'If the current situation isn’t fixed, things could get very ugly for Premier Daniel Andrews in the lead-up to the state election,' writes state political editor joshgordo. | OPINION
ALP elder statesman Barry Jones, one of the most erudite figures in Australian political history, uses the fictional country of Ruritania to expound on the problem of branch stacking., the national living treasure asks readers to imagine a Ruritanian soccer club with 300 members from Melbourne’s western suburbs.The club, he writes, is signed up to a branch, with subscriptions paid for by a generous donor.
“But you have to ask, ‘does it create a distortion in the way the political system operates?’ The answer is, ‘yes’.” Under this new arrangement, Labor bosses aligned with two big unions from the Right – the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association and the Transport Workers Union – are now calling the shots, along with Mr Andrews’ Socialist Left faction.
“There aren’t too many other members who can say I’ve got a track record like that,” Jones said. “Yet he is under threat. I mean that’s bizarre.”“No sitting member should be disendorsed by this process unless there is a strong, valid reason,” he told the ABC this week.
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