Everything on the line at ALP national conference

Labor hardheads are determined that Bill Shorten succeeds in showing he can lead a government, but it could all go wrong tomorrow.

Bill Shorten is keen to project himself as PM-in-waiting at the ALP national conference. Picture: AAP

For Bill Shorten, there is a lot ­riding on the Labor Party’s 48th ­national conference. Any number of thorny issues, from economic policy and workplace relations to asylum-seekers and foreign policy, could see his position challenged or overturned. A rebuff would not only be embarrassing, it could threaten the party’s election chances.

When the 400 delegates take their seats at the Adelaide Convention Centre tomorrow, new party president Wayne Swan will be presiding. The Right faction, to which Shorten belongs, has a ­ slim majority, with at least 201 delegates. That should help Shorten carry the day on a range of difficult ­issues.

But there are potential flashpoints. The Left faction — smaller since the last conference in 2015 — wants to ensure its priorities are endorsed by the conference, perhaps months out from returning to government. A number of breakaway groupings, loosely associated with the Right or Left, and several independents could prove decisive in tight votes. Labor’s national conference is its supreme policymaking body and is supposed to bind MPs. That is why this triennial conference is more powerful than any other party gathering in the country. But Shorten, now in his sixth year as leader, is in a stronger position than he was three years ago and party conferences are where his talent for factional management is at its zenith.

“Shorten goes into this conference with increased authority,” a senior Labor figure tells Inquirer. “Everybody knows we are possibly on the verge of government — the polls show that. He’s on track to be prime minister. That reinforces the need for unity.

“We need to show that we are responsible and ready to govern — most delegates get that.”

The last time the party’s ­national conference was held in Adelaide was in 1979. The polls showed that Bill Hayden, Labor’s leader, was preferred prime minister over Malcolm Fraser. Labor too was ahead of the Coalition and looked set to reclaim government in 1980.

Hayden promised a “commonsense” approach to government where “economic respon­sibility” would be central. It was not a time for the unaffordable “visionary reform programs” of the Whitlam years.

“We cannot achieve social reform unless we competently manage the economy,” Hayden said. How times change.

The 1979 conference generally went well. But leadership tensions between Hayden and ACTU president Bob Hawke soon exploded. Hawke’s proposal to hold a referendum on regulating prices and incomes was not supported by the conference, and he felt betrayed by Hayden.

“You’re all bloody gutless,” he fumed to delegates in the ­Rotunda Bar at the Gateway Inn. “As far as I am concerned Bill Hayden is dead. Hayden is a lying c..t with a limited future.”

Not for the first time, Hawke’s future in politics was written off. Hayden, who did much to restore Labor’s credibility, eventually made way for Hawke in 1983.

Labor doesn’t do conferences as it once did. The 1975 conference was held at a hotel resort in Terrigal, on the NSW central coast. Delegates wore Hawaiian shirts, lightly coloured trousers and sandals. Hawke, like other delegates, was seen stripped down to his togs, sitting poolside and enjoying a beer.

In 1963, Arthur Calwell and Gough Whitlam were humiliated when forced to stand beneath a lamppost outside the Hotel Kingston in Canberra while the party’s conference decided policy on a US naval communications station in Western Australia.

There were many clashes on issues such as uranium mining, foreign banks and privatisation at conferences in Hobart during the 1980s and 90s. Simon Crean took on the unions in 2002, reducing their delegations at state conferences to 50 per cent, which contributed to his demise 18 months later. Many would like to forget Mark Latham’s entrance, descending through the crowd at Sydney’s Convention Centre to the tune of INXS’s New Sensation in 2004. That worked out well.

Three years later, Kevin Rudd told delegates: “I’m Kevin, and I’m here to help.” In 2011, Rudd was snubbed by Julia Gillard as she waxed lyrical about past leaders during her disastrous “we are us” speech.

Shorten credits himself with understanding the party better than Rudd or Gillard, and the team around him is determined not to make the same mistakes. Labor is craftier than it was in the 60s and 70s. The Right faction is stronger than it was in the 80s or 90s, and it hasn’t lost its guiding faith in pragmatism.

Yet Labor’s membership and its MPs have skewed leftward. Even unions aligned with the Right faction now spruik policies that would have once been in the strict purview of the Left. In a video to delegates, Swan said the party will go to the next election with “one of the most comprehensive and redistributive Labor platforms” in a long time.

Shorten has deftly managed the party with the support of the Right faction led by NSW Labor secretary Kaila Murnain and the breakaway industrial Left faction, which includes the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union led by Tony Maher and Michael O’Connor. But a range of issues will require careful management.

The biggest changes to policy are likely to be in workplace relations. Unions are pushing for a ­return to pattern bargaining, insisting that workers’ rights are protected in international trade deals and mandating the appointment of workers’ representatives on major company boards.

Foreign policy is another difficult area, with multiple internal campaigns urging Labor to commit to lift foreign aid, sign the ­nuclear weapons ban treaty, give parliament the power to declare war, and support recognition of ­Palestine. Other issues are still being ­negotiated, such as increasing Newstart, backing the Uluru Statement from the Heart before a referendum on a republic, and committing to rewrite national environmental laws with a new environment protection authority and national environment commission.

The Left is advocating reforms to make the party more democratic by giving members greater say in preselections, the election of officials and on policy issues. These proposals are unlikely to secure the statutory requirement of support from 199 delegates to change the rules. The Right, however, is confident of banning shadow ministers from nominating for, or holding, the position of president or vice-president.

“We know this is a test for the party,” a senior Labor figure said. “We must be focused and united, we can’t have silly outbursts or crazy ideas get up that could put winning government in jeopardy. We cannot afford to undermine the leadership, and the majority faction knows this. We don’t want to blow it.”

The next few days are full of tests for Shorten. It is also an opportunity for him to demonstrate he can lead a united party, and to outline a compelling vision for a government with credible policies. Labor’s hardheads are determined to ensure he succeeds. But anything can happen at a Labor Party national conference.