I read it a while back and have been meaning to mention it. And then another reader sent it through recently and reminded me. Yeah, really interesting, isn't it?
Well written, Tim. Andrew Leigh is a decent bloke up against a self serving system. More power to him.
This election is going to be interesting . Especially as Albanese has squandered so much political capital and is yet again dragging the chain. This time on calling the election. Looks like he wants to prolong the phony war of precampaigning. The nong.
On the upside, I think the longer you leave the election, the better it is for the crossbench The sort of community engagement and doorknocking most of them rely on takes time and at least Albo's dithering has given them time. I also think the long lead time has damaged Dutton. the longer it goes, the worse he looks and he is primed to burn out during a campaign, if Labor can land a few blows (far from a given!).
Andrew Leigh - one of the few parliamentary ALP figures I truly admire - and I've been wondering why he has not spoken up - this goes some way to answering my concerns about him. We spoke by phone some years back and I attended one of his lectures at the ANU where he interviewed a Brisbane area ALP MP Terri Butler (the launch of her political memoir - though soon to be defeated in the 2022 May elections) after which I introduced myself for a brief face-to-face with Andrew. I still send him articles of political commentary from time-to-time - but no responses. I think a distant kinship connection then (at least) worked in his office! I wish him well.
Neat article TD - very much enjoying your expose on the 'duopoly'. Your referal of Dr Andrew Leigh is fortuitous as I have often pondered 'Dr Andrew Leigh' what makes him tick or more specifically why did he chose politics as a career and why choose the Labor duopoly half. He seems to be the odd one out because he is not aligned, now, with either L/R Labor faction - in saying that I have not read his article in detail. He says he joined the Labor party in 1991 because as he says ' ...... if you wanted to be part of the great movement for progressive change in Australia, you needed to join a party that could form government.’. I guess a lot changes in 34 years & it would seem the Labor& Liberal parties & Australian politics compared to today's manifestation is chalk & cheese. Both have transmogrified into something grotesque. Why does Andrew Leigh remain a member? Is he riven by massive cognitive dissonance? Has he invested too much to quit the party? Is he dreaming that politics of old when Albanese can once again 'fight tories' will return? ( which is just as farcical that America will return to the USA of the Biden presidency pre-Trump days & that Trump was a mere perturbation & the Dem/Rep duopoly of the 'Deep State' will resume). I hope Albanese holds off until the absolute last so that with more MSM journalists 'openly recognising' a system besides the 2party system is possible & that more of the general public get to hear about it & not fear it. Cheers
Am reading Dr Andrew Leighs Fabian address & am struck by what he pens:
'As I have noted, the collapse of the Centre Left faction and the decline of non-factional parliamentarians has created a situation in which Labor’s factions are now a duopoly. And just as duopolies in the product market hurt consumers through price gouging and profiteering, so too duopoly factions may engage in behaviour that is not in the long-term interests of the party and its membership.'
Can't his thinking be extended to the Lib/Lab duopoly? Surely he must be conflicted? Why can't people just speak out & speak honestly like Malcolm Turnbull is oft to do now?
Dutton really seems to be lurching from one crazy idea to the next, as if he is picking them up from some not-too-bright small business owners down at the club. Tax-deductible business lunches, banning WFH, breaking up evil insurance companies, Trumpist migration policies and there are probably more.
If he had said nothing at all, and counted on Labor losing he would probably still be ahead.
He has the Trump incoherence without the crazy appeal.
I think it also just speaks to the extent to which the party has been hollowed out and is really just a shell. It has enough institutional ballast to survive, Albanese has made their job easier, but there isn't really much there there.
Tim. The form persistent minority government may take is left suspended and I suspect may be the topic of future pieces from you.
My nagging concern is that for a time at least, we end up with a couple of ‘Kingmakers’ which I see as a negative thing for representative democracy.
It’s bad enough contemplating the possibility of a mouth-breathing Queensland Plod occupying The Lodge, but I shudder at the prospect of the Babets of this world receiving more power and influence.
Less of a risk than it once was, I suspect, but yeah. If we are going to settle into this as a new normal, we need insititutional reform (as I imply in the post). Probably relies on leadership, even generational change, within Labor; further hollowing out of the LNP; and the spread of the community independents' model to many more electorates; which is turn relies on institutional reform. And round we go. We are going to need moments of punctuated equilibrium.
Why aren't Labor factions loose and informal? Sounds like you'd have limited agendas and get frozen out if you said the wrong thing.
The ALP could start with not requiring their parliamentarians to vote with the party on things they don't agree with. Fatima Payman may have stayed with the party and been a representative for wronged and displaced people as well as broadened the appeal of the ALP.
It's interesting that Andrew Leigh has spoken about factions where others haven't. Independents and party members are all individuals with various opinions. (I've never liked AL's belief that philanthropy should play a greater role in funding the needs of a society. I think that society as a whole, through taxes and other revenue, should provide the services that everyone or some people need. So I wasn't impressed that he let private/religious schools retain a status that would enable donors to claim tax rebates for the donations they made to those institutions.)
The philanthropy model really does suck, as we see in the US.
Labor has probably the strictest discipline of any democratic party in the world and it is a strength and a weakness. There are strong historical reasons for it, but it has also historically made them brittle--thus the numbers of times they have just split because they can't accomodate difference. Even dumping Senator Payman recently is an example of this, as I wrote at the time, and as you note.
I think they are in a period where more flexibility would actually help them, but their general electoral vulnerability makes them less inclined to do so. In fact, they double down. Bit of a Catch 22.
Love your EFD piece and also really enjoy the links you include. The faction explanation by Andrew Leigh has gone some way to restoring my faith that there are still highly principled pollies with integrity out there
As a new subscriber to our Future of Everything I look forward to the balanced journalism you provide and look forward to the growth of your followers
Thanks, Gary. Not sure I'm balanced, but I try to explain my thinking and support my arguments and I'm always happy to hear alternative views. Welcome aboard!
After reading Dr Leigh's speech that you linked to, I was struck by how similar his descriptions of the faults and virtues of the faction system match what we see in the dual party system. The two faults in particular that are worth comparinh
- the shortage of competition for ideas, and associated with this, the lack of ideological debate altogether. We saw this in the recently passed "Campaign Funding Reform" laws.
- the lack of democracy within the ALP itself, as demonstrated by Victoria's "Security Pact" (as redolent of the past, to me, as Department of Homeland Security).
Thank you for another good read, and thank you for the link to the Andrew Leigh paper, which I'm glad to have read and saved :-)
I read it a while back and have been meaning to mention it. And then another reader sent it through recently and reminded me. Yeah, really interesting, isn't it?
Well written, Tim. Andrew Leigh is a decent bloke up against a self serving system. More power to him.
This election is going to be interesting . Especially as Albanese has squandered so much political capital and is yet again dragging the chain. This time on calling the election. Looks like he wants to prolong the phony war of precampaigning. The nong.
On the upside, I think the longer you leave the election, the better it is for the crossbench The sort of community engagement and doorknocking most of them rely on takes time and at least Albo's dithering has given them time. I also think the long lead time has damaged Dutton. the longer it goes, the worse he looks and he is primed to burn out during a campaign, if Labor can land a few blows (far from a given!).
To be fair, I think the delay in calling the election is largely because of the cyclone. I suspect it would otherwise have been called already.
Andrew Leigh - one of the few parliamentary ALP figures I truly admire - and I've been wondering why he has not spoken up - this goes some way to answering my concerns about him. We spoke by phone some years back and I attended one of his lectures at the ANU where he interviewed a Brisbane area ALP MP Terri Butler (the launch of her political memoir - though soon to be defeated in the 2022 May elections) after which I introduced myself for a brief face-to-face with Andrew. I still send him articles of political commentary from time-to-time - but no responses. I think a distant kinship connection then (at least) worked in his office! I wish him well.
Yes, I'm a longterm admirer. And he seems like a great local member, which is rare these days.
Neat article TD - very much enjoying your expose on the 'duopoly'. Your referal of Dr Andrew Leigh is fortuitous as I have often pondered 'Dr Andrew Leigh' what makes him tick or more specifically why did he chose politics as a career and why choose the Labor duopoly half. He seems to be the odd one out because he is not aligned, now, with either L/R Labor faction - in saying that I have not read his article in detail. He says he joined the Labor party in 1991 because as he says ' ...... if you wanted to be part of the great movement for progressive change in Australia, you needed to join a party that could form government.’. I guess a lot changes in 34 years & it would seem the Labor& Liberal parties & Australian politics compared to today's manifestation is chalk & cheese. Both have transmogrified into something grotesque. Why does Andrew Leigh remain a member? Is he riven by massive cognitive dissonance? Has he invested too much to quit the party? Is he dreaming that politics of old when Albanese can once again 'fight tories' will return? ( which is just as farcical that America will return to the USA of the Biden presidency pre-Trump days & that Trump was a mere perturbation & the Dem/Rep duopoly of the 'Deep State' will resume). I hope Albanese holds off until the absolute last so that with more MSM journalists 'openly recognising' a system besides the 2party system is possible & that more of the general public get to hear about it & not fear it. Cheers
Am reading Dr Andrew Leighs Fabian address & am struck by what he pens:
'As I have noted, the collapse of the Centre Left faction and the decline of non-factional parliamentarians has created a situation in which Labor’s factions are now a duopoly. And just as duopolies in the product market hurt consumers through price gouging and profiteering, so too duopoly factions may engage in behaviour that is not in the long-term interests of the party and its membership.'
Can't his thinking be extended to the Lib/Lab duopoly? Surely he must be conflicted? Why can't people just speak out & speak honestly like Malcolm Turnbull is oft to do now?
Good point about a long lead time giving the media a chance to adjust to the idea of a minority government. I hadn't thought of that.
Dutton really seems to be lurching from one crazy idea to the next, as if he is picking them up from some not-too-bright small business owners down at the club. Tax-deductible business lunches, banning WFH, breaking up evil insurance companies, Trumpist migration policies and there are probably more.
If he had said nothing at all, and counted on Labor losing he would probably still be ahead.
He has the Trump incoherence without the crazy appeal.
I think it also just speaks to the extent to which the party has been hollowed out and is really just a shell. It has enough institutional ballast to survive, Albanese has made their job easier, but there isn't really much there there.
Tim. The form persistent minority government may take is left suspended and I suspect may be the topic of future pieces from you.
My nagging concern is that for a time at least, we end up with a couple of ‘Kingmakers’ which I see as a negative thing for representative democracy.
It’s bad enough contemplating the possibility of a mouth-breathing Queensland Plod occupying The Lodge, but I shudder at the prospect of the Babets of this world receiving more power and influence.
Less of a risk than it once was, I suspect, but yeah. If we are going to settle into this as a new normal, we need insititutional reform (as I imply in the post). Probably relies on leadership, even generational change, within Labor; further hollowing out of the LNP; and the spread of the community independents' model to many more electorates; which is turn relies on institutional reform. And round we go. We are going to need moments of punctuated equilibrium.
Why aren't Labor factions loose and informal? Sounds like you'd have limited agendas and get frozen out if you said the wrong thing.
The ALP could start with not requiring their parliamentarians to vote with the party on things they don't agree with. Fatima Payman may have stayed with the party and been a representative for wronged and displaced people as well as broadened the appeal of the ALP.
It's interesting that Andrew Leigh has spoken about factions where others haven't. Independents and party members are all individuals with various opinions. (I've never liked AL's belief that philanthropy should play a greater role in funding the needs of a society. I think that society as a whole, through taxes and other revenue, should provide the services that everyone or some people need. So I wasn't impressed that he let private/religious schools retain a status that would enable donors to claim tax rebates for the donations they made to those institutions.)
The philanthropy model really does suck, as we see in the US.
Labor has probably the strictest discipline of any democratic party in the world and it is a strength and a weakness. There are strong historical reasons for it, but it has also historically made them brittle--thus the numbers of times they have just split because they can't accomodate difference. Even dumping Senator Payman recently is an example of this, as I wrote at the time, and as you note.
I think they are in a period where more flexibility would actually help them, but their general electoral vulnerability makes them less inclined to do so. In fact, they double down. Bit of a Catch 22.
I see that your internet system is distributed via the USA.
This worries me a bit, who knows what Trump might decide to do? It might be an idea to have some sort of backup available.
Good Luck!
Not following what you mean...?
It's an easily-disrupted bottleneck.
Although any action by Trump would just degrade performance (seriously) rather than close the internet down completely.
Hi Tim
Love your EFD piece and also really enjoy the links you include. The faction explanation by Andrew Leigh has gone some way to restoring my faith that there are still highly principled pollies with integrity out there
As a new subscriber to our Future of Everything I look forward to the balanced journalism you provide and look forward to the growth of your followers
Thanks, Gary. Not sure I'm balanced, but I try to explain my thinking and support my arguments and I'm always happy to hear alternative views. Welcome aboard!
After reading Dr Leigh's speech that you linked to, I was struck by how similar his descriptions of the faults and virtues of the faction system match what we see in the dual party system. The two faults in particular that are worth comparinh
- the shortage of competition for ideas, and associated with this, the lack of ideological debate altogether. We saw this in the recently passed "Campaign Funding Reform" laws.
- the lack of democracy within the ALP itself, as demonstrated by Victoria's "Security Pact" (as redolent of the past, to me, as Department of Homeland Security).