Remind me again why progressive voters should vote for the ALP?
In the first Victorian ALP conference since the federal and state elections, progressive forces within the party put up an urgency motion calling on same-sex marriage to be a part of federal Labor’s national platform.
But debate on the motion – which placed the Victorian ALP and its parliamentary leader, Daniel Andrews, firmly at odds with the Prime Minister – was shut down and the conference was forced to end abruptly because there were not enough people in the room to form a quorum to vote on it…
Senior figures from Labor’s Left faction were outraged when the debate had to be abandoned, with some accusing members of the Right of deliberately leaving the room so that the quorum – which requires at least 152 delegates – could not be met. Only 147 were present for the count. Debate on other contentious issues, including asylum seekers and gay adoption, also had to be abandoned due to inattendance.
So. It’s a party where the Right won’t even allow debate on these issues. Some “broad tent” – they demand our votes, but have no intention of even considering our views, let alone representing them in Parliament.
Another reason I’ll be voting Green next time.
Moved On 
“Remind me again why progressive voters should vote for the ALP?”
DO any progressive voters still vote Labor though? Any of you other vile leftists out there in internet land voted Labor recently?
Y’know, when i consider the Australian political landscape as it stands today, and as much as i hated him at the time, i kinda miss Howard.
He at least, unlike Abbott, was an intelligent man, and mostly quite rational. Personally id be embarrassed to be a conservative these days..
(removes his rose tinted glasses and realises what he just said!)
I voted for Labor in the last federal election, and came remarkably close to doing so even in the recent NSW bloodbath.
Abbott is intelligent – anyone who wants to believe or pretend otherwise is badly underestimating him. In fact, I’d wager he’s close to the smartest person in the parliamentary Liberal party.
That’s not to say he doesn’t have other serious cognitive flaws; I think his judgement is exceedingly poor in quite a few respects and it will come back to bite him badly, one way or another, in the end. For the time being, though, what he’s doing is working, and results as they say speak for themselves.
Duncan1978, I think you’re confusing “intelligent” with “tricky” – if there’s any trait one can ascribe to Howard (that he didn’t share with hand-knitted beige cardigans), it’s “tricky”.
But if by “rational”, you mean “too timid to implement the full Thatcherite plank he and his Quadrant-reading ilk REALLY believed in”, I’ll have to grant you that one.
Abbott intelligent? Hard to say. He has several of the characteristics one associates with intelligence – such as knowing every time he shoots himself in the foot, that he’s doing it. Or knowing that his advisors have his interests in mind.
But stopping himself, or listening to said advisors, or keeping his powder dry for when we DO have an election, is another story. Indeed, if the Fourth Estate(TM) didn’t so thoroughly rely on his being unable to help himself*, for easy unit-shifting copy**, he’d be long-gone.
No, before you ask, I didn’t vote Labor this time (ASP didn’t run in my seat, so I voted Green).
I haven’t voted for them since Keating left.
*(let me say that again… He Just Can’t Help Himself)
**(if you haven’t spent the last three years in a submarine, you’ll know that even the Aunty still prints Coalition soundbites analysis-free)
Abbott is definitely very intelligent — he’s a Rhodes Scholar afterall and they don’t hand those out to halfwits.
I reckon he’s just one of those people who works better when he has prepared notes and is uncomfortable with off the cuff commenting, which is probably the reason he makes so many faux pas when responding to unprepared questions.
Prepared notes don’t work – not for an MP who keeps inviting colleagues to step outside (you think I’m joking don’t you).
I refer you back to the one thing that sums up every problem he’s ever had (right back to the failure of his celibacy advisor to have his advice taken)…
He can’t help himself
He knows he should take the time to absorb the brief, he knows he should rehearse what US politicians call a “stump”, he knows not to impugn the motives of an asbestos victim, he knows all the things he shouldn’t do… but he can’t stop.
Why do you think he wants another election, a year in? He doesn’t think he can wait two more. And neither do his colleagues, by the looks of them.
I agree with all your points lykurgus — I’ve always thought that Abbott is unelectable for those precise reasons.
Mind you, the current government seem to be doing their best to prove me wrong 😛
He’s certainly an odd character, undoubtedly he’s very intelligent in academic terms, but as you say, there is also a flaw in his make-up that seems to have him continually making stupid gaffes.