plus the poison dewalf mine – yawn again

Julia did well earlier in her interview with laurie oaks

the ‘tightly binding party line’ only applies to MPs, AFTER they have had a chance to put their view to caucus.

It’s a common misapprehension (even amongst Labor members and party staffers) that the pledge candidates sign on preselection requires them to toe the party line.

It doesn’t – it clearly says that, if elected, the candidate will be bound by any decision made by caucus in which they have played a part (wording’s not right but that’s the gist).

So a candidate is free, as they should be, to argue that, if elected, they will work to change a certain party policy.

And the ‘party line’ is certainly not binding on anyone who is not an MP.

As I’ve said before, the theory is that if you can’t convince a roomful of people who have much the same ideas and vision as you have that your argument is correct, chances are that it isn’t.

I’ve been involved in more campaigns than I can count, written media releases for all of them, been the local ALP spokesperson, worked for a Labor MP, fronted the Premier and President with strong criticisms, spoken as an ALP delegate in many forums and in each case have (on occasion) put forward views which were not the party line. I’ve never ever been pulled up on any occasion by anyone, let alone threatened with disciplinary action.

The only time any threat was made was by a local MP when I didn’t do what they wanted. It was purely a personal spat but the MP invoked party platform as the reason why I should be toeing the line. I had the overwhelming support of the Party administration, and the MP was ordered to apologise to me.

So, as someone who is as involved in the party as it is possible to be without (presently) drawing a wage, my personal experience says that, for the average member, there is no tightly binding party line.

On closer inspection, you are correct. It seems NSW Greens are bound by party policy. That is even worse. Sounds like the ALP.

To be fair to Labor, one has to understand how Labor came about and the presence of the other parties at the time, as well as what the party in it’s originality actually stood for, to understand and appreciate the tightly binding party line.

One of the reasons why the Socialist Alliance has failed so badly to revive communism as a political force is that all the old comms with any brains have joined the Greens, where they know their superior discipline will enable them to manipulate the naive hippies. The same thing happened with the Nuclear Disarmament Party after 1984, but Garrett refused to be manipulated and walked out.

Garrett, and also Jo Vallentine (the NDP candidate who actually got elected). Remember where she ended up a few years later, and your argument goes to bits.

I started to read Dutton’s article, but when he said that the Libs would win the next election I didn’t bother further. Of course he couldn’t say anything else, which is why politicians should not try to be commentators.

Well MPs of both parties do need to act like they’ll win the next election, they don’t have much if they don’t have confidence. If they gain seats at the next election, they’ll be happy.

When did the Greens last hold a Senate seat in NSW?

2007?

Funny thing is, Nettle was elected on a primary of 4%. She failed to be re-elected on a primary of 8%. Ahh, the bizarre machinations of preferences.

How, then, to heal the anti-capitalistic cancer of the colonies? If men were willing, at a blow, to turn all the soil from public into private property, they would destroy certainly the root of the evil, but also — the colonies. The trick is how to kill two birds with one stone. Let the Government put upon the virgin soil an artificial price, independent of the law of supply and demand, a price that compels the immigrant to work a long time for wages before he can earn enough money to buy land, and turn himself into an independent peasant

For my fellow South Australians here is Karl Marx’s opinion on the colonization of our fine state. He also says how he reckons Wakefield was influenced by the colonization of the US and Western Australia.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch33.htm

The problem is that Psephos will explicitly differentiate between the ethnic groups based on their religion and the suggest that the determinant is the religion. I don’t think this has any statistical basis, and when I asked him to provide information on the alleged numerous “Muslim rape gangs” I got nothing.