The West Australian, 3 Sept 02

(Written 23 August, 2002)

Democrats' 'gang of four' must be excised

by Brian Jenkins*

However painful, excision of its "gang of four" anti-grassroot senators is the only logical way for the Australian Democrats to regain its legitimacy as a citizen-driven party.

The simple fact is that the method of participatory democracy was and remains the Democrats' raison d'être. The party was formed to present an alternative to the stifling autonomy of the parliamentary authoritarianism of Liberal and Labor which the Democrats' "gang of four" is now seeking to emulate.

The present unseemly conflict has its roots in a change of direction engineered in 1991-94 by the party's unelected national management committee (NMC) -- a reduction of grassroot participation in favour of what was termed "the electoral objective".

Sadly, this boiled down to a sacrifice of fundamental constitutional objectives and principles which came to be seen as barriers to the pursuit of parliamentary careers by senators, their spouses and staffers who then dominated the NMC and national executive, partly because of privileged access to parliamentary travel entitlements.

The entrenchment of pragmatism over principle was virtually completed at the 1993 Brisbane meeting of the national executive (under the parliamentary leadership of Cheryl Kernot and Meg Lees) which voted to

  • Scrap publication of the monthly national journal which was fundamental to grassroot communication and regular balloting of policy initiatives. (Publication resources and funds were diverted into glossy advertising brochures singing the praise of senators);
  • Prevent ordinary members from accessing membership contact data except through approved mailings under the control of national officers;
  • Remove several traditionally-minded office bearers to be replaced by more amenable apparatchiks in the positions of treasurer, membership secretary, policy co-ordinator, national administrator, etc;
  • Establish a regulatory power for the national executive to override the democratic election of divisional (State party) office-bearers, prevent proscribed members from standing for party positions and even take control of divisional affairs. (This was adopted in clear contravention of the party's constitution, as later determined by the party's legal adviser--whose advice was systematically ignored.)

The immediate use of the new dictatorial power to destabilise and overthrow membership control of the Western Australian division was soon followed by the parachuting in and preselection of "gang of four" leader Andrew Murray who, understandably, lacks knowledge of the party's democratic traditions. Moreover, the balloted constitution of the WA division was unlawfully suspended and supplanted by a set of arbitrary rules which, to this day, omits the key requirement that officebearers must be elected by the membership.

The Australian Democrats' national president, Liz Oss-Emer, has correctly asked some members of the "gang of four" to consider whether the Democrats is the right party for them. This hits the nail right on the head.

Senators who cannot accept membership control of all important decisions and policy directions should never have submitted themselves for endorsement. They should immediately leave the party so that an uncompromising return can be made to the objectives and principles for which the Democrats were brought into existence.

The only alternative must be the continuing slide to irrelevance of a small party trying to duplicate the repressive authoritarian traditions of the major parties which have been failing to meet the aspirations of discerning constituents for many years.

The dramatic ascendancy of the Greens, especially in WA and Tasmania, has a lot to do with the poor newspaper-polling performance of the Democrats which underpins the disenchantment of the "gang of four". It seems inevitable that vote loss to the Greens will accelerate unless the Democrats return to past principles and regain the support of the thousands of former members, supporters and voters who have been repelled by the past decade's ruthless pragmatism, whatever its real motivation might be.

"By the fruit, ye shall know the tree". Yet, the deregulation of the labour market and the imposition of GST are not the true fruit of the Australian Democrats and never will be. They are the eggs of a monstrous cuckoo which must now be tumbled from the nest in order for the Democrats to have any meaningful future.

Senator Murray has repeatedly and arrogantly demonstrated that his difficulties with the party are insurmountable. He must therefore either resign or be expelled. Of the others, only Senator Cherry clearly deserves similar treatment. (It will be remembered that, as an adviser to Meg Lees, he was an architect of the disastrous GST betrayal.) The other gang members, Ridgeway and Allison, may even now choose to reaffirm adherence to the Democrats' constitution and principles, in default of which they should also be jettisoned.

The party is doomed, at the very least, to a humbler wilderness existence for up to six years. In the context of Australian citizens' long-held need for a genuinely independent alternative, this will be but a light (and, surely, appropriate) penalty for the party's neglect of principle in the 1990s. However, in my own opinion, Australia would be better off without a Senate party run along the treacherous and rubbery lines proposed by the "gang of four".

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*Brian Jenkins is a former WA and national officer of the Australian Democrats (1980-93) who resigned from the party during the national executive meeting in Brisbane, July, 1993. Contact by phone 08 9528 1864 or email

More information is available at http://members.iinet.net.au/~jenks/wadem.html

 

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