I read his op-ed in Friday’s AFR this morning.  I was sitting in the kitchen, the winter sunshine streaming in through the window, sipping my coffee, eating breakfast.  You know — just chilling, easy-like-a-Sunday-morning style.

But with just about every second paragraph I read, there were audible gasps and / or splutters.  Now, I am usually outraged and offended when I read the papers.  Often this is because most of the time, the papers publish sensationalist drivel (see, eg: @paulwallbank’s twitpic from yesterday).

This morning’s outrage wasn’t due to reading exaggerated crap, though.  It was because I knew that what Latham was saying is true.

I know it’s true because I have seen it and experienced it first hand during my 7-something-year involvement with the Australian Labor Party.

I know it is all true because I am an active participant in the Labor Reform Forum (ok, less active since the 2010 State Conference was called of / postponed because of the Election*), which is basically a bunch of ALP members in the WA Branch who are sick of the exact bullshit Latham outlined in his essay.

Even though I am too involved in stuff and promised myself I wouldn’t join any more committees and whatever, earlier this year I ran for and was elected to be the non-Parliamentary co-coordinator (how bureaucratic chic, no?), which gave me an even deeper insight into the bullshit.

And ew, does it stink.

People might brush off Latham these days as being the crazy, bitter, old leader dude who lost the plot after he lost the leadership.  But damn: he’s right on this.  He is totally, utterly, 100% right. 

On everything.  Everything:

… Robert Michaels wrote of how left-of-centre parties inevitable fall under the control of the apparatchiks, men more committed to the the acquisition of power and social status than the radical reform of economic and social relations. Careerism becomes an end in itself, superseding the policy goals and idealism by which the party was initially founded.

Check.

Labor has become so tightly focussed on opinion polls and communications strategies that serious policy reform is beyond its reach 

… 

Putting communications strategies ahead of sound public policy, for instance, drains Labor of its core beliefs and purpose.

Check, check  (although, Julia, as I have mentioned before: you guys seem totally oblivious to the fact that communication is a two-way thing. But whatever).

What began in the 1980s as a system designed to provide stability for the party’s leadership has evolved into a complex network of feuding power bases and personality clashes.  The three original factions — the national Right, Left and Centre-Left — have broken down into a series of sub-factions and fiefdoms.

…

After a while, the party itself becomes unrecognisable.  In effect, this is what the factions have achieved

Check, check, totally check.

A party which once aspired to the ideals of grass roots participation became an empty shell.  Instead of directing selecting their parliamentary candidates and guiding the development of Labor policy, local branch members were reduced to election campaign fodder.  Branches were the subject of mass stacking, while the party’s conferences became stage-managed charades.

OH. MY. EFFING. CHECK!!!

That last one is the guts of what the Labor Reform Forum is trying to fix. 

But then Party Office Cancelled Christmas State Conference* so we couldn’t even try to bring in the rule changes that’ll help fix the mess.  Then we had a pro-reform candidate run for the position of WA Branch President a couple of months ago, the first time the members had a chance to directly elect someone to the position, and the unions / factions put up their own little apparatchik candidate who, despite strict rules about using Party resources for campaigning somehow managed to send out automated texts to members telling them to vote. How very grassroots.

Turns out The Man and his mates are just too entrenched.

Wherein lies my dilemma: do I just give up, post one of the resignation letters I have prepared earlier and go join the Greens (Giovanni keeps telling me to) or do I keep fighting for change?

Because even through I have been a branch stack myself, and got Young Labor Exec / National Conference Delegate positions out of factional deals I didn’t even know about (I honestly thought they liked me for me. Oh, how naive could I have been?! OMG) I know their stinking game now.

And because I am the kind of person willing to roll up my sleeves and help clean up a smelly mess when I see it, I am trying to do that.  But it’s hard and it brings me down and I also have a bajillion other causes I care about that I could be helping with (yeah, know: I am totally Cameron from Modern Family.)

SO yeah: I don’t know what to do.

Anyway. I’m not sure I should be asking you for advice given the CV Latham set out for you. So I’m going to shut up now.

Cheers,
Sunili

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*The Cancelling of Christmas State Conference was supposed to be a sensible practical thing aimed at saving money and freeing everyone up to hit the campaign trail. As important as it is that Party members focus their attention on helping get Labor re-elected, I personally queried whether, in some small part (or for the most part?) this was a deliberate plan by Party Office, secretly hoping this would make us shut up. But I am paranoid like that sometimes.  Maybe I should go join Latham in the loony bin?