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The Forum > General Discussion > Where does Labor go from here?

Where does Labor go from here?

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Where does Labor go from here?
Hopefully somewhere where someone can offer them some sense.
Posted by individual, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 6:48:24 AM
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REFORM NOW ALP.
Belly,
If you mean start being Labor & acquire some sense & decency then yes, go for it but it'll be hard to turn around 4 decades of corruption & mismanagement & the near destruction of this great Nation.
Posted by individual, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 6:54:49 AM
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Arbib, the Judas character, has gone. A great gain for democratic processes, a blot on the ALP vanquished, and we all know he will be reinvented with some cushy mates job in no time at all, running an industry superfund or similar.

As for Gillard, it might help if she tried to sound credible for a change, drop her infant school maam approach to us, her constant head nodding to emphasise how bad we've all been, and to tries to cultivate an ideology that fits into these much touted 'Labor values' (frankly, just as abhorent as Howard's Australian Values)that we hear so much about but can barely see the difference between theirs and the Coalition.

Are they 'neo-Labor values' maybe?

To be honest, Crean sounds more leaderish than Gillard ever does.
Posted by The Blue Cross, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 7:59:45 AM
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Belly, We talked about this 12 months ago at the state level. Don't you realise Labor is dead, its just no one has bothered to bury the corpse. That is why its so on the nose. The best thing that can happen is an ALP split, a bit of deja vu so to speak. The ALP right can toddle off and form themselves into the Crazy Catholic Party or some such beast or maybe join up with Pauline Hanson, I don't care what they do. The left can find solitude with us Greens. Like the Israelites they may have to spend 40 years in the political wilderness, but it will be worth it in the end.
So stop the talk about the party reforming itself, turning over a new leaf, getting in new blood etc, it wont happen. If you are a 'true believer' and I feel you are, quit the ALP and join The Greens. p/s Green membership is on the rise whilst ALP membership is down, down, down, does not that alone tell you something?
Posted by Paul1405, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 8:22:00 AM
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Creen?

Hahhaha.

He's the invisible man. He has a face but he lives in the basement. Even when he was leader I don't even remember ever seeing him in public. He strikes me as a Pyne that's been neutered. Extra snivelling little man with a quieter bark.

Gillard made a mistake when she became leader. That 'Real Julia' thing was the biggest mistake I have ever seen in politics. It has forever damaged her. If she took the job and vanquished Rudd to the back bench, and continued on talking straight and to the point like she had when he was galavanting around the world talking gibberish as usual, she'd be much more popular.

This school mistress slow talking cliche machine I don't think is even her, and she admitted as much with the real Julia guff, but she's still been pretending ever since. She has an identity crisis.

Shorten is wordy but he actually explains policy really well, and concedes and disarms the cynical observer's retort in every explanation which saves time with a wounded puppy look that looks really really honest. It's like when a dog wants a biscuit.

They're gone though really because that NSW disease was identified as soon as Rudd was knifed and even though they didn't have another leader change this is just enough of a reminder of how the party operates that should last till the election. All the slanging off of a leader they picked in the first place, not so long after Latham and NSW Labor and people really have a good picture of what a zany bunch of kids the ALP are. Hanging around Bob too much isn't helping either.

What they need is to keep Julia and lose and then install Shorten. They're going to lose anyway, but if they have Shorten as a new start rather than an example of the 3 leaders in a term NSW Labor they have a better chance of being in a position to take over when Jolly Joker Joe and Crazy Tony stuff things up.
Posted by Houellebecq, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 8:38:50 AM
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The most significant takeaway for me from this rather sad episode in Australian political history, is that Labor doesn't actually stand for anything any more. It is just another bunch of chancers and hangers-on, who lack a coherent reason for actually being a bunch in the first place.

This spill was all about image, not policy. About presentation rather than substance. And personality, instead of values. As such, it laid bare the fact that our political leaders are collectively without a substantial reason for being there in the first place.

They just... are.

I suspect it may be that we have run out of reasons to have political parties at all, any longer. I suggest this, because there is a similar vacuum on the Liberal side, who are currently only unified over one thing - pouring scorn on the government at every opportunity. While they've had a few of those, to be sure, they have had a holiday from actually having to articulate what they stand for, that is different.

In this post-democratic phase that we are going through, where your vote and my vote count for absolutely nothing in terms of actually supporting policies that are both clear, and acted upon, it might be best if we start to spawn a whole host of smaller groups - let's call them political parties, out of nostalgia - and agree that what they promise us, they will do.

Suggestion for Mr Rudd: form another party, starting with the 31 mates who voted for you. The best outcome would be not to win outright, that would be overkill, but to elect a handful of souls who sit on the cross-benches. Then sell yourselves (not literally) to the highest bidder.

Because that's where the true political power is today, is it not.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 9:34:02 AM
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