Hawke and Keating on Labor Disaster.

[Rorschach]

Bob Hawke and Paul Keating’s brutal verdict on the Rudd-Gillard years
TROY BRAMSTON THE AUSTRALIAN APRIL 24, 2014 12:00AM

The Australian's Troy Bramston and Chris Kenny discuss Bob Hawke and Paul Keating's assessment of Labor in power.

BOB Hawke and Paul Keating have given a blistering assessment of Labor in power under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard and warned that retrograde policies, ineffective communication, divisive class warfare and a lack of conviction will keep the party out of office if not urgently addressed.

The two former Labor prime ministers have urged the party to undertake radical reform to reduce the power of unions and factions, steer policy back to the centre ground and heed the lessons of the often chaotic and dysfunctional Rudd-Gillard governments. They argue that Labor must undertake structural reform to curtail union influence over policy, candidates and the party organisation.

For the first time, the two Labor elders say the party must slash the 50 per cent weighting given to unions at state confer ences — a reform Bill Shorten this week ignored. “The reality is that the unions are now only a small percentage of workers,” Mr Hawke said. “They should still have a right to be affiliated with the party but they should not have an undue influence.”

He wants the 50 per cent quota for union delegations to conferences reduced. “I think that’s an undue weighting in the world in which we live today,” he said.

Mr Keating said: “I’ve always been in favour of a much more representative Labor conference structure, reflecting the participation by earnest people truly interested in the Labor Party rather than the blocs of people at conferences representing union members. As the level of unionisation has dropped in the workplace, so too should the representation at conferences drop.”

The exclusive interviews with the two former Labor prime ministers, Mr Hawke (1983-91) and Mr Keating (1991-96), are included in a new book, Rudd, Gillard and Beyond, published next week. Mr Keating said the party’s membership had become so “limited” and “confected” that it was unrepresentative of the community. As the authority of members has diminished, he said the power of party officials had increased. This had been “brutally bad” for Labor.

He said party officials have “an unerring sense of what they believe is right” and “lord it over the parliamentary party” to get their way. “The rot had set in to the federal organisation of the Labor Party when the state party secretaries raised their reasonably ugly heads” in the 1990s.

Mr Keating said the last Labor government struggled to define its purpose in a compelling narrative and failed to balance the political and policy work needed for successful long-term governments. “Kevin’s government was doing reasonably badly reasonably quickly,” Mr Keating said.

He argued that the global financial crisis “gave the government purpose” and it responded appropriately.

“After the crisis, or the immediacy of the crisis, it started fraying again.

“There was a sense of urgency which guided the big reform agenda in the 1980s and ‘90s. We knew what we wanted to do. We wanted to create a modern, efficient, outward-looking economy. You have to conceptualise the big reform ideas into a framework.”

Mr Keating said he told Mr Rudd in July last year, after he returned to the prime ministership, that Labor had to reclaim the model of governance that he and Mr Hawke had pioneered in the 80s and 90s.

“That was a model which fostered economic growth, which put a high premium on social equity and justice, which fathomed a way of us, as Australians, tying ourselves competitively to the East Asian economic renaissance,” he said. “What happened is that the public had fallen out of love with the Labor Party organisationally and as a government, Rudd’s demise being part of that, but they hadn’t fallen out of love with the model.”

Mr Hawke is critical of Labor for promulgating class warfare for political gain and criticised the development of the mining tax. “That sort of class-warfare rhetoric never resonates with me,” he said. “The simple truth about good government is that you need to have good relations with both sides of an industry, workers and business, not just one side.”

Mr Keating also spoke about the need for party leaders to win support from voters and work with business and unions to implement a reform agenda that was in the national interest. “We had to be able to garner the authority of the caucus and the wider Labor Party and trade union movement to make these kind of changes,” he said.

The problem Labor often had, Mr Keating said, was a lack of belief. “Leaders proselytising policies without deep inner belief in the end fail. Policies can’t be picked up like pretty boxes at a gift shop. They have to come from the innards of the politics.”

Both former prime ministers said the party was failing to recruit candidates with a diversity of life experience. “The organis ational leadership has always got to look around for the people who are different and who have talent, spot it and help them through the party,” Mr Keating said.

Assessing the Rudd-Gillard legacy, Mr Hawke said the party needed to be “brutal” in its assessment and acknowledge that they “didn’t deserve to win” the September election. “They just distracted themselves with internecine strife.”

Mr Hawke said it was inevitable Mr Rudd would be toppled by Ms Gillard in 2010 “because he just wanted to run so much of things single-handedly” and a reaction against that was inevitable.

Both said that despite the many problems, there were policies that Labor could be proud of after six years in government. While Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard “deserved to lose”, Mr Hawke said, they “achieved a lot of good Labor things”.

But Mr Keating said it was wrong for Ms Gillard to challenge Mr Rudd for the leadership.

“I don’t think Kevin Rudd should have been replaced in 2010,” he said. “Leaders often have low to mid-points in a term. The party, I think, should have stuck with him through that.”

Troy Bramston is the author of Rudd, Gillard and Beyond (Penguin) published next week.

[DaS Energy]

Bob Hawke and Paul Keating’s desperate need for some limelight.

[Rorschach]

bump non das

[DaS Energy]

Tired old politicians of tired old party from by gone times. Oh wonderful me how different it would have been!

[IQS.RLOW]

I'm sick of you filling up the place place with useless unintelligible posts.

Go fuck yourself.

[Rorschach]

I was sick of it months ago... other sites being sick of it took the only course and banned it.
meanwhile back on topic...

"Over the fence" as I shall refer to Ozpolitics from now on... the progs have chosen to runaway from this topic and ignore what the Labor party elder statesmen have been saying.

The problem with Labor, or one of the many, is that they have decided to become THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY... they've marginalised or booted out any conservative voices and Gillard and Co decided it no longer represents them. The Greens are a "progressive" party and they get 10% of the vote. Labor used to get 30%, it would appear they now want to achieve 20%, and it seems they are succeeding.

[Rorschach]

Bill Shorten’s six lessons for Labor
TROY BRAMSTON THE AUSTRALIAN APRIL 26, 2014 12:00AM

In an exclusive interview for a new book, Rudd, Gillard and Beyond, the Labor leader spoke frankly about the Rudd-Gillard years, how Labor must broaden its political appeal, the internal reforms the party must undertake and the need for new policies. He said the party must turn its back on class warfare rhetoric and policies, and described an “us versus them” approach to politics as unhealthy.

“We’ve got to be a party who basically says to Australians that if you are doing it hard, we have got your back,’’ Mr Shorten said. “But if you have got aspirations to do really well, then we want to make sure that government is not in the way and that we are creating policies which enable people to do well.”

He offered six lessons the party must heed from the Rudd-Gillard years. No former minister still in parliament has spoken so openly, and so critically, of the former Labor government.

The first is to “treat people with courtesy and respect”. Aware of how coldly Mr Rudd often treated ministers, bureaucrats and staff, which fuelled discontent, Mr Shorten said he wanted to be an inclusive leader.

The second is not to “launch a thousand ships, a thousand ideas (and) a thousand thought bubbles”. The Labor government often struggled to prioritise policies and was hampered by dysfunctional administration.

“Do some things and do them really well,” Mr Shorten said. “We made the mistake of raising expectations.”

The third is to focus on policy implementation. Labor was heavily criticised for the delivery of many policies, from the school-building and home insulation programs to the National Broadband Network and the mining tax.

“Whatever our ideas and however well-intentioned, test their implementation with experts,” the Opposition Leader said. “We probably tried to do too much on too many fronts and didn’t adequately prepare the ground enough.”

The fourth lesson is to build a good relationship with business. Labor must “talk to the private sector”. Relations with business groups were frequently hostile during the Rudd-Gillard governments.

Fifth is to be a “no surprises” government. “Business and the community want consistency,” Mr Shorten said. While he was not criticising the mining tax or climate change policies, both areas were subject to change after attempts to implement them had failed.

The final lesson was to communicate with voters more effectively. “You have got to work out where people fit in and explain the process of change,” he said. “You have got to explain what you’re solving. Don’t go straight to the solution.”

In the interview in December, he did not offer any specific policy criticisms of the Rudd-Gillard governments. He did, however, say Labor would have a suite of new policies ahead of the next election.

“I am ambitious that Labor has got a positive set of policies which are better for the future than the current government’s policies,” he said.

On internal Labor reform, Mr Shorten said one of his priorities was to recruit candidates from a broader talent pool, as he acknowledged too many Labor candidates had narrow life and work experiences.

“One of the things that will make us competitive at the next election is having a broad-based party with quality candidates in all our marginal seats. We need to broaden the party so it has more real-world experience and more diversity of backgrounds.”

He identified women, people living on the land, small business and migrants as constituencies with which Labor must re-engage. “If you want to claim to represent all Australians, then your candidates need to be representative of all Australians,” he said.

Although former Labor prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating have called for union influence inside Labor to be curtailed, Mr Shorten defended the party’s union links. “Having a formal relationship with unions is a strength, not a weakness,” he said. “What we need to do to make that work best is engage more of the day-to-day experience of union members and reach out to other groups in the community.”

He acknowledged it would be difficult for Labor to win the next election but he was optimistic he could lead the party to victory. “If Labor has the right blend of positive ideas and we hold the government to account, we will be competitive at the next election,” he said.

Troy Bramston is the author of Rudd, Gillard and Beyond (Penguin), published next week.

[Neferti]

Short Willy apparently has a speech impediment. Does he? I've never listened to him speak more than one minute!

Many Gays have speech impediments. I bet Monk does.

[Neferti]

Another non-subject that nobody wants to "debate". I do NOT debate anything on these Forums. I state my position and you can argue with me but nobody does ... otherwise. I figure that my word is the last word, hey? Surely not. LOL Challenge me.

[Phil E. Buster]

Looks around and sees noone. You must have scared everyone away Neferti. But you can always count on that very tall glass of water, Mr Abbott. Did you know he has ditched the witch and is axing the tax. Steady as she goes, he does what he says and says what he does. Neferti, don't get sucked in by those ugly Leftards who are so unkind as to suggest Mr Abbott will break his promises. He is a man of his word and his budgie smugglers. Noone gets past them and no surprises. No Neferti it will be okay. He is stopping the boats getting to our cherished land just like he said he would and everyone's safety is guaranteed at Manus Island. That dead Muselman deserved to have his head smashed in and Mr Abbott is protecting us from all those nasty people. He's a tall glass of water Neferti, don't you know.