After ten long years of Coalition rule, Labor rank and file members came together for the post-election conference at the National Press Club in Canberra. Investigations editor Ross Jones was among the media contingent.
THINK Coachella. Then think Chifley Research Centre Conference 2023 at the National Press Club.
Fewer drugs perhaps, but maybe more joy.
Over two days, hardworking Labor rank and file members – recently freed from their protective cocoons of depression that had lasted through the long years from Abbott to Morrison – opened their wings among like-minded mates in a collective exhalation of relief followed by an inhalation of expectation.
The Chifley Research Centre is a Labor think tank:
'As the official think tank of the Australian Labor Party, our mission is to champion a Labor culture of ideas.'
And it did just that.
IA attended the post-election conference as part of the invited media contingent.
DAY 1: Pat Dodson, Bridget Phillipson and More-in-Common
Sadly, IA was doing 110km/ph down the Federal Highway when Senator Pat Dodson delivered an impassioned and apparently well-received plea for bipartisan agreement on The Voice.
Happily, IA arrived in time to register and grab our lanyards just as excellent lunch snacks were being served. The mood was ebullient.
The last time I saw so many happy Labor voters was at Keating! The Musical. Everyone chatty, part of the family, basking in a Labor glow.
After lunch, a panel discussion regarding the lessons progressive governments are learning in power.
Bridget Phillipson is British Labour MP for Houghton and Sunderland South and Shadow Secretary for Education in the Keir Starmer-led Labour Party.
Ms Phillipson noted the dysfunctionality in the UK Tory Government but is acutely aware of the risks and difficulties of achieving government in polarising times, the balancing act between short and long-term policies.
In this regard, Ms Phillipson said Australian Labor is now a model for all centre-Left parties — how to win and how to make sense.
That went down pretty well with the crowd.
More-in-Common is an organisation formed to counter the threats of polarisation and far-right populism. It operates in the U.S., UK France and Germany.
Its website reads,
'More in Common’s mission is to understand the forces driving us apart, to find common ground and help to bring people together to tackle our shared challenges.'
More in Common’s founder, former Rudd and Gillard speech writer Tim Dixon, was on the panel along with the organisation’s German director, Laura-Kristine Krause.
The upshot was a sobering view of the global Right, lightened somewhat by the beacon of a centre-Left victory in Australia.
Three more panel discussions followed, ‘The challenges of balancing work and care in contemporary Australia’, ‘What is inclusive growth and what might a well-being budget mean?’ and ‘Today’s Australian electorate and the campaigning future’, all held the attention of the True Believers for the rest of the afternoon.
But the audience did become a little restive toward the end of the first day’s formalities. Not only because tomorrow promised the main event featuring Tony Burke, Jim Chalmers and Albo himself, but Anacta (a 'full-service public affairs company that specialises in campaigns, research, strategy and government relations) was putting on drinks at the Press Club bar.
IA mingled with the crowd and can report It was a very happy few hours with many happy people.
(Image: Kare Godsell)
DAY 2: Tony Burke, Jim Chalmers and Albo
Day two was the big one. The room was at capacity – looked like about 200 – and the designated media seats, many of which were vacant on day one, were all taken by the time Tony Burke kicked things off.
After taking a dig at former Liberal Employment Minister Michaelia Cash and her hysteria, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the House told the crowd:
For all the hysteria that we had last year, there'll be plenty more this year, plenty more this year. Because effectively, in workplace relations, the two-year strategy works this way.
Last year, what we did was start to raise the bar — raise the bar on awards, raise the bar on enterprise agreements, raise the bar on bargaining, lift the floor for workforces.
This year, it's about closing the loopholes that some businesses use to undercut those arrangements.
Burke continued:
What I want to take you through today, in the workplace relations area – there’s some interaction with the arts as well – is take you through what those loopholes are, how they've been used over the years.
How for some they have become a complete business model, and to give you a sense, effectively, of the narrative of what we did last year with Secure Jobs Better Pay, and the project this year in closing loopholes.
He nailed it with:
“The simplicity of the principle that nobody should ever have to choose between safety and pay should not be a complex principle.”
Burke is known to be an engaging speaker and he didn’t disappoint. (His full speech is here.)
After ample interval snacks, the crowd resumed their seats for the much-anticipated main event of the conference, Albo himself.
The Prime Minister entered to a rousing standing ovation. Not unlike a post-grand final victory party after a long time between drinks.
The PM began with the dangers to democracy,
Our democracy is a great and enduring national achievement, a marker of what it means to be an Australian.
Indeed, the citizenship pledge that thousands of people took for the first time in January speaks of the ‘democratic beliefs’ we share.
But democracy can never be taken for granted.
It needs to be nourished, protected, cared for, treated with respect.
Before warming to his main theme, the successful passage of The Voice.
Of this constitutional change, Albo asks,
"If not now, when?"
He has a point.
The Prime Minister’s full address is worth a read. (It is here.)
Fresh from weathering shrill attacks from the Right media after his essay ‘Capitalism after the crises’ was published in The Monthly ('The outrage and alarm about [Chalmers' essay] ...veered wildly in recent days from ominous fear for the free market to almost comic scaremongering about the threat he poses to the nation’s corporate chiefs', wrote David Crowe), an unruffled Treasurer Jim Chalmers told his audience:
I’m not too troubled – I’m relaxed and realistic about the commentary...
The point I want to make today is that it’s possible to maintain a focus on the pressures people are feeling now, advance a big agenda this year, and still sketch out a framework for the future — all at the same time.
In a well-aimed insult, Jim said of the Coalition:
“They are stuck in the past and scared of the future.”
The Treasurer’s speech, much shorter than his Monthly article, is also worth your time if you have it. (His full speech is here.)
More snacks; then Senator Katy Gallagher stepped up to the crease.
Ms Gallagher told the audience her role was to try to sort out the public service after years of Coalition abuse:
I’ve been invited to speak briefly on building capacity to govern and restoring public sector capability.
I am seven months into my role as Minister for the Public Service and I have learnt over that time the huge task that our Government has to grapple with, in rebuilding and repositioning the APS. But we are up for this important work.
It’s a huge job because a decade of Coalition governments saw a sustained assault on the Public Service. An assault that saw thousands of permanent jobs and capability lost.
Senator Gallagher continued:
Ministers who passed the buck, politicised processes, blamed departments for their own mistakes and removed those who stood up and disagreed and created a culture of fear within the APS that meant frank and fearless advice was not sought or provided when it was needed most.
Perhaps the most obvious and harmful example of this approach is Robodebt — a massive failure of public administration with catastrophic consequences. A scheme that we are learning shocking new details about every day through the Royal Commission hearings – with three Ministers and one Prime Minister – required to take the stand to explain their role about what they knew and what they did.”
Ms Gallagher has a tough few years ahead but she gave the audience the clear impression she was up for it. Might even enjoy it. Ms Gallagher’s full address is here.
After a wrap from a couple of Chifley Research Centre board members, that was that for the conference.
And with that IA checked out and bid Canberra farewell for the time being.
Australia felt a safer place on the drive back up the Federal.
Ross Jones is IA investigations editor and the author of 'Ashbygate: The Plot to Destroy Australia's Speaker'. Follow Ross on Twitter @RPZJones.
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