Labor boss takes aim at Greens

Sam Dastyari

THE first that Julia Gillard and the factional leaders of the Labor Left in NSW will know about the Right's bid to confront the Greens head-on and start a debate about preferencing them last on Labor how-to-vote cards is when they sit down to read about it in the pages of this newspaper.

It's a bold move by the general secretary of the Labor Party in NSW, Sam Dastyari, and has profound implications for Labor's electoral fortunes.

"Where it is in the Labor Party's interest to do so we should consider placing (the Greens) last, just like we did with One Nation," Dastyari says.

Ahead of next weekend's state Labor conference in NSW, only the second meeting since the devastating state election defeat last year, Dastyari sat down with Inquirer to discuss the various issues he wants to see on the conference agenda.

They include details about the trial of primaries in five winnable seats at the next state election and debate about moving to a popular membership vote for the parliamentary leader.

These are significant reform ideas, especially for a state organisation whose electoral success for most of the past two decades stopped it from seriously looking at internal party reform.

But at the top of Dastyari's hit list for the state conference is smashing the Greens. "The Labor Party, particularly in NSW, has been giving the Greens a free pass for far too long," he says. "We can't treat them like they are part of our family. They have come to take us for granted."

He wants Labor to consider stopping preferencing the Greens and will put forward a motion at the conference stating that "NSW Labor should no longer provide the Greens party automatic preferential treatment in any future preference negotiations".

Dastyari isn't only talking about state election preferencing. He would like to see Labor re-think its preference strategy for the Greens federally, too, and it's hard to escape the conclusion that Dastyari is hoping other state divisions will follow his lead.

Putting the Greens last on Labor's how-to-vote cards would have a series of possible implications for Labor, the Coalition and of course the Greens.

First and foremost it would send a strong message to traditional conservative Labor voters. Fears exist within the Labor Party that its credibility as an economic manager is hampered by its relationship with the Greens. By putting the Greens last on how-to-vote cards Labor would send an unequivocal message that it doesn't regard the Greens as a credible alternative to voting for a major party.

"The Greens have come to take the Labor Party for granted and have assumed we have nowhere to go," Dastyari laments. "Consequently they keep taking and have no sense of compromise and no desire to compromise. The truth is that they have put us in a position where sometimes anywhere else would be better with our preferences and that includes even the Coalition."

The motion Dastyari is putting forward at Labor's conference is anything but tame in its criticism of the Greens, referring to them as "extreme", "at odds with the values and needs of many Labor voters", and by virtue of their failure to preference Labor in the state upper house at the previous election, responsible for "handing control of that chamber to the Coalition".

The riskiest element of Dastyari's proposed assault on the Greens is preference retaliation by the minor party. It is likely the Greens would stop directing preferences Labor's way were Labor to put them last, and revert to the preferencing model the Australian Democrats often used: double-sided how-to-vote cards.

But Dastyari isn't overly concerned about this possibility, arguing Greens rarely staff booths in key marginal seats anyway, and most Green voters are likely to go on preferencing Labor, rather than send support the Coalition's way, because it is a Centre-Left major party.

Without Labor preferences the Greens would struggle to win Senate spots in most states. Initially this might benefit the Coalition, but if the surge in support for the Greens in recent years was halted by such a move, in the long term it may reduce their impact on parliamentary politics.

Most Labor strategists see this as an important way to address the quagmire that sees Labor under attack on two fronts: on its Left flank by the Greens and on its Right flank by the Coalition.

It is no coincidence that Dastyari is starting to push for a severing of ties with the Greens in the wake of Bob Brown's retirement from politics. "The last Green with one foot in the real world was Bob Brown -- and if I had to share a caucus room with the likes of Lee Rhiannon I would have walked out too," Dastyari says.

He believes Brown's departure is only going to see a more radical Greens party emerge in the coming years, and when that happens he doesn't want the Labor Party to be too closely associated with it.

If Dastyari is successful in convincing his Labor colleagues to cut Labor off from the Greens,

it will put pressure on Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party to do likewise.

In Victoria, Liberal leader Ted Baillieu made a bold move ahead of the November 2010 state election by preferencing the Greens last, and the party benefited from the strong show of leadership. So far there has been no suggestion the federal Liberals intend to do the same, but it would be difficult for Abbott to maintain his strong anti-Green rhetoric without backing it up with action on the preferencing front.

It may be that Dastyari's move is secretly motivated by the aim of forcing Abbott's hand on preferencing decisions with the Greens. If the Liberals commit to put the Greens last, that could help Labor retain Senate spots and it would almost certainly deliver Labor the inner-city seat of Melbourne, which Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt holds.

But those are short-term considerations, whereas the 28-year-old state secretary is focused on the long term.

Starting a debate about the future relationship between the Labor Party and the Greens is all about long-term planning. It's hard to see the Prime Minister greeting Dastyari's move with applause in the short term given she relies on an alliance with the Greens to retain government.

Dastyari is part of a new set of mates within the NSW Labor movement that is starting to eye off long-term planning as the key to the party's return to electoral competitiveness. He is a close factional ally and friend of Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes, and the pair are convinced Labor's salvation will happen only if the party distances itself from the Greens.

The expectation is that in the days leading up to state conference Howes will strongly back Dastyari's call for a rethink of Labor's relationship with the Greens, and others are expected to do the same.

"I'm more concerned about growing Labor's primary vote than worrying about our Green secondary vote. The voters who have abandoned us haven't done so because we are not close enough to the Greens," Dastyari says.

The factional leader of the Left in NSW, assistant secretary John Graham, isn't expecting debate about preference strategies with the Greens to be on the agenda next weekend. He tells Inquirer: "I don't think it will be a subject for discussion at this conference."

It says a lot about the dysfunctional administrative systems within the Labor Party when the NSW general secretary won't tell his assistant secretary what his plans are for their state conference because the pair regard themselves as representing different interests within the Labor Party. Under factional deal-making, the Right holds the general secretary's position and one of the two assistant secretary spots. The other goes to the factional head of the Left. Communication between the two halves of Labor's factional divide is anything but open.

That's what a rigid factional system can do to a party: create fiefdoms of self-interest.

But there is little doubt Dastyari's key objective in starting a debate about how Labor should handle a surging Greens party is motivated by the self-interest of the Labor brand, not just his own factional enclave.

The decision by the factional leader of the NSW Right to focus the conference's attention on cutting back preference deals with the Greens, and perhaps putting them last, has the potential to split opinion in the party, certainly on the Left.

"Some in Labor see the Greens as a partner, a fellow party of the Centre Left that should be supported. I reject that," Dastyari argues. "The extreme elements of their social and economic agenda are completely at odds with a lot of Labor values."

Which is why Dastyari wants to have this fight dominate debate next weekend when he fronts the NSW Labor conference.