Fury as debate sidelined
Cries of ‘Shame‘ as Labor shelves touchy subjects at conference
A DEBATE about changing the date of Australia Day and other controversial motions has been quietly sidelined, with factional divides causing a political stalemate at Victoria’s Labor conference.
On day two of the weekend long conference, the matter of changing the date of Australia Day was raised as being “offensive to indigenous people” with some suggesting a potential move to May 9 — the date of the first Commonwealth Parliament.
However, the motion was withdrawn behind closed doors early yesterday morning before proceedings began, with no cited reason.
The move came as several other controversial motions were deferred to the state’s administrative committee.
Motions deferred included ending offshore detention, recognising Palestine and the banning of live exports.
The move drew cries of “shame” and a chorus of booing.
A contentious motion that was hotly debated, and subsequently rejected, was a plan to force online branch members to sign up to a local branch.
The motion was vehemently opposed by many of the 700 strong audience at Moonee Valley Racecourse, many of which were trade unionists.
The lack of matters heard may have come as a result of the strongly contested debate and was labelled as “student politics” by Special Minister of State Gavin Jennings.
Mr Jennings blamed factional unions within the party for the lack of open debates that abruptly ended the annual conference.
“There’s a combination of left-wing unions and rightwing unions that have not usually voted together,” he said.
“I think they decided to have a bit of fun because some of them didn’t have their way on the rules changes.”
Federal leader Bill Shorten also spoke to the boisterous Labor audience, claiming that the party is ready for the July 28 ‘super Saturday’ by-elections that will see five fall on the same day.
Mr Shorten also took aim at the Turnbull government, reaffirming his intentions to reel back tax cuts for higher-income earners.
Shadow Minister for Public Transport David Davis slammed Labor for not debating some of the more controversial motions and accused Daniel Andrews of hiding sensitive matters from the public.
“This is an act of cowardice,” he said. “(Premier Andrews) has sought to avoid the contentious issues and hide them from the Victorian community before the state election.”