The struggle between Kim Beazley and Simon Crean was not about policy. This was not a contest of different policy agendas. I have argued in the past that there are no substantial differences among the two. Both would adhere to fiscal conservatism; both would continue with privatisation agendas (although they would do it in a different way from the coalition).
There are many elements that make up this conflict. It was about the contest among state branches for control of the federal organizations. It is about the contest among interests groups within the party, who tag themselves as belonging to the left or the right (although this has very little meaning as a policy making framework). It is about the fear that the coalition will be able to mobilise a populist constituency that will win over voters in marginal seats. It is also about the political memory of what happened before the election of the last Labor federal government.
Political memories are very strong inside the ALP. You never forget the favour or the betrayal of a mate. While Hawke is held as an ‘Labor icon’ there are still many who hated the neo-liberal agenda he pursued. There is a residue of guilt about the way in which Bob Hawke placed himself in power by launching a coup against Hayden in the dying months of the last Fraser government.
Hawke and Keating were to fundamentally reorient the ALP. They evolved a social democratic version of neo liberal politics that has become the dominant ideology of the party. The leadership elites of the ALP are now simply incapable of imagining anything outside of this policy framework. While many in the ALP can hardly remember Hayden, I think that if Hawke had not defeated him, the ALP might be operating within a different policy framework. Hayden was far more interested in the idea of developing a new policy framework on the left. He was instrumental in the wide ranging debate about the socialist objective among other things. I think that if trade union elites (including by the way leaders from the Communist Party of Australia) had not helped Hawke bludgeon Hayden from the leadership, Unions today might have a greater level of social influence than they have today. The promise of the Accord and Australia Reconstructed were reduced to nothing more than the cynical use of that negotiating framework to lower the cost of employing labour.
I suggest that in the heart of many in the ALP there is the hope that Crean might take the party ‘back to the future’ and return us to that moment of hope when the Fraser government was falling apart (‘give Fraser the Razor…’ remember that…). Personally I would be very surprised if that would happen. Crean just doesn’t have the determination to change the course of the party in such a fundamental way. Not only that, he has the New South Wales machine to sabotage such any attempt to change course.
Crean staked his campaign to defeat Beazley on the grounds of ‘policy not popularity’. It ought to be said that the federal leadership claim that it wants to turn its organisational structure and policies back to the membership is somewhat questionable. I rejoined the party soon after the defeat of the last federal election. To my great frustration, I waited for the structural review process to filter down to the membership level. It never did. There were a few public meetings, but almost nothing at the level of the local branch, where most of the action should have taken place. A similar fate for the policy review process will occur. Policymaking is still the prerogative of the leadership elite. While some good policy may come out of this, it still perpetuates the problem of separation of elites from membership and all the problems this has created over the decades.
I agree with many who state that Creans profile in the public mind may have benefited from this. While I saw Beazley as posturing in the style of Curtain and Chifley, Crean seems to have projected the image of the educated suburban family man.
10:40:33 PM 
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