Why Shorten has to reconcile ALP’s working-class roots with metropolitan progressives

While the story of the past three years has been about the Liberals’ simmering civil war, Labor’s own internal contradictions are coming to the fore as the election approaches.

There’s a letter sitting in state Labor Leader Michael Daley’s inbox that’s symbolic of the divisions that course through the veins of the party. In it, NSW CFMEU boss Peter Jordan demands Daley back the Wyong Wallarah 2 Coal Project.

But, of course, Daley and his shadow resources minister Adam Searle won’t have a bar of it, which fits nicely with the federal party’s obsession with renewables and its need to be seen as pure on the issue of climate change.

As I report today, Jordan — who as of press time hadn’t heard back from Daley — and the CFMEU mining division are now considering withholding support from candidates who aren’t sufficiently supportive of coal mining and the jobs it creates.

And this is not just a local spot fire.

Bill Shorten needs to keep competing factions happy.

Instead, this internal split over mining in NSW mirrors a similar drama that has played out in Queensland over the Adani project.

And coal mining is hardly the only issue over which the ALP is threatening to tear itself apart. Far from it.

Much of the political class has been so caught up with the division in the Liberal Party in the days since Tony Abbott’s 2015 knifing that they have forgotten that the Labor Party has long been beset by deep ideological splits and factional warfare possibly even deeper than the Coalition’s cold civil war between its “moderate” and “conservative” wings.

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But there are signs that the electorate remembers and it is clearly worrying Bill Shorten, who has assumed the top job is in reach.

Because in the long courtship that is life in opposition, the ALP has had to show itself as to the Australian people as a safe, competent, stable pair of hands worth settling down with.

But like a date who makes it through starters and mains but then says something worryingly off over dessert, Labor has started to reveal that there are slightly more complicated sides to its personality. And that it comes with a lot of baggage.

And all this unfolding like a flower is taking place just as the Australian public is about to be asked if they want to commit to going steady with Bill Shorten, Michael Daley and the Australian Labor Party.

There’s something about being within a hair’s breadth of forming government that makes those warring forces inside the party remember they disagree on some pretty important things.

Just when Labor should be knuckling down and clearly unified on policy, they remember just why the party has long struggled to reconcile its working-class roots with the metropolitan progressives it targets.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten in Parliament House. Picture: Gary Ramage

One of the first signs of the unravelling came last year ahead of national conference, where a push from the Left to go softer on boat people had to be neutered by compromises from Bill Shorten.

At the national conference, Labor4Refugees wanted to end offshore detention and cease the practice of boat turn backs — key planks in the coalition’s policy which have been credited with stopping people trying to reach the country by boat.

And it was the senior Labor Left MP Andrew Giles — a man who could be in Shorten’s ministry should he win government — who moved to give 6000 failed asylum seekers another chance at gaining refugee status via a merits review process.

But in a bid to satisfy the Left, Shorten agreed instead to add his support for making medical transfers easier into Labor’s national platform, as well as increasing Australia’s funding to the UN for regional refugee programs and lifting our annual refugee intake.

It was this support for making medical transfers easier that ultimately exposed Labor on the national stage for wavering on the hard-line stance on borders Australians have come to expect.

Shorten has been extraordinarily sensitive on the topic of boats because he knows this ideological shift is a bad look.

While wanting to appease the Left and create drama for the government by attempting to govern from opposition on medical transferees, he positively hates any characterisation that he has been soft on borders.

Labor MPs have been frustrated to see the government get its mojo back in the battle over borders and Shorten’s softening on the issue has particularly puzzled Labor Right MPs.

But then, when Shorten tried to show some muscle on border protection and said he was “fine” with the boat people being treated for medical conditions on Christmas Island, it appeared those on the Left weren’t so sure.

Deputy Leader Tanya Plibersek said the government needed to “explain” why people could get appropriate treatment on Christmas Island when they couldn’t on Manus or Nauru.

These internal Labor fights over the old contested grounds of boats and coal should surprise no one.

But they should worry Shorten.

Because Labor has been riding high on playing the disciplined team to the Coalition’s rabble. And the stunning reminder that Labor is gripped by long-term ideological wars is not welcome.