expulsions
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, ordered a review into the Adem Somyurek branch-stacking scandal in June, and its findings are due to be presented to the national executive at the end of this week.
Party elders Jenny Macklin and Steve Bracks completed the review, while acting as administrators of the Victorian branch, and are expected to recommend the expulsion of up to 1,700 non-bona fide members.
That leaves the question of how to attract more genuine, active members of the Labor party.
O’Neil, who said she had not seen the recommendations from the Bracks-Macklin review, said the Labor party would struggle for relevance if it didn’t address its shrinking membership base – an issue also plaguing the Liberals and the Nationals nationwide.
“I think this is probably the first really serious crack at this problem that I’ve seen in my time in the Labor party,” she said.
“I’ve been in the Labor party for more than 20 years and this is an ongoing issue in the Victorian branch. One of the things that most resonated for me in the reporting on Steve and Jenny’s work was that we need to grow our branch membership.
“This is not just a problem for the Labor party, but political parties in Australia are getting smaller. That’s a problem.
“We want to be broad-based political parties that represent all sorts of Australians of every type of view and ideology, and so, I think some of the proposals that Steve and Jenny are going to put forward about that will be really interesting to look at because I think that’s ultimately the answer for us. A big, broad-based membership.”
O’Neil said she was not concerned the party risked losing legitimate members, including volunteers, as part of the expulsion process.
“I’m not very worried about that because the people that support us in our campaigning are branch members who have been around for a long time and I don’t think that any of them will be struck off by this process.
“I trust Steve and Jenny and the way that they’ve gone about this to make sure that they are getting rid of people who are not genuine members.”
Audit agency Deloitte was appointed to review branch members and identify members who’d been signed up as a part of a pattern of branch stacking.
The impending clear out will bring more pain for the party as it continues to rebuild, given the alterations to backroom power balances.
O’Neil offered her thoughts on Victorian Labor’s systemic issues as part of an address on moving Australia forward. The Hotham MP said the nation had a once in 50 year chance to change policy direction on issues ranging from climate to innovation and immigration, which was at risk of being wasted if politicians did not start working together.
Part of that was a strong democracy, O’Neil said, which meant winning back trust within her own party after the Somyurek scandal and attracting new people prepared to take up the cause.
For that, O’Neil said there needed to be broad, cultural change.
Related: Victoria budget: treasurer announces $23.3bn deficit and record spending amid coronavirus recession
“Having six prime ministers in a decade did enormous damage to the direction of our country, but even worse, I think it created a spectacle that allowed voters to feel that they’re some kind of afterthought in the democratic process,” she said.
“They’re all in it for themselves. That’s what gets repeated to me with varying levels of hostility on street corners and in coffee shops around my electorate.
“With that [low] level of trust, I just am not sure that Australians will come on the journey that I’m arguing we need to go on.
“Part of the problem is our political culture in Australia is addicted to conflict, and you see that when you watch question time every single day. Now, I’ve been in parliament for seven years. I’m part of the system, and I’m certainly not here today presenting myself as some kind of innocent.
“But some of us, surely, have to say enough. Enough. Enough with the vitriol and the exchanges. Enough with the mock disbelief and the fake anger.
“Strength is not about resisting change. Strength is about being resilient and flexible to do it.”
