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The Good News in Labor's Faction Fight - the Left Has Lost

Wednesday, 8th March, 2006

There is some good news in Victorian Labor's very public factional fight - the maddies of the left are no longer in control. For almost all of the last 50 years, Left factions have been dominant in Victoria and their way out, doctrinaire views were a major factor in Labor being in government federally for less than 30% of that time. Now that the moderate forces - people actually interested in winning government - are in control, it is understandable that they want to get rid of people put into parliament by their leftist predecessors.

Simon Crean found himself on the hit list not because he himself is a member of the mad Left. He was made Leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party because he was a member of the Right faction but he lost the faction's support when, after being forced to stand down from the position, he supported Mark Latham as his replacement instead of Kim Beazley who was the factional choice. The attempt to deny him pre-selection was born out of the resentment of his former factional friends for what they considered to he his desertion.

Kim Beazley's mistake in this internal squabble was not to see the damage it would do to him. As I wrote a month ago (see Dealing With Factional Bosses a Beazley Weakness) he has no stomach for involving himself in internal party matters but on this occasion he should have plucked up his courage. There should not have been a contest and Beazley should have seen to it. As it turned out, the only thing worse than Crean winning the pre-selection contest, as he has, would have been Crean losing it and having no reason at all to stop seeking revenge on the former friend he thinks deserted him.

As for Julia Gillard and her campaigning to end factional control in the parliamentary party, it should be remembered that she was put in to her seat by the Left. True she is developing in to a very fine political performer and the whine is disappearing from her voice. In time she might make a Leader but the Right will need to be convinced that she is the only possible person who could lead Labor to victory.

It should be remembered that she was put in to her seat by the left.