By Jessica Wright
The Labor Party has exploded into open warfare at the highest levels following the defeat of the senior cabinet minister Penny Wong to the number one Senate ticket in favour of one of the lesser known faceless men who helped install Julia Gillard to the Prime Ministership in 2010.
Right-faction powerbroker Don Farrell defeated Senator Wong in a ballot today by 112 votes to 83 with the Finance Minister to be listed second on the South Australian Senate ballot paper at the next federal election.
Senior Labor frontbencher and left-faction figure Anthony Albanese let fly today at ‘‘union powerbrokers’’ saying Labor’s ongoing factional wars were evidence of a broken internal system.
Accusing his party of ignoring the electorate in favour of its own ructions, Mr Albanese said he will demand this week that the ALP national executive overturn the decision and promote Senator Wong to the number one spot.
He labelled the move as ‘‘gross self-indulgent rubbish’’ taken by ‘‘those who should care more about the party and less about themselves.’’
‘‘This defies common sense,’’ Mr Albanese said. ‘‘Modern Labor cannot take decisions as if our internal processes are the end game and ignore the electorate. Voters will be dismayed that a talented senior economic Minister in Penny Wong is not deemed fit to lead the Senate ticket.
‘‘This reinforces the need for some of the union powerbrokers to have a good look at themselves and the Party to get serious about reform.
‘‘If this is the outcome of the system, the system needs to change.’’
In yet another episode of Labor’s message being lost by its own hand, Ms Gillard addressed the party faithful in a keynote address for the branch’s annual state conference just hours before SA Labor’s dominant Right faction made good on a promise to install their man - parliamentary secretary and union heavyweight Senator Farrell - in the top spot ahead of the Finance Minister. Ms Wong is widely considered as one of the government’s stand-out performers.
McKew view
Mr Albanese’s attack on the unions and ‘‘grubby’’ backroom deals comes at a perilously tense time for the Gillard Government with former journalist and Labor MP Maxine McKew describing in a new book Ms Gillard’s ascension to power over former prime minister Kevin Rudd as ‘‘one of the most brutal coups in Australian political history.’’
Ms McKew in the book, Tales from the Political Trenches, to be published on Monday, Ms Gillard was a ’’disloyal deputy’’ who was directly undermining her leader in the days before she challenged him.
Ms Gillard has always maintained she was loyal to Mr Rudd until the day she challenged him. But Ms McKew says the then deputy prime minister showed internal Labor research critical of Mr Rudd to a senior member of the caucus in the days before the challenge.
The former ABC journalist and Rudd loyalist - who lost her seat of Bennelong in the 2010 election - is scathing of the ‘‘factional lesser mortals’’ who tried to control Mr Rudd and retaliated by overthrowing him when he wouldn’t cede to their demand.
‘‘Labor senators like Don Farrell and David Feeney barely registered with the average voter, yet here they were, seemingly at the centre of things," she says in the book.
"Farrell is from South Australia, where he is the flag carrier for the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association. He’s been in the Senate since mid-2008. Feeney, a right-wing powerbroker from Victoria with a background with the Transport Workers Union, took up his Senate seat at the same time.’’
Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan hit back at McKew’s claims today, saying she approached him about her political book - but only after she’d finished writing it.
‘‘I was somewhat bemused by that,’’ Mr Swan said.
‘‘She sent me some questions and I responded. After the book was finished.’’
Mr Swan said he hasn’t read the book, but after reading media reports he doesn’t believe it is balanced.
He brushed aside the suggestion he was disloyal to Mr Rudd, or the claim that Ms McKew had sat in on cabinet meetings.
‘‘I’ve already said I don’t believe it’s a balanced account. That’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned,’’ he said.