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Solving labor's malaise.

Article Excerpt
Tony London (Arena Magazine No.75) is right. Keeping the ALP on course and effective has never been easy. The battle to preserve its social democratic identity and integrity has had to be fought and fought again. The problem in the past has been would-be takeovers, both from within and without. In the 1930s, to go back no further, it was the Langites in NSW and their allies elsewhere who had to be overcome, in the 1940s the communists, in the 1950s the Santamaria Movement, and in the 1960s a troglodyte Left, as exemplified in Victoria by the Trade Unionists' Defence Committee.

Today the threat stems not from an identifiable--and thereby the more easily confronted and overcome--adversary, but from a malaise that is the more insidious for being of the Party's own making. The malaise is exemplified by the Party member quoted in a recent newspaper report (Sunday Age, 20/2/05) as expressing incredulity that belonging to the Party could be thought to be for any purpose other than the furthering of a career. The trend is towards a wholly professionalised party on the American model, where volunteer involvement is largely absent other than during election campaigns.

The origins of the malaise are plain. The professionalising of the ALP such as through the Party organisation and staffing for MPs and ministers has not been accompanied by a comparable growth in the number and involvement of the Party rank and file to whom they are properly accountable. An...

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