They call it “hunting season” in radical circles: when you turn on the most extreme part of your movement and wipe it out.
In the Zionist uprising of the 1940s, the Palmach did it to the Stern Gang, the fascist-Zionists waging terror against the British; the IRA wiped out the upstart Irish People’s Liberation Organisation in a single murderous night in 1992.
Fun times.
And we’re getting a dose of it here, with Labor’s momentous factional realignments. There are no guns yet, just hired guns in the form of lawyers, but we live in hope of a shoot-out in the Inn of Celestial Happiness BYO as the crayfish watch from their tanks. With lawsuits, job pushes and internal struggles, the hunted are fighting back, and it may get very ugly. I mean Richo-level ugly.
Hunting season began some time ago, when upstart factional leader Adem Somyurek had his office video bugged — with as someone noted military-grade equipment — and alleged Victorian branch stacking operations laid bare. Mr Somyurek has denied all wrongdoing and late last year used parliamentary privilege to accuse the media and others in Labor of wrongdoing.
Regardless, Somyurek had become a major pain for the legacy factions and their leaders, turning a group of non-Anglo SDA (Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, the Shoppies) faction renegades (the “mods”) into one capable of dictating terms to the big boys. A big get was to persuade Bill Shorten’s AWU faction in (along with some small unions run by his cronies) after the Shorten-Conroy alliance, badged as Labor Unity, broke up. The next step was an alliance with the new industrial left faction led by the CFMEU, breaking away from Kim Carr’s socialist left.
The grand prize was to bring the SDA back in as subservient partner. Whether that was ever going to happen is hard to say, but the Age/Nine tapes blew up the mods, the larger centre alliance, and the centre alliance-industrial left deal, through which Somyurek, a suburban MLC, hoped to rule the ALP. Incredible, really. It’s like Aguirre, the Wrath of God, set in Springvale.
So now the hunt continues, the prize being the destruction of Shorten and the “Shorts” once and for all. Shorten should have gone to Richo’s Chinese restaurant after the 2019 loss, a campaign which saw the public’s lack of warmth to him turn into focused dislike over the course of a few weeks. His decision to stay and serve his party dutifully in whatever capacity etc was taken by all as a sign that he hadn’t given up, and would try to come back after a 2021-22 Albanese loss, and put together enough of a faction — without Somyurek, but maybe with the SDA — to push his way back in.
That promised years of instability over preselections and branches, even before the Victorian ALP’s self-governing powers were suspended. Central to rebuilding would have been a branch-by-branch struggle with the Conroyites, now led by Richard Marles (Conroy having retired to the gaming industry lobby to fight for a better world from over there), a nightmare prospect. The suspension of Victoria’s powers knocked that on the head, and that may have been its main purpose.
The new grand alliance, in which the socialist left, the NSW left, the Conroyite right and the SDA have all jumped into bed tog- … ugh no I can’t finish that metaphor, has only one unifying principle: if they can exclude Shorten and some small union bases around him — the plumbers, the HWU — they hope they will wither on the vine and blow away and a brief stability can be achieved.
But the rebel forces are fighting back. The rather bedraggled Shorts — torn Shorts? — led the legal attack as 11 unions clubbed together to sue the party apparatus to try to open preselection in the new, and safe, federal seat of Hawke, a juicy prize. Diana Asmar, head of the HWU, is the official plaintiff, and the campaign was quickly given a feminist branding against the preferred candidate for Hawke, Sam Rae.
Simultaneously, Somyurek’s lieutenant, Marlene Kairouz, launched suit to try to restrain the party from hearing disciplinary charges against her following from the branch stack investigation. If both suits were to succeed what can only be described as the “spare parts” faction would be back in business.
Now a third flank has been opened with an Age report that state secretary Clare Burns has declared her intention to return to the post in September after a year or so’s maternity leave. Burns, the former failed candidate for the state seat of Northcote, had started in the SDA orbit, but was a part of Somyurek’s outfit when she gained the state secretary’s position on Somyurek’s insistence. Somyurek’s power then collapsed, and Burns was left somewhat isolated, the Andrews’ government’s glee at being free of his meddlesome influence unconfined.
Now they have a problem on their hands. They’re desperate to prevent Burns’ return to the job — but edging out a woman while on maternity leave is not a good look for the party of gender diverse pedestrian walk signs. The gender card is being played again. This will roll on as the two court cases play out. If they can win they crack the ALP open in a situation where the party could decompose into 10 or 12 mini-factions.
You can see why the party centre has decided on a hunting season. And thank god there’s no chance of a snap election, like, tomorrow. See you at Richo’s Chinese restaurant!
Not a patch on the imploding wars inside the fetid LNP. Its kittens playing compared to the religious wars Morrison’s followers are pursuing. FOCUS.
Well said, Penny! We now have Guy (in Crikey, no less) trying to destroy the ALP…in Victoria, at least. The more this type of nonsense gets a hearing, the more certain is a L/NP victory at the coming election.
Is that really what we all want? Another three years of the most putrid government EVER to be in power in this country???
The mind boggles!!!!
CML and Penny, I’d have thought that GR is helping us see clearly that when Labor isn’t focussing on destroying the one federal lower house Green, they put all their efforts into destroying each other.
Which is exactly why the worst, most criminally corrupt federal govt in our history will be re-elected.
A tragedy for us all.
Unlike the rubbish the Greens get up to as they try to grab Labor seats.
Seats are not anyone’s property, loss of which can only be attributed to theft or sale. It is precisely this fact which makes theft or sale of them immoral.
They are opportunities to be taken advantage of by whichever party is more appealing to the electorate. The Labor Party’s self-defeating hostility to the Greens, with whom they should be looking to form a coalitions, seems to be based on a category error.
Apologies: delete “theft” in the second sentence.
It would be hard to form a coalition with people who campaign by constantly attacking Labor politicians, with both personal attacks and made up and exaggerated assertions. They never attack the LNP in Queensland. Ever. The Greens also just push the narrative that “they are both the same” constantly. That is hard to forgive. The above lines are straight out of the Greens playbook and I have heard this line many many times. The self-righteousness of Greens campaigners is very hard to swallow given their behaviour during the Queensland State election last year.
Completely agree.
Inventing things again. What you say is rubbish. The Greens are an INDEPENDENT party yet people expect them to support Labour’s stupidity in QLD? Joel Fitzgibbon, the LNP/Labor politician is ok by you, but the Greens self righteous? Groan. Keep sucking on your Murdoch lemon. Fool.
If you really knew the Greens at close range you wouldn’t say this. I know some ex Greens candidates who’ve gone over to become ALP supporters in my state. The Greens look superficially good, but they are a sham. Some of the recruited candidates and members are probably unaware themselves cos peddling virtue is so seductive and there’s a big flattery machine inside their bubble, unless someone raises doubts, then they get hammered apparently. It does your head in when you find out what’s going on. Seriously weird situation.
The Greens are attempting to REMOVE the rubbish from our democracy. Labor would be better off aligning with the Greens than with the fossil fuel masters.
Try to grab Labor seats? You mean dare to stand for election? If your logic is followed, there would be no democracy. Just nominated Liberal & Labor seats that no other party should contest…
Rundle is a recidivist offender when it comes to bagging Labor.
Responsible journalism is about truth telling, so good on you GR! I bag Labor all the time here, but not because I want them to fail, quite the opposite, I want them to succeed! Instead of the insipid, weak party they are, I want a dynamic, progressive party with exciting nation building policies that would make this country one to be proud of. Instead we’re governed by a corrupt cabal in the hands of corporations opposed by an ‘opposition’ also in the hands of corporations. Also opposed by a ‘green’ party which doesn’t know whether they’re Arthur or Martha, as the old saying goes. We deserve better, much better.
We deserve the governments we get, because we have allowed them to import US advisors in order to polish their thieving ways.
Interesting to see the new housing investment figures in Australia- USA on top now by miles. Also USA heading the list of people coming here. Scottie’s troops on the march. Under his eye.
I was in agreement until the knee jerk sneer at the Greens.
At this dire moment in our history they present an alternative – which “Labor” DOES NOT!
You. Are. Kidding. I’m not against the Greens, I would love for them to be a real alternative, if only to keep the others honest. But they’re another party with lots of infighting, lack of direction and hopeless campaigning strategies. As one ex mayor said to me about our local greens, they’d rather sit around with a glass of vino than grapple with hard nosed politics. I don’t necessarily agree with him but I get where he’s coming from.
So how is this different to the LNP? The Greens are a political party. They are nowhere near as compromised as LNP & Labor. They get the same Kill Bill treatment dished out to them by the mainstream media but rather than recognise this, you attack the Greens? So here we are. With the shittiest government EVER because a few Joel Fitzgibbon type Labor voters think the Greens are worse than the LNP?
What is the Arthur/Marthur confusion in the Greens? Nuclear power? Immigration policy?
The infantile dislike of the Greens by many Australians is the end product of years of Rupert brain washing. I am so tired of hearing people bag the Greens while the country is run by a cult following boof head, a country bumpkin & the fossil fuel industry.
I don’t disagree with you, but by the same token the Greens don’t deserve a free pass. They’ve got good ideas and policies which I applaud, but their campaigning is terrible. They need to get their act together and develop strategies that will get them votes. They’re never going to get MSM to cover them so they need to get out on the hustings, be at places where young (and not so young people) are. Social media, local markets, concerts, beaches, parks, campuses; not just sometimes, but constantly.
It might be expected that Greens, being on the whole a younger cohort than the old sclerotics, could use this soi disant ‘sozial meeja’ thangy to spread ideas…oh, wait. That would require having some that would survive a brief – 2mins would suffice – critique beyond the Latte Wall.
When last spotted, the official policy was transgenderizmness, wholemeal clothing and dolphin-free cosmetics.
Not obvious winners…to real people.
Mate, as I tried to say, with MSM either ignoring them or constantly putting them down, the Greens need to be much more creative to get their message across. Whether they use old or new school methods or both doesn’t really matter, as long as they’re in front of the people they want to vote for them, and they are predominantly the under 45s. I’m actually older than that, but I have to say I’m at the beach every day, in our parks, at the markets, I see lots of younger people, I often see Sea Shepherd around (I quite often donate and sometimes buy merchandise, I don’t know if my kids wear it but it’s better than socks, right? LOL), I hardly ever see the Greens or Labor for that matter, forget about the Libs. All I’ve had this year so far is one or two motherhood statement letter drops from all three parties and frankly it just makes me angry.
In order for “…the Greens need to be much more creative to get their message across…” there needs to be a message that has something to do with the real world.
In the 80s they had one – it still exists but the party has succumbed to the sme sclerosis which afflicts all organisations once the time servers, seat polishers and apparatchiks worm their loathsome way in.
It pains me to say it but the Greens have become like the GrauGrunen in Germany – the Black Wriggler De Natales would have happily been a Joachim Fischer (who as Defence Minister [sic!]) happily bombed the bejazus out of Serbia on humanitairian grounds.
Any group that ages without evolving becomes a parody of itself, spending more time, money & energy on maintaining internal power bases than promoting the original purpose.
I agree. I didn’t want to mention the 80s and Bob Brown because that was a different era with different issues. But, yes, the Greens were constantly in the news at the time despite Murdoch. Whether it was Bob and the Franklin Dam, Ian Cohen off Sydney North Head trying to stop a US Naval ship on his surfboard or Michel Fanton six metres up a bamboo tripod stopping logging, there were eco warriors everywhere making news. When’s the last time we heard of the Greens that wasn’t about some internal fracas? The 2019 anti Adani Bus Convoy maybe? Say no more…
Murdoch media has silenced the Greens. Labor & Liberal both owned by the fossil fuel industry & as for the Nationals……this is why you dont hear about the Greens.
Sea shepherd sure, but I really meant Greenpeace…
This idea that most Greens voters are under 45 is nonsense. I am over 60, many of my friends vote Green & have done for decades. You are living in the past.
As I mentioned at Grundle’s community garden story, it is the aged who are most aware of the current state.
They often vote Green but the very young do not, for the age old reason – young heads do not fit on old shoulders.
As constantly demonstrated here, most people do not even understand our electoral system, let alone PR & STV.
It’s why most elections are held in warmer months – so the average voter doesn’t have to take off their shoes to count beyond 12 in the Senate.
I’m not sure about that. From memory the greens got about 10% in the last election. I would guess most of them were from the under 45s, but I’ve been wrong before :-). I’m well over 45 myself and most of my friends would probably vote labor, some green. But as a progressive party the greens historically do best among the younger generations, so that’s where I think they need to concentrate their efforts.
The Greens are strongly supported by many my age. Those of us who saw what was happening forty years ago & hoped that we would never get to where we are today. But here we are.
Figures from the parliamentary 2019 Australian Election Study.
Green voters
18-24 – 37%
25-34 – 24%
35-44 – 10%
45-54 – 5%
55-64 – 4%
65+ – 2%
Tsk, tsk, using numbers!
A bit unfair, when it’s feeling & belief that matter.
Well, Penny forced my hand to look it up. I was surprised the over 55s green vote was as low as this though.
Me three.
Like like like, so likely alike in views and vote Greens.
Again, let me commend you for having elucidated myself and hopefully others.
I would have guessed more for the 45+ than 11% but it seems one of those natural ratios in so many ways.
More interesting is the huge drop off in youthful zest to mortgage & nappies.
It may be coincidence but those votes drawn resemble an age pyramid – from 50yrs ago.
What is that bon mot about advances occurring one funeral at a time?
Sad. This is NOT who the Greens are. Wholemeal clothing? Is this an attempt at humour? TRY READING THE GREENS POLICIES INSTEAD OF TAKING CHEAP SHOTS. Dolphin free cosmetics? You really are not funny at all. Just lame, tired old stale white male attempts at humour.
What a load of boring minutiae. Guy’s fascination with the ALP internal workings continues. How about an article on Lydia Thorpe and the internal workings of the Greens? Now that would be interesting.
Do you really think the minutiae of the internal workings of the Greens would be anymore interesting than the drivel written here?
Whatever happened to the contest of ideas and policy development to improve society? But then, what would I know? I’m not a self-absorbed, self-important third level functionary in a union or political party, and I studied science at Uni, not Arts.
Or, how about some coverage of last weekend’s revelations of the workings of the transnational criminal enterprise designed to knock off one bloke, so as to dissuade anyone thinking of following in his footsteps from trying to do so?
I’ll just quote Ed Snowden, after he became aware of last weekend’s revelations;
“This is the end of the case against Julian Assange”.
Or, Jennifer Robinson, when she spoke to Amy Goodman on ‘Democracy Now’, around the same time as Snowden’s pronouncement;
““This is just the latest revelation to demonstrate why the U.S. case should be dropped”
Or, Bob Ortega, ‘Senior Writer, Investigations, CNN’, after he’d seen the Robinson interview;
“This interview references reporting by the Icelandic newspaper Stundin that appears problematic for the US Dept. of Justice”
“Problematic?!”
Let me quote Mark Ames, in response to Snowden above:
“Great reporting by @GunnarHrafnJ on the FBI’s key witness—a serial child molester, fraudster & embezzler who was granted immunity to work as an informant & continued his crime spree while under FBI protection — to build their case against Assange.”
‘Gunnar’s ‘great reporting’ was fed from an interview he did with the ‘serial child molester, fraudster and embezzler’, who explained how he conned the FBI into believing what he said about Assange, purely to get that FBI protection.
Lastly, Mark Davis, formerly of SBS, incl being ‘in the room’ when the ‘Collateral Murder’ catalogue of crimes was being prepared for publication, and more lately the “Davis” in “Xenophon Davis”.
“Breaking in recent days. Key FBI informant admits lying about Assange. This guy is in the main indictment! Not reported here that we can see.”
He’s not just ‘in the main indictment’, he is the main indictment!
BTW, Davis made those remarks after I’d asked if he knew about Gunnar’s reporting. He didn’t, I filled him in, and he said he was about to take a “stab” at the media for avoiding it.
Which includes Crikey, cos I told them what I told Davis, shortly after, and have the acknowledgement.
And, not a peep.
Well researched Dave.
I cottoned on early, Tony, because I consume a ‘little’ Russian media. Topped the ‘Vladvision’ hourly news broadcasts on Monday. Sat as the top story on their website, around the same time.
Yet, the media in he country where he remains a citizen are still blacking him out, as of last night.
Peter Cronau, formerly an EP at 4 Corners, also had it early (he, too, consumes a little Russian media). He started wondering aloud (on Twitter, on Wednesday) why ‘ABC News’, ‘7:30’, ‘SMH’, ‘7News’ hadn’t bothered to mention it.
I told a retired diplomat on Monday. He didn’t know. But, he does know a senior ‘correspondent’ at the ABC, and told him. He’s soon off to where Julian is currently being tortured, and suggested hye might have a look at it when he gets there.
The retired diplomat started out the week with some residual faith in and respect for the local media. Let’s just I’d blown up his delusions by late Wednesday.
As someone pointed out yesdee, this is not just a local ‘phenomenon’. Bar a few of the ‘fringees’, it’s also been blacked out in the US, UK and the EU media.
And, it’s coordinated. An example from someone who knows how the algos are tweaked. He did a comparison of the number of search returns for ‘Assange’ and ‘Bill Cosby’, over the last week. Cosby’s just been let out of prison, after being slotted for ‘crimes against the child’.
There were around a couple of hundred thousand returns for ‘Assange’ (and, bugger all of them about the Icelanders’ reporting).
And, there were multiple millions of returns for ‘Cosby’, with his release being used to fuel outrage about a child abuser being released from prison, while a falsely accused (incl on the Swedish ‘rape’ bs) bloke is kept confined and tortured for more than a decade, while vile ‘journalist colleagues’, like the ABC’s Sally Neighbour, chum up to mass murdering psychopaths like Killary Rodham Clinton (who called for Assange to be assassinated), and publicy label Assange ‘Putin’s bitch’.
See the irony? The FBI used a serial child abuser to manufacture a case, against a bloke who had the guts to report levels of ‘abuse’ of all manners, at epic scale, so as to shut him down forever, and ‘steer’ the craven cowards in the remainder of the ‘information industry’ away from thoughts of, maybe, doing their damn jobs.
The instrument to measure the level of disdain I have for the Strayan media has not yet been invented.
Menadue’s Pearls & Irritations have just separated themselves from the pack, by publishing an excellent piece by Greg Barns, which begins;
“Why the reluctance of the Australian media to report on a significant development in the Assange case?”
Gutless complicity?
Or ignorance?
The result is the same, on many, many issues.
No, It wouldn’t. We keep hearing of Greens / Labor ructions. The Libs are worse and somehow escape scrutiny
I guess it’s good that someone is prepared to peel back the scab and see what’s wriggling underneath.
I’m sure the LNP have exactly the same flesh eating worms under the crusted surface of their various factional cow pats. I mean there’s actual potatoes and beetroots on the Federal front bench.
Is it a quirk of large organisations, humans or just my friends motto “evil always wins” in play?
I’m reading a book written in 1806 by some Pommy Admiral and Pollie. Almost an exact copy of what we are saying here. Old Sammy Pepes said much the same in his Diary.
it looks like “evil always wins” is a well documented fact.
Just finished watching thezeries”The Hunger Games” and it felt like a preview of what’s to come if we don’t get rid of the current lot in government; power and money is all they think about, and making the rich richer to get ^donations^.
We have most of the country in lockdown, quarantine in shambles, vaccination a disaster and here we have an irrelevant article about union shenanigans and a forecast that Labor will loose the next election. I am seriously wondering why I subscribed to Crikey if this is the kind of article you dish up.
I find that it pays to have a diversity of views to critically examine the issues that are important to me. Rundle’s views are informative…probably more so than the Sky News after dark team…but his is just one voice on the spectrum of ideas. This is exactly why I subscribe to Crikey…amongst the other news services I subscribe to also.
Whatever purpose it once served has long been abandoned.
This zine is no longer worth supporting.
I can’t say that its disappearance would be a loss.
The tragedy of ALP factional warfare has destroyed any chance of social justice in Oz.
Whereas the Coalition repeated chaos matters not to voters
This is demonstrably so.
Non tory voters expect better than LNP voters which is why the latter are never disappointed.