Labor Won't Find Future In Recent Past

Editorial - Canberra Times

It was the usual collection, Winston Churchill might have commented, about the Labor Party who had finally come out into the open against their leader, Simon Crean. There were those who had been tried and found wanting, and those who were wanting to be tried. There were those who were manifestly wanting, and those who were manifestly trying.

A pretty pass the party is in, and the only thing which seems inevitable is that it will get worse before it gets better, and that the wounds will be open for a long time. Even the most optimistic of those plotting, purportedly on Kim Beazley's behalf, admit that he has not got the numbers against Mr Crean.

Assuming that this ends up being demonstrated, the prospect of a defeat in the Caucus rooms does not seem to trouble them greatly, because plotting will begin immediately for a further challenge, probably in August. Perhaps by then, no doubt primarily because of their campaign of undermining, the public position of Mr Crean will be further eroded, and the patience of some of Mr Crean's supporters so tested that some will switch sides, if only to see the agony come to an end.

All the meantime, of course, the leader of the Labor Party is scarcely able to appear in public to make a political point without members of the Government pointing to the fact that a significant section of the party was in mutiny against him. The mutiny, so far as any of its ringleaders has described its causes, is not about any conflict of policy. The person who hopes to be the main beneficiary, Kim Beazley, refuses even to discuss his case, even as his lieutenants are publicly criticising Simon Crean, essentially for failing to have support in the opinion polls. It would be odd if Mr Beazley had anything much of an alternative in the way of policy - perhaps even of policy at all - given that he had six years as leader of the party and seemed unable to produce or articulate any then. Mr Beazley's side is claiming that it would be sporting for Mr Crean to declare the leadership vacant, so that Mr Beazley, who stepped aside voluntarily after his 2001 drubbing at the hands of the electorate and would not take a front-bench position, could stand with a clear conscience.

Mr Crean has no anxiety to oblige him, given that Mr Beazley, it appears, does not have the numbers for a spill motion. The concern of some party officials, including the president Greg Sword, that the standing of the party might further fall while a stand-off continues, has to be balanced against the fact that appearing weak and irresolute will damage Mr Crean's position even further. At the moment, the challenge to demonstrate the ticker is for Mr Beazley. Of course, if Mr Crean did announce a spill, it might well bring other challengers into the action. From the point of view of Mr Crean, if Mr Beazley is forced to move a spill motion, and then wins it (signalling the end of Mr Crean before a leadership vote is taken) it is open to Mr Crean, and his supporters, to throw their weight behind another candidate.

There are some despondent Caucus members who agree that Mr Crean is unlikely to win the next election and that something must be done. Not all agree that a reversion to the past, policy vacillation, and a reversion of control of the party by the old Burke faction of Western Australia, the AWU Queensland faction and the ruling wave of the NSW Right is the way to go. And those who are as much concerned by the plummeting reputation of the party among its own branch membership as they are by its reputation among the electorate probably recognise that if Mr Beazley - the architect of the party's moral surrender on refugee policy - is returned, a significant section of the party's own will vote, as they did in 2001, for the Greens. Labor, probably, does need a change in leadership if it is to have an electoral future. It seems highly unlikely, however, that it is going to find that future in its recent past.