Quarterly Essay 49 Not Dead Yet: Labors Post-Left Future

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The essay suffers a little because most Quarterly Essay contributors are professional journalists or commentators with outstanding writing skills. Latham is every bit as good as one would expect from a one-time Prime Ministerial aspirant but a little behind the usual Quarterly Essay pack. One looks to find terse examiner's pencilling in margins questioning logic or presentation.

Strained quotes from Noel Coward, pamphleteer Emmanuel Sieyes and Hegel stall the commentary, and a reference to the Prisoner's Dilemma feels like a final grasp for a higher grading.

Not Dead Yet: Labor's Post-Left Future

Latham's listing of current Labor's failings is convincing: These analyses justify the essay totally, even if, alas, Latham's invitation for Christmas drinks will be lost in the mail another year. The coup de gras for the essay is its publication in the weeks that Labor reached rock-bottom, timing that may invite scrutiny of Latham's recommendations but also dispel them as pointless attempts at resuscitation. This exquisite timing was recently achieved, for different reasons, with the Quarterly Essays on Rudd and Abbott.

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Latham has not lost much of his arrogance. He begins this Quarterly Essay with a self-congratulatory introduction for already raising the organisational dysfunctionality of the ALP in The Latham Diaries and he ends it by patting himself on the back for having written a "quite productive" essay. Personality aside however, he may be right.

Latham takes great care to provide an essay with real suggestions for change, rather than the endless introspection and fighting found in the usual commentary an Latham has not lost much of his arrogance. Latham takes great care to provide an essay with real suggestions for change, rather than the endless introspection and fighting found in the usual commentary and books such as Lindsay Tanner's Sideshow. All interesting ideas and worthy of debate, so the essay is certainly worth reading.

Editorial Reviews

Whether any of it is practical or feasible given the current state of the ALP? That is another question. View all 8 comments. Oct 24, Matt John rated it it was amazing Shelves: Since deregulation, the federal government has little control over inflation and the cost of living. Yet in recent times, political parties have used cost if living as a key issue to win votes. With the weakening of the Labor party in recent years, Mark Latham argues that for Labor to be a strong political party again, it must reassess the dominance of unions and try to present a more realistic image of how the government of the day can influence economic factors, if at all.

Research show that o Since deregulation, the federal government has little control over inflation and the cost of living. Research show that on average, including low income earners, the actual amount of disposal income has risen over the years. So why is lowering the cost of living such an important issue?

Latham also uses this essay to discuss what he sees are the issues within the Labor party and unlike many current commentaries offers suggestions as to how these issues may be addressed to once again be a political party of change and for the people.

Mar 14, John Dunlop rated it really liked it. Having read The Latham Diaries several years back, this book felt like and old friend come to visit. In that book, Latham gave me the inside story on Kevin Rudd which found me ahead of the game in understanding the leadership spill and subsequent turmoil and speculation. In this Essay he shows a political maturity in suggesting an important role for Rudd as well as acknowledging the demoralizing experiences of the patronized ALP rank and file.

A lot of his opinion is informed by his previous wor Having read The Latham Diaries several years back, this book felt like and old friend come to visit. A lot of his opinion is informed by his previous work as opposition leader and isn't particularly contentious to middle of the road Labor supporters but will no doubt raise a skeptical eyebrow or too amongst the mainstream media opinionators.

Well worth the read and the purchase price Apr 02, Corey Zerna rated it liked it. It's a pity Latham couldn't hold himself together long enough to pull off an election victory in Mar 18, Jason Wilson rated it did not like it Shelves: My review cross-posted from On Line Opinion The last weeks will have shown any remaining optimists that the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party - the flagship of the labour movement - is all at sea.

It's suddenly obvious even to the dullest pundit that there's no iron historical law stating that the ALP has to be a viable party of government, nor even one that says it must continue to exist. The Coalition meanwhile are rampant, with half the electorate saying they'll give them their first preference.

Last week's ministerial resignations showed how riven Caucus has been by leadership issues, and the continued control of the factions and unions seems incompatible with a continued capacity to field a leader who might win. There has been much published Labor self-analysis since the electoral wipeout of the last Labor government in New South Wales, a reminder of whose improbity is available in daily updates from the current ICAC hearings. There will be bookshelves worth of introspection and well-meaning advice after the drubbing which is now certain to happen on 14th September.

If nothing else the new essay on Labor's troubles by Mark Latham is well timed. Those who read Latham's Diaries will remember their blending of acuity and delusion. In the introduction, Latham's account of the sicknesses of modern Labor and the political-media complex was detailed and spellbinding. But the diaries proper had enough bombast, rancour and self-deception to confirm that Australians had been fortunate and wise in when he lost the election.

The book showed Latham's combative intelligence, his personal immaturity and their shared source in his ressentiment. That quality was expressed in the boofheaded moments for which many will remember him longest - the crushing handshake with John Howard in the annex at Ultimo in ; 's mid-campaign monstering of Julia Gillard at the Ekka, talking over her and looking down on her at close quarters, hemmed in by the boom mikes of the travelling media. That he's able now and again to entertain us with iconoclastic columns and Hendo-baiting amplifies rather than dispels our sense that his interior world is structured by grudges and antagonisms.

Labor's Post-Left Future like the Diaries puts truth side-by-side with fantasy. His criticisms of Labor's broken factional system and of the far right's media tactics are mostly well-made.

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His proposals to fix it all are not only, as Matthew Cowgill points out, somewhat out of time. They are riven by a startling series of contradictions. They reveal a more-than-latent authoritarianism directed at the most disadvantaged members of the community. But they are unintentionally useful in gauging the depth of Labor's problems. His version of those problems will be recognisable in outline to those who are familiar with the genre of ALP self-flagellation - ranging from books by Rodney Cavalier to the party's own internal reviews and reports.

But as someone who raised these problems early and publicly, he has earned the right to revisit them. His portrayal is of nothing less than a death spiral. The leaders of an industrially unrepresentative union movement exercise outsized control on party forums and even parliaments by means of nested factions and subfactions, where "the innermost layer of Labor's Russian doll is a cadre of trade union officials — party bosses with the power to endorse and disendorse ALP members of parliament" Thus networks of patronage and reward have displaced even vestigial forms of internal democracy.

There aren't many incentives for joining or remaining in the ALP; there are even fewer for labour movement capos to fix things. Indeed, the withering of the grassroots only consolidates their power. The desertion of the membership means a reduced connection with the people, which means that policy cannot organically emerge from electoral concerns. Labor is no longer a community-based organisation, nor will it ever be again. The Party of the common man now finds it difficult to connect with voters.

The bizarre spectacle of Julia Gillard going on a listening tour of Rooty Hill is easier to understand if we accept that his account is mostly true. Latham is relaxed about this.

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He has no expectation that mass membership will return; economic and social life have changed too much. He thinks that Labor's ranks will now mostly be composed of those building a political career. But he thinks a top-heavy party can be counterbalanced and build community bonds with primary elections for candidates.

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He happily attributes this idea to others, but he has detailed and - who knows - probably workable plans for their conduct. Even desultory moves towards public participation in candidate selection should probably be welcomed by progressives, just as they ought to welcome any small expansion of democracy within Labor. And Latham's right that there's no indication that mass parties will ever return - in the terms of political theorist Bernard Manin, we have left the age of "party democracy" and entered the quasi-populist era of "audience democracy", where the political process is more than ever mediated, and parties have been displaced by consultants and charismatic leaders.

Families once resigned to a lifetime of blue - collar work now expect their children to be well - educated professionals and entrepreneurs. Latham explains how Labor has always succeeded as a grassroots party, and argues for reforms to clear out the apparatchiks and dead wood. Then there are the key policy challenges: Latham examines the rise of a destructive and reactionary far - right under the wing of Tony Abbott. He also makes the case that climate change is the ultimate challenge - and even opportunity - for a centre - left party.

Not Dead Yet is an essential contribution to political debate, which addresses the question: In no other part of society This is the core delusion of 21st - century democracy, that political parties can fragment and hollow out, yet still win the confidence of the people. Read more Read less. Here's how restrictions apply.

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