Australian Labor Party Conference 2011 - Sydney

Conference Agenda HERE.

Go here to access the National Conference website

from the following:

The Australian 

(Rupert Murdoch's jewel in the crown of his Australian assets)

Fairfax Press

Australian Financial Review

(out behind its paywall for the National Conference it would seem)

Michelle Gratton on video and in print

Michelle is arguably "the dean" of Australian journalists.

Her view is much respected and is usually a reasonable comment.

The Australian Labor Party  (otherwise known as ALP or Labor) Conference

begins to-morrow in Sydney and runs over Saturday and Sunday.

Labor is the party of government in Australia at this time.

Labor, traditionally, runs a tight ship.

People toe the party line.

In Parliament, there is no crossing the floor to vote with the other side.

For those elected to parliament, 

their only way to have a say is in Caucus

or at official Conferences.

Once the vote is taken, people are expected to to the party line.

Members of Cabinet have, most particularly, to toe the line.

This Conference will be interesting.

There is, what appears to be, a dominant view

on two controversial topics:

homosexual marriage and uranium sales to India.

At this Conference, two significant Ministers 

(Wong on homosexual marriage, Conroy on uranium))

do not side with the Prime Minister. (more on that in another post!)

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard,

is on the negative side for the first topic

and on the affirmative side to the latter topic.

If she is defeated on either of these ,

the Australian media will have a field day.

The question that is then asked is:

Will compromise motions be put forward

to save face for the Prime Minister?

There are factions - mainly two, the Right and the Left.

There used to be a Centre but I'm not sure it exists anymore.

Am not aware of any members of parliament who are unaligned.

Within the major factions there are factional sub-sets.

This means that there is a certain fluidity on some matters.

It is worth noting that the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard,

began her political career as a member of the Left faction.

She has been installed as Prime Minister by the Right faction,

most notably by the Australian Workers Union, a significant right-wing union

with a significant industrial history.

{Don't worry if you don't understand the last two sentences.

Few Australians understand this either - but Miss Eagle does}

So there will be some wait and see at this Conference.

Go here to keep up to date with proceedings through Live Chat.

You can register now.

I have posted up above the social media provisions.

I have tried to give a general outline here in a simple and succinct manner.

I hope that people from overseas might like to have a look

and be involved with discussion of the operations of one

of the world's oldest Labor parties

which currently is running the most successful economy in the world.