Should Labor talk to the Greens?

Open Labor is holding a debate in Melbourne to-night. The question is Should Labor Talk To The Greens?

Miss Eagle has written to Open Labor letting her views be known.  Miss E is dyed in the wool Labor - but is rather selective. Miss E was once, but is no more, a member of the ALP.  She is a twice-failed Labor candidate but bears no animus re that. It was a significant experience and it led to her becoming an organiser with the AWU - the first female organiser in Northern Australia and only the second female organiser in its history.  

Miss E still has quite traditional Labor views on many topics, particularly on work, labour, and workplace rights - but feels she has nothing in common with Labor in relation to its ambiguous stance on environmental matters and its progressively harsher stand on the matter of refugees and asylum seekers since 1992.   Both of these items, in Miss E's view, are highly moral in nature and values.  Labor's attitudes on these policy matters do nothing to attain the moral and advantageous high ground.  They send Australia and Australians deeper into a vandalistic and inhumane mire.

In light of these views, Miss Eagle has written to Open Labor as follows:

Dear Open Labor,

My view is that The Greens should enrol in the ALP and immediately establish a faction.  It's the only way I can think of for environmental concerns to get an authentic guernsey in the development of a collective environmentally concerned mind within the ALP.  

Under Rudd and Gillard, Labor made a mess of their attempts at being 'green' i.e. the pink batts (policy would have been helped by consultation with a relevant tradesman but where are they in the ALP - does anyone even sleep with a tradie anymore?) and giving tradeable electricity to homeowners (more to the rich and the middle class) instead of including renters (clearly don't give a darn about low income people, let alone pensioners and the unemployed, who rent! And completely ignore the situation of people living in public housing).  Should I mention here how a Victorian Labor Government upgraded public housing and privatised a portion of it thus decreasing the quantity of public housing available to Victorians.

The ALP is lagging and conservative.  Its careerist politicians are concerned with the Almighty $ and assuring for themselves lucrative post-politics careers.  I won't name names - but I don't think I need to.  We can all finger Labor politicians who are guilty of this.

I don't think Labor has clearly defined and delineated its role in this post-GFC world.  Without a clear path, ideology, or compass, it means that Labor will wax and wane in its policies instead of defining a clear path, a steady compass forward.

Sincerely,

Brigid Walsh

(once an ALP member; twice an ALP Federal Candidate; once an AWU organiser)​