Change or die, John Faulkner tells ALP

LABOR senator John Faulkner warned last night that the party had "no future" unless it changed to embrace a "culture of inclusion".

IN the strongest speech of his career, Labor senator John Faulkner warned last night that the party had "no future" unless it changed to embrace a "culture of inclusion" and repudiate powerbrokers who put their own interests before Labor's survival.

In a cry of alarm, Senator Faulkner declared himself "very pessimistic" about Labor's ability to achieve "meaningful change" and save itself as a successful party.

Delivering the Neville Wran Lecture at NSW parliament, the former ALP Senate leader said Labor had already "lost a generation of activists" and unless it confronted internal reform, "we will risk losing a generation of voters as well".

His message was that Labor suffered from a deepening malaise that was a national problem. He attacked Labor's governing culture of control and staying "on message" as "no longer enough", and argued the public now valued authenticity over "the appearance of harmony".

Senator Faulkner's speech mirrored his fear that last year's national review reforms he devised with former premiers Bob Carr and Steve Bracks would be largely brushed aside.

Yet his critique runs wider and deeper. In a speech with a Whitlamist tenor, Senator Faulkner argued that internal democracy was stifled, the party was exploited as a vehicle by careerists, that power must be returned to the membership and that core structural and cultural reforms were essential.

"Our task is to argue for our ideas and values and not for our personal interests," Senator Faulkner said. "The party belongs to those who belong to it and support it and not merely to those who represent it and are employed by it.

"The Australian Labor Party was formed because working men and women in Australia needed a voice in parliament.

"The need for such a party still exists, and it will still exist even if Labor should fail the test of reform."

Senator Faulkner, who entered the Senate in 1989, attacked Labor's powerbroker culture. He accused "too many of too few powerbrokers" of perpetuating a system where their personal success was too removed from Labor's fate.

Resistance to reform had left him pessimistic about "achieving meaningful change in our party's structure and organisation".

He said members must have a real say in candidate selection and policy, and identified five principles to govern reform: commitment to values; support for a growing party; returning power to the members; engaging supporters in the community; and a culture of inclusion, not exclusion.

He warned against the cult of leader change, as exemplified in NSW. The party had to grasp that "there is more amiss here than any one individual can be asked to shoulder the blame for".

Senator Faulkner said there was something "deeply wrong when we use polling to determine our party's policies and even our values". Loyalty meant staying true to Labor principles, "not to . . . media management . . . (or) spin".

Members now felt their only role was as "rubber-stamps for decisions already made behind closed doors and as polling-booth fodder on election day". He warned structural reform would have no impact without "cultural and attitudinal reform".

The loudest applause for Senator Faulkner from the 200-strong audience came when he called for a renewal of democracy in internal party forums, with more open debate and less emphasis on focus groups.

Former NSW education minister Rodney Cavalier, a leading member of Senator Faulkner's Left faction, said after the speech: "What John said was unassailably correct. There's probably fewer than 30 people in the whole of NSW who would disagree with him, but every one of those 30 people has a vested, material interest in seeing (reform) defeated.

"If John Faulkner's thoughts come to pass, it is the end of the political careers of most of our senators and a good number of lower house members and machine operatives. They cannot survive with the oxygen of democracy."

However, Mr Cavalier said Senator Faulkner's reforms had "zero chance" of being adopted. "I know he realises that, because I've known him for a very long time," he said. "He is a supreme politician and realist."

Mr Cavalier said the party was "totally divorced from either side of the great Labor equation of a left-wing intelligentsia and people who work for a living". "We serve neither constituency," he said.

Labor stalwart Margaret Whitlam, who was also in the audience, said of Senator Faulkner's speech: "He's a splendid chap, he gave a splendid speech, and we'll all think on it."

Additional reporting: Imre Salusinszky