The ALP's 41st National Conference

As a member of the Labor Party, you soon get used to losing; if you're a member of the Left you really get used to losing. Of course, being a member of a political party - indeed any organisation - is always an experience of imperfection and compromise, and it is more the case when that organistion is significant enough to be the government of a country. The three day ALP National Conference, true to the Prime Minister's promise, was indeed full of "fair dinkum" debate although the outcomes, due to various factional allegiences was fairly obvious. On all the controversial matters the votes were roughly 215 (Right and Gillard/Ferguson Left) to 180 (National Left and independents), with a little bit of slippage on specific issues (I am increasingly impressed by the Victorian branch of the National Union of Workers, for example).

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Overall much of the conference was uncontroversial, and what was uncontroversial was good. From those issues where there was significant debate the outcomes were much less than optimal, but not so bad to be utterly disastrous (uranium sales and party reform issues were the worst decisions). Whilst in Sydney I also managed to engage in a small number of social activities and plenty of reading - however that will have to wait for a subsequent post.