I have without fear put my views on the ALP debacle over its recent history and leadership.
And while Conservatives Liberals Nats seem unaffected by them, my side is not.
I in another thread spoke about age, how my 66 years vs some yet still in their 30s showed and taught me lessons others have not seen.
1945 till now,well say 1953, I watched Labor fail, Dons party existed for us, the disappointment at least.
Every party MUST have factions.
If we had just a Socialist Labor,confronting a center unity Labor a green Labor, no victory would, EVER be possible.
Just as the Nats, a servant party to Liberals,[currently under orders from Abbott's Conservatives] have factions.
I am often told my party is no longer the one it was, it is not, and that pleases me.
60,s 50s we sat proudly in opposition.
Telling our selves we had the best policy's.
Comrades we are the best opposition this country ever had.
Whitlam, POMPOUS but brilliant too, bought us in to understanding,voters never wanted other than middle of the road government.
So factions exist, still today ruled by if not faceless men deaf ones.
Factions exist to ward off stupid minority's wanting a return to policy's that push voters away, mindless dreams that are in reality nightmares.
But the power generated by them?
Should it be used at the whim of power brokers.
If my task was to print a HTV for any future election I would BEG those leaving my party to never give greens a vote.
And if my branch has power brokers putting a mate in my seat, informal is my vote intention.
Only the best should serve.

Dear Belly,

Excellent attitude on your part - one to be admired.

I think we all realise the power of factions
in each party. However we can only hope that
Labor will put in the necessary reforms and give
back more control to its elected party members.
That it will come out of this latest hiccup -
a stronger, united party - ready to achieve
positive outcomes for all Australians.
It has to - because the alternative to Labor
is too dreadful to contemplate.

Some, far more educated than me, may put this in a better way.
But western Governments, warts faults and all, deliver better results not just because we are richer.
Factions, in every party,develop a way we can progress.
No group of humans, let us use the numbers in the ALP Caucus, was the vote in total 103?
It does not matter, show me such a group of humanity that has not got nearly as many views.
Factions become groups, that achieve, outcomes that most want, including those they serve.
Factions are not bad,SOME power is miss used by faction heads/power brokers , that is wrong.
Conservatives are as factionalized as any party.
Dictatorships, country's ruled by religion or race, would be far better, if factions had a voice.
Simplistic claims I by my stand demanding change in my party, constant improvement.
And want leadership in the party's interests not factions, is uninformed.
Left of center , far left, dislike me, for defending Labors drift to wards the center, and gloating at Liberals racing away from Liberalism.
But too take on board,Australia has always been much more conservative than some think.
A well know, but ignored fact, a chanted slogan of the 60s and 70s I voted Labor, challenged by other workers who knew Liberals had workers votes highlights it.
A minority is a minority, Socialism is forever a minority.
Building a brick house if all you have is one single wheel barrow of bricks is impossible.
Continued.

I hope the thinkers among us will understand factions are not bad.
And that like the air we breath not a one party thing.
In fact they hold our party's together.
The very left always fails in votes, most would be pleased, some of the air headed things they try on would kill forever my party.
Yet from the left some of my party's true greats came, come,and always will, Gillard while not in that number came from the left.
Albanese, the bloke could be PM!
Senator Faulkner! he should have been, no better ever served my party.
Lets not get upset with anti Labor barbs, understanding is absent from SOME.
Factions are miss used but try holding a party,any party, together without one.
I started this after a poster I think much of said I was drifting to the right.
My faction, center unity, has the task of holding my party mid stream.
That place alone is the place voters will except.
The old chant we are the best opposition this country ever had remains insane.
Who post 1972 won office for Labor, while not being seen as a star by the electorate?
Soon we test how good an opposition we can be.

Oh Lexi, how quaint you are, "we can only hope that Labor will put in the necessary reforms and give back more control to its elected party members".

The problem Lexi, is that the ALP is bereft of membersship, or more specifically, members that are not parliamentarians and their families and staff, union officials and their families, and eager young things who are beavering their way through low grade degrees in politics and communications with an eye to joining whichever political party it looks as if they might gain a toehold, into parliament.

There are no 'branch members' any more. Well, there are a few here and there, sometimes with just enought to get a quorum, but these are all old people, left over from the Days of Rage and tired of seeing the ALP spiral downwards into the political cesspit it now finds itself in, through its own hard work of course.

There are 'reform' plans going back years, sitting gathering dust, unopened, unread for years, since they were published in fact, any one of which might have helped to revive the dinosaur but for the fact that the purpose was only to have been produced, so after another crushing defeat, it looked as if the ALP topbrass monkeys were 'listening to the branches'.

How ever-so-innocently amusing. The branches are redundant and have been for many many years.

In fact, Belly might well be the last real branch member in NSW.

Dear TBC,

If what you're saying is true then where did the
elected Labor MPs come from and why are they head
and shoulders above their colleagues in the Opposition
including their hard-nosed leader? The achievements of
the Labor government compared with the lack of ideas
and negativity coming from the Coalition is something
that voters will inevitably notice - especially with
positive outcomes that will be forth coming before
the next election. Your doom and gloom scenario is
simply the mantra that is being foisted onto the general
public by the partisan media - and the Coalition.
It's not something that everyone buys. The next election
is a while away yet - lets wait and see what happens next.