If you are a member, ex-member, or supporter of the Labor Party, we need your help in renewing the NSW branch of the Australian Labor Party.
For too long power in our Party has been increasingly centralised in the hands of professional political operators and politicians. The role of members in both developing policy and in fighting campaigns has been continually undermined.
As a result of this trend our Party’s good name has been dragged through the mud and, worst of all, our core values of fighting for a fairer and more progressive society have been too often cast aside.
It’s time that rank and file members organise to take our Party back and renew the Labor movement from the bottom up. Together, democracy can be returned to our Party’s structure, and give our millions of supporters and volunteers a reason to believe in and contribute to the Labor Party again.
You are invited to attend a meeting of rank and file Labor Party members to be held at 1:30 for a 2pm start, Saturday April 2nd, at the Tom Mann Theatre, 136 Chalmers Street, Surry Hills.
The purpose of this meeting is to:
- Bring together grassroots Labor members, ex-members and supporters
- Endorse motions in support of greater rank and file control of the NSW ALP, including the recommendations of the 2010 federal campaign review
- Discuss our plan for how we will take our Party back
Together we will rebuild our Party, please come to the meeting this Saturday to help start the process.
If you have any questions, comments, or wish to endorse the motions or the meeting, comment here (ouralp.net) or facebook or email ouralp(at)ouralp.net.(Change (at) to @).
Please pass this message on.
Yours for Labor,
Glenda Gartrell, Willoughby Castlecrag branch member; Neil Reilly, Kiama Labor Councillor, President Kiama ALP Branch and Gilmore FEC; Don McGregor, Katoomba Branch President; Darcy Byrne, Leichhardt Labor Councillor; Ben Aveling, Alexandria Branch Secretary; Phil Drew, Rank and file member Leichhardt Branch; Lucille McKenna, Ashfield Labor Councillor; Ben Karalus, Leichhardt Branch President; Michael Johnston, Summer Hill Branch President; Rory O’Connell, Ashfield Branch President; Nic Wright, Willoughby Castlecrag Branch Secretary; John McCutcheon, Kiama Senior Vice President; Lyndal Howison, Leichhardt Labor Councillor; Margaret Atkin, Kuring-gai Branch member; Mark Drury, Ashfield Council and Secretary Ashfield Branch; Catherine Welch, Assistant Secretary, Alexandria Branch; Darren Whitaker, Surry Hills branch member; Chris Osborne, Swansea branch member.
Our ALP 
About time the rank and file took the party back from the party thugs . they represent no one Both the right and left are guilty of crimes against party democracy..
We need to select Labor candidates that represent the community interest and Labor principles free of inexperienced Head office numbers blockheads.
Yes…
Restoring the primacy of conference as the melting pot of ideas, and breeding ground of policy development.
With rank and file elections of senior party administration /executive, including upper house appointments, can only reattach the political with the industrial, ensuring the voice of the people is heard and the system of government is reflective of the broader views, services and infrastructure relied on in line with the rank and file membership expectation.
The security of natural resources perceived as part of the common wealth of Australia is seen as finite and therefore used for the greater good and taxed appropriately to ensure a more sustainable future.
The maintenance and protection of essential services in the area of resource management, utilities, rail, roads, communication, education and health remain publicly owned, supported as essential to the the integrity of the common wealth of the people.
Kevin
im secretary of the parkes branch country labor our branch supports you,i cant get there,rank and file must run the alp
For the first time in my life I could not bring myself around to vote Labor in the NSW State Election (don’t worry, nothing would make me vote conservative). It is time we reinstated democratic principles, had local members that are connected to their communities and began focussing on policy rather than ‘machine-men’. I will be there on Saturday!
Your motions are worthy but will only be cathartic for those discussing them, since the ALP oligarchy will ignore them, as they always do.
You should plan more strategically. As a first step, you should get together a ticket of 10 people to stand for the Administrative Committee at the next State Conference. All the signatories to this invitation are well qualified for this purpose; I am also willing to add my name to the ticket.
In addition, you should nominate people to each of the other Party Committees. My expertise is in criminal justice policy; and I would be willing to nominate for the appropriate committee as part of an organised strategy.
This way we will get a foot in the door. We may only get one or two members elected (and then only by branch delegates, since the unions will vote their tickets); but it will be an effective start.
Chris Quilkey
Secretary, Quakers Hill Branch
i am currently the seretary of the swansea branch , and can not make the meeting on saturday but i do support the motions put forward and will be putting motion to our branch to support at the next meeting . the alp need to make sure the right person is elected to lead the party or we will never get back the respect in the general public for along while that this party has had for many years.
former branch secretary as well and glad this is happening.
We need to break the power of the union bosses. Only then will the membership take control.
Peter
Pete, it is unfortunate that you take this view. I hope you understand that the “union bosses” to which you refer are no representative of the unions they control. Note the use of the word control as opposed to lead. The very same cabal that have destroyed the ALP have destroyed unions, do you think that the likes of Arbib who was parachuted into the TWU in some cushy high paying job ever drove a truck? Paul Howes from the AWU, think he was a career mushroom picker, farmhand, miner before he got his gig in the AWU. These people have been as destructive to the union movement as they have been to the ALP. Here is an irony for you, Craig Emerson Trade Minister negotiates Free Trade Agreements behind closed doors, agreements that see the loss of hundreds of Australian jobs and that further entrench poverty in developing countries, Emerson was sponsored into parliament by the AWU, he is their boy. Recently the AWU doyens turned on Emerson describing him as a dishonourable rat after apparently disobeying an ‘AWU directive.’ Howes then made some feint comments about campaigining against free trade agreements but of course he never seriously will. In the end they are all part of the same club that locks out both union member participation and ALP rank and file participaton. The union movement like ALP branches have become a lower hierarchy court, where the fiefdom chiefs look after their own self interests and the higher order court (the parliament) goes on implementing the neo liberal agenda of privatisation, deunionisation, race to the bottom on safety, remove the social security safety net, beat up on refugees etc; does anyone seriously think that the remaining union members support that? Do you think union members agree with being ripped off when their union has say 5000 members and they affiliate to the ALP on 15000 operating as not much more than a money laundering outfit for the ALP? This of course also leads to the stacking of conference both state and federal. I sincerely hope that the rank and file can effect real change in both the ALP and in unions but I fear it is too late the damage is done and the rotten cabal that caused it well they’re alright they have served their masters well and they will be well looked after for their trouble, always another job, party, union to land softly in when you have no personal ethics, morals or values.
I can’t make it on Saturday but I strongly support the motions. I’ve only been a member for a few years, but saw no point in getting involved, even with the left. What’s the point of a faction that excludes a large chunk of the party? I think the option of issues base lobby groups, not exclusive, can join multiple, may be the future . Either way, it must become a labor party owned and controlled by the members, answerable to the members, where any representative can be kicked out by the members if the stop representing what we tell them to do! It’s meant to be our party, not theirs!
I’d suggest the discussion has obscured one important fact, namely that deals made between faction leaders ‘representing’ left and right alike have turned Conferences into farces at which no genuine debate takes place, because deals have been made long before Conferences even open. This wasn’t always the case, and unless enough Local Branch members refuse to remain silent any longer, no matter what well-intentioned motions are passed by gatherings such as the one tomorrow, it will be a case of re-arranging deckchairs on a vessel with the same mobs on the bridge making the same sharing of the spoils decisons.
Our branch may consider inviting a representative to maybe
our may or june meeting… can I have contact details
for this….. email & postal
Hi Mick,
Which branch? What area?
Regards, Ben
You must set up a facility for members to make donations like Getup so that there is a fighting fundI am always sending money to GetUp.
Councillor Frank Ward OAM Port Stephens Council
Bellinger River branch would be happy to invite a member to discuss issues and ways in which we can support. Our AGM is on the 14th April 7pm. We also meet 2nd thursday of the month.
email. kammboyd@bigpond.net.au
kevin