Reality denial is ALP's fatal flaw

THE ALP national conference has been a project in surrealism and reality denial. Over three days there was hardly a mention that Labor faces a crisis in ideas, structure and public support.

The score-card is bleak: a huge gamble that Labor can win as the party of same-sex marriage, craven timidity on changing the party's internal culture, and factional victories on the obvious - selling uranium to India and allowing offshore processing.

Julia Gillard looked a weak and unconvincing leader. As far as this writer can recollect, no national conference for many decades has adopted a vital policy knowing it was opposed by the Labor leader. Yet this was the Prime Minister's fate on same-sex marriage.

Apart from former Senate leader John Faulkner's warning - that "our party is in decline", that it was "small and getting smaller" and faced unprecedented "electoral threats" - the entire event was an example of reality denial.

It was an indulgent conference contemptuous of Labor's crisis. Most debates were a rehash of ancient rituals. Labor's passions were ignited by same-sex marriage and uranium exports, issues far divorced from Middle Australia's concerns. Nobody listening could feel any confidence Labor can reverse its declining fortunes.

The party seems euphorically unconcerned that it has instigated a political war over marriage with the forces of organised faith, Christianity and Islam, along with believers in Western traditionalism, a battle that will entrench the alienation of Labor from conservative Australians. How smart is this with a primary vote of 30 per cent?

The factional system delivered for Gillard's honour. She won a face-saving conscience vote on same-sex marriage. She prevailed in a "back to the future" uranium brawl that revealed nearly half the party still rejects nuclear power. And Labor has bowed before the need to allow offshore processing of asylum-seekers.

The historic change that defines this conference was Labor's embrace of same-sex marriage. It has abandoned marriage as a union between a man and a woman for the untapped concept of marriage equality.

Speaker after speaker for change attacked the Marriage Act as the embodiment of discrimination and prejudice. The Labor sentiment for change was irresistible, emotional and polemic.

The gamble is that the decision will revitalise Labor on the Left, where it has lost a generation of activists and a swag of votes to the Greens. Labor must win on this front because deciding the Marriage Act represents prejudice invites an anti-Labor campaign among working-class traditionalists and across conservative Australia.

Labor wants to reclaim the same-sex cause from the Greens. Yet its position is now a complete contradiction: Labor believes in same-sex marriage but insists on a free vote on conscience grounds. This is a nonsense, but a necessary nonsense to accommodate the fundamental split in the caucus on the issue.

The same-sex marriage debate, far from ending, is about to intensify. The conscience vote means the measure is unlikely to become law this parliament. Meanwhile, Gillard is in a minority in her party with little apparent influence.

The debate on party reform was a shambles. The Bracks-Carr-Faulkner report was delivered 10 months ago. The three elders performed before the conference, warning that Labor's situation was dire, and then watched their work being devalued.

Nothing better reveals Labor's inability to confront its crisis. Proposals to have a segment of national conference elected by the rank and file are being reviewed. This is about power: to empower the rank and file is to disempower the factions. That is the obstacle. It is a gift for Kevin Rudd's campaign to transform Labor's internal culture. Once again, Gillard is found wanting.

Party authorisation of uranium exports to India is important.

Gillard showed courage in putting this on the conference agenda. But the debate was a revelation, being a trip down the time tunnel with a range of delegates, including cabinet ministers, railing against the nuclear industry and confirming that Labor's emotional divide over uranium and nuclear power remains alive.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen and Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor won the trade-off they needed for the boat arrivals policy - support for a regional solution involving offshore processing, while lifting to 20,000 the aspirational target for the refugee and humanitarian intake. Above all, they carried the idea that effective border protection and a humanitarian approach are united.

The great fraud in this debate is that encouraging boats is humane and that people-smugglers are heroes.

Labor, in effect, has repudiated this delusion. This is an important success for Gillard.