It’s November 2019. Tones and I’s Dance Monkey has been on the top of the charts for so long, you’d be forgiven for thinking its actually crawled into your ear and started gnawing on your brain. Richmond are the reigning AFL premiers (again), Covid-19 is yet to exist and the Victorian Labor party is gathering for its annual state conference.
There are some factional tensions on show – members of the CFMEU and other left-wing unions walk out of the new Labor deputy leader Richard Marles’ speech – though it is largely a stage-managed affair that garnered few headlines.
State conferences used to be the setting of some of the party’s most dramatic spats – over the direction of policy, and between the endlessly warring factions on the left and right.
But the most major realignment of factional power in the Victorian Labor branch in recent years has largely occurred behind closed doors.
As a result, as the branch meets this weekend for the first time since 2019, it will look much different than it did then.
A lot of this can be credited to the events of June 2020, when the Age reported that upper house MP Adem Somyurek, the powerbroker for the moderates faction, misused public funds to fuel a vast branch-stacking operation and amass political influence within the party.
A joint investigation by the state’s anti-corruption watchdog and the Victorian ombudsman later found there was branch staking, but said there was not enough proof Somyurek had committed criminal offences to recommend prosecution. He continues to deny any wrongdoing.
The controversy saw the premier, Daniel Andrews, of the socialist left faction, ask the federal party take over the branch and clean it up. Former premier Steve Bracks and former federal minister Jenny Macklin were appointed as administrators to audit the membership, stamp out branch stacking and overhaul party processes.
For three years, all voting rights in the Victorian branch were suspended, with preselections for state and federal elections conducted by the national executive.
A new “stability deal” was also signed between the socialist left and parts of Labor’s right faction – including the Transport Workers Union and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association – to carve up seats.
These moves all but destroyed Somyurek’s moderates and put at risk MPs linked to other right-wing factions that weren’t included in the deal. Ten sitting Labor MPs were pressured to leave parliament as part of the factional purge.
About 1,700 Victorian Labor memberships were also cancelled having been found to be “non-genuine” members.
Months later, other senior figures on the right, who weren’t aligned with Somyurek’s faction announced their resignations.
One of them, James Merlino, was replaced as deputy by Jacinta Allan – a factional ally of Andrews – despite the role usually going to someone from the opposite faction to the premier.
This break in convention was seen as a show of strength by the premier, and Allan is his pick to eventually succeed him as Labor leader. (When that occurs is anyone’s bet – Andrews maintains he will serve a full term, but it’s widely expected he will quit before the 2026 election.)
There’s no doubt the left will be keen to use its growing power to secure a majority on the powerful administrative committee at this weekend’s conference.
A party president and members for policy committees will also be elected, as will the makeup of a new panel that will have a say in preselections.
Powerbrokers on the right will also test their strength, which they will undoubtably need to build if it wants to challenge a possible Allan leadership.
But for most rank and file members, the conference will be a opportunity to influence the government’s policy for the first time in years.
Several motions to be debated this weekend by the 600 delegates attending have a progressive bent. Of the 109 contained in a draft released earlier this week, eight suggest solutions to the state’s housing affordability crisis and three urge the government to increase access and funding for abortions. There are the usual divisive motions to ban duck hunting and to recognise Palestine as a state.
The motions may be changed or dropped before the weekend, as factions and unions negotiate over proposals. But senior Labor sources say they expect modified housing motions will be passed, given the government is already working on a policy in the space.
One source said they did not expect there to be debates on the duck hunting or Palestine proposals, with the latter likely to be delayed entirely.
Another motion, put forward by the manufacturing union, expresses “profound disappointment” in the Albanese government’s $368bn Aukus submarine deal is also not expected to go to a vote. Instead, it will be referred on to the national policy forum.
Even if they were to pass, they are non-binding on the parliamentary party and would be unlikely to alter the premier’s course.
As is increasingly clear, it is Andrews’ party.
