Local Southern Highlands Labor Party has no love for Stephen Jones

Education Minister in the Wran and Unsworth Governments from 1984-88, Mr Cavalier said the Highlands branch was shut out of this year’s pre-selection process.

In a statement to the News Mr Cavalier outlined how the branch was divided over the issue.

At a special meeting in December the branch passed two resolutions. The first called for a pre-selection ballot of local ALP members. The second stated Mr Jones had been forced on the electorate.

“The Southern Highlands branch does not accept that the imposition of a candidate on the electorate of Throsby places an obligation upon the branch,” Mr Cavalier said.

“The branch authorises each and every member to make his or her own decision in conscience about which electorate or electorates they will offer their services for the ALP in the next Federal Election.

“The branch is now divided. Party loyalty is not a factor in the response of those of us who do not intend to assist the campaign of the imposed candidate in Throsby.

“Loyalty to what? The National Executive is entitled to as much loyalty as it showed the party membership when it imposed this candidate.”

Mr Cavalier, who is also president of the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust, said the poor state of the Illawarra ALP was why local branches were being ignored.

“The imposing has as its nominal justification the need to deny the corruption of the ALP branches below the escarpment. No one denies the state of the ALP branches in the Illawarra,” Mr Cavalier said.

“It is not as though any of the situation below the escarpment is new. It has suited those who administer the party to do nothing about the ALP branches in the Illawarra because it affords them the excuse to impose a candidate in their own image.”

Mr Jones said he met with the Southern Highlands branch at their Christmas Party and at a meeting in February, and that he had received good support from local Labor members.

“I am taking nothing for granted, but based on the many offers of support I have received from Labor Party members and supporters in the Highlands I am very confident that we will run a great campaign for Labor in the region,” he said.

“I’m focussed on talking to people about the policies that the Rudd Government has to make a positive difference to the health and education system, to creating jobs and protecting the environment.”

But Mr Cavalier said Mr Jones’ anointment was part of a deal struck between the Labor Left and Right.

“The decision on Throsby 2009 was effectively made in or about 2000 when an opportunity arose to impose Jennie George after an unhappy time at the ACTU,” Mr Cavalier said.

“The imposition suited everyone - bar the membership in Throsby. Granting the Left (so called) the selection for Throsby - where it was outnumbered overwhelmingly - came at the price of the Left conceding selection for the safe seat of Fowler in Sydney’s west.

“The ALP in NSW has degenerated to a polity characteristic of medieval Europe when principalities were offered as wedding dowries.

“The peoples of Europe were shifted according to the lottery of which royals survived birth and who they married.

“Europe had no concept of self-determination, democracy was unknown. Such concepts are becoming foreign to the leadership of the ALP.”

Mr Cavalier said the ALP national executive had abandoned its grassroots branches.

“So debauched is the party that there is not a single voice on the national executive who will speak up for such abstractions as democracy and the rights of the membership,” he said.

“The immediate needs of 2000-2001 have become an expectation in perpetuity of the factional leaderships. An arrangement for two seats has evolved into a binding deal for six seats. The exception has become the rule.”

“The Labor Party of 2010 has degenerated into a party of grandees, a self-perpetuating oligarchy of the favoured and the favouring.

“The Labor leadership, being without a historical sense, is unaware the party has become what it once sought to replace.

“Reducing the input of local branches has denied members their say in who represents them.

“In much of NSW the Labor Party has died. Over 102 local branches have died in the past decade alone, scores of other branches are phantoms, many more operate on ludicrously low quorums,” Mr Cavalier said.

“Membership of anything requires a reason to belong. Unless a member of a political party has a say in selecting candidates to represent him or her, their membership has no meaning. Members in the thousands in the past few years have drawn that conclusion and walked away.

“Party leaderships deny even a pretence of democratic participation because they can. The success of impositions depends on electorates that are uncritical and unintelligent.

“A great many members of the local branch, hopefully a majority, will refuse to assist the Throsby campaign.”

The recent decision by the ALP executive to allow a rank-and-file vote in the Blue Mountains seat of Macquarie on March 20 may re-invigorate Mr Cavalier’s faith in the party.