Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party or ALP is Australia's oldest political party. It is so-named because of its origins in and close links to the trade union movement. While standard practice in Australian English is to spell the word labour with an "-our" ending, in reference to the name of the party it is spelt with an "-or" ending.

Structure

The Australian Labor Party is a democratic and federal party, which consists of both individual members and affiliated trade unions, who between them decide the party's policies, elect its governing bodies and choose its candidates for public office. The great majority of trade unions in Australia are affiliated to the party, and their affiliation fees, based on the size of their memberships, makes up a large part of the party's income. The party consists of six state and two territory branches, each of which consists of local branches which any Australian citizen or permanent resident can join, plus affiliated trade unions. Individual members pay a membership fee, which is graduated according to income. Members are expected to attend at least one meeting of their local branch each year. In practice only a dedicated minority regularly attend meetings. Many members only become active during election campaigns. The party has about 50,000 individual members, although this figure tends to fluctuate along with the party's electoral fortunes.

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The members and unions elect delegates to state and territory conferences (usually held annually, although more frequent conferences are often held). These conferences decide policy, and elect state or territory executives, a state or territory president (an honorary position usually held for a one-year term), and a state or territory secretary (a full-time professional position). The larger branches also have full-time assistant secretaries and organisers. In the past the ratio of conference delegates coming from the branches and affiliated unions has varied from state to state, however under recent national reforms at least 50% of delegates at all state and territory conferences must be elected by branches.

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The party holds a National Conference every two years, which consists of delegates representing the state and territory branches (many coming from affiliated trade unions, although there is no formal requirement for unions to be represented a the National Conference). The National Conference approves the party's Platform and policies, elects the National Executive, and appoints office-bearers such as the National Secretary, who also serves as national campaign director during elections. The current National Secretary is Tim Gartrell. The national Leader of the Labor Party is elected by the Labor members of the national Parliament (the Caucus), not by the conference. Until recently the national conference elected the party's National President, a largely honorary position, but since 2003 the position rotates between three people directly elected by the party's individual members. The current National President is Barry Jones, a veteran party figure who was a minister in the Hawke government. The two Vice-Presidents are Carmen Lawrence, a former Premier of Western Australia and minister in the Keating government, and Warren Mundine.

Related Topics:
National Executive - Tim Gartrell - Caucus - 2003 - Barry Jones - Hawke - Carmen Lawrence - Keating - Warren Mundine

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The Labor Party contests national, state and territory elections. In some states it also contests local government elections: in others it does not, preferring to allow its members to run as non-endorsed candidates. The process of choosing Labor candidates is called pre-selection. Candidates are pre-selected by different methods in the various states and territories. In some they are chosen by ballots of all party members, in others by panels or committees elected by the state conference, in still others by a combination of these two. Labor candidates are required to sign a pledge that if elected they will always vote in Parliament in accordance with decisions made by a vote of the Caucus. They are also sometimes required to donate a portion of their salary to the party, although this practice has declined with the introduction of public funding for political parties.

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The Labor Party has always had a left wing and a right wing, but since the 1970s it has been organised into formal factions, to which many party members belong and often pay an additional membership fee. The two largest factions are Labor Unity (on the right) and the National Left. Labor Unity generally supports free-market policies and the U.S. Alliance. The National Left, although it seldom openly espouses socialism, favours more state intervention in the economy and is generally opposed to the U.S. Alliance. The factions are themselves divided into sub-factions, and there is a constantly changing pattern of factional and sub-factional alliances around particular policy issues or around particular pre-selection disputes. Frequently these alliances and disputes reflect power struggles between or within trade unions.

Related Topics:
Labor Unity - National Left - Socialism

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The trade unions are also factionally aligned. The largest unions supporting the right are the Australian Workers Union (AWU), the National Union of Workers (NUW), the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association (SDA). Important unions supporting the left include the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union (LHMU), the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), the Australian Services Union (ASU) and the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA). But these affiliations are seldom unconditional or permanent. The AWU and the NUW, for example, are bitter rivals and the NUW sometimes aligns itself with the left to further its conflict with the AWU. On some issues, such as opposition to the Howard government's industrial relations policy, all the unions are in agreement and work as a block within the party.

Related Topics:
Australian Workers Union - National Union of Workers - Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association - Australian Manufacturing Workers Union - Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union - Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union - Australian Services Union - Maritime Union of Australia

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Pre-selections are usually conducted along factional lines, although sometimes a non-factional candidate will be given preferential treatment (this happened with Cheryl Kernot in 1998 and again with Peter Garrett in 2004). Deals between the factions to divide up the safe seats between them are also common. Pre-selections, particularly for safe Labor seats, are often bitterly contested, and have not infrequently involved practices such as branch stacking (signing up large numbers of nominal party members to vote in pre-selection ballots), impersonation, multiple voting and even fraudulent electoral enrolment. Trade unions were in the past accused of giving inflated membership figures to increase their influence over pre-selections, but party rules changes have stamped out this practice. Pre-selection results are frequently challenged, and the National Executive is sometimes called on to arbitrate these disputes.

Related Topics:
Cheryl Kernot - 1998 - Peter Garrett - 2004 - Branch stacking

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