History will judge the Prime Minister

BOASTING of being on the right side of history is a big call, but Julia Gillard believes she owns that space on the basis of the carbon tax. Most who have previously grandiosely claimed to be on the right side of history were proved wrong. After witnessing the Russian revolution and its bloody aftermath American journalist Lincoln Steffens declared of the new Soviet society: "I have seen the future and it works." The only person who just might still believe him would be long-time Soviet Union propagandist Lee Rhiannon, the new Greens senator for NSW, a former member of the Socialist Party of Australia. (When this article was first published, I said Rhiannon was later joined the Australian Association for Communist Unity. Her office contacted The Sunday Telegraph and said Rhiannon denies ever belonging to the ACU, which I accept. Her relationship with Communist organisations will be examined in a further article. Piers Akerman) But Gillard and her dwindling band of true believers, mainly ignorant members of Gen X and Gen Y who were drip-fed Green-Left garbage by members of the hard-Left teachers' union, are still trying to intimidate more sensible Australians into their perverse orthodoxy, that insists life-sustaining carbon dioxide is a poison, to lodge themselves on what they see as the right side of history. The US, China and India, to name a few of the world's largest nations, are automatically off-sided by Gillard's delineation of history's borders. In another bold move Gillard has announced that she will personally spearhead reforms in the Labor Party which will, perhaps, broaden the membership base of the party, even trialling the US system of having local branches select candidates and, possibly, venturing into the field of cyber memberships. Worthy objectives but given her dismal failure to achieve anything of any substance in national terms as prime minister, apart from killing the live cattle trade with Indonesia and encouraging the people smuggler business, it seems most improbable that she will kick any goals in the far tougher world of Labor politics. Gillard says she wants to recruit 8000 new members to better represent the membership. She did not address the issue of diluting the power of the trade union bosses who call the shots in the ALP and, as former NSW minister and Labor historian Rodney Cavalier has told the ABC, another 8000 members is a "terribly unambitious number" which would still leave the party with fewer members than "at the start of Kevin Rudd's leadership". Cavalier also questioned why anyone would bother joining the ALP while control remained with the union movement, a social force that he said now amounted to only eight per cent of the electorate, most of whom play no role in the affairs of their own unions but control the Labor Party "lock, stock and dividends". "And why would anyone join the Labor Party now with the crystal clear spectacle of the behaviour of those in control of the party outside the Parliament," he asked, "when they have a very good example of what it means to be a modern trade union official and how union affairs are conducted?" Gillard's reform speech clashed, serendipitously, with the announcement that the troubled Hospital Services Union had decided to disaffiliate from the ALP. This is for at least as long it takes to deal with the barrage of corruption claims that have engulfed the union since questions were raised about the credit card use of former union official, now Labor MP Craig Thomson, and the entangled private and union businesses of ALP vice-president and union executive Michael Williamson, now the subject of inquiry by NSW police Task Force Carnarvon. Both Thomson and Williamson have strenuously denied any wrongdoing and Gillard has repeatedly expressed her fullest support for the member for Dobell. HSU national secretary Kathy Jackson has complained that the decision to disaffiliate was not voted on by members and is designed to shield the ALP from further fall-out. The HSU imbroglio epitomises the factional problems which beset the ALP. Jackson belongs to a Right-wing faction in the ALP's Victorian branch known as the "Taleban", which has supported Labor senator David Feeney. It is opposed by another Right-wing group, the "Shortcons", who back federal ministers Bill Shorten and Stephen Conroy. So far, the mud has largely been thrown in one direction but there will be plenty thrown back in coming weeks. That is the nature of big union politics, where members' funds are under the control of a handful of executives and transparency is a distant mirage. Cavalier believes the ALP will only be genuinely reformed when trade union representation within the party is indexed to their actual size in Australian society and the electorate, which is somewhere between 8 per cent and 12 per cent. He said it would not mean the party taking a vastly different direction but it would enable a completely different set of people to come forward. "It will mean the end of the careers of almost every senator and every member of an Upper House in the State Parliament," Cavalier told the ABC. "It will mean the end of the careers of those who presently control the machines." As for a foray into the world of social networking and cyber politics, the GetUp model demonstrates the inherent problems in letting loose the geeks. GetUp's cyber bullying of companies who don't support a carbon tax would be a fitting target for investigation by Communications Minister Conroy's inquiry into the media, but just as he has carefully excluded Labor's cheer squad at the ABC, the nation's largest media organisation, and SBS, GetUp's threatening rabble rousing seems to be beyond the government's scrutiny. Historians will note that Gillard's claim to be on the right side of history followed the big lie she told before the last election when she promised she would not lead a government which introduced a carbon dioxide tax. That lie should be recalled whenever she speaks, if only to ensure voters can put her remarks in context. As she insists she is on the right side of history, she surely would not be offended by a reminder of the mendacious content in her own historical record.