Bill Shorten's innocuous leadership of federal Labor meant his performance at the party's weekend national conference was judged largely in one-dimensional terms. Some commentators asserted that Mr Shorten's inability to secure backing for an asylum-seeker policy embracing turn-back of boats or for an indefinite continuation of his preferred position to allow members a conscience vote on gay marriage indicated Labor was furiously divided on key issues and that his leadership was now at the mercy of the party's resurgent Left faction. Others, however, declared that Mr Shorten's success in settling climate change and asylum-seeker polices – areas which have caused Labor much grief in recent years – had shored up his authority and standing, and that it was the Left which had been left exposed. In fact, Mr Shorten's wins at the weekend shaded his losses, though all were partial. Considering the amount of skin he had in the game, however, his first conference as leader could be considered a modest triumph.
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It's frequently asserted that the factional chieftains of the modern Labor Party work overtime to settle contentious policy platform decisions before national conferences, thereby ensuring this set piece triennial event radiates concord and bonhomie rather than dissent and bickering. There were undoubtedly efforts in that direction at the 2015 conference, but there was also argument and counter-argument, and final policy positions that reflected factional willingness to compromise.
Mr Shorten's plan that asylum-seeker boats be turned back when safe to do so under a Labor government was opposed by the Left (and notably so by some prominent MPs in inner-city seats), but ultimately passed after assurances the measure would be accompanied by commitments to double Australia's refugee intake, to abolish temporary protection visas, and to ramp up financial support for the UN Human Rights Commission.
Mr Shorten's preferred position on same-sex marriage (which is to make it law in the first 100 days of a Labor government and to allow his MPs a conscience vote on the matter) looked like it might be overturned by the Left, which wants a binding party vote – in spite of evidence this is will strengthen Tony Abbott's opposition to a Liberal Party conscience. Again, a compromise was agreed to in which a conscience vote will remain ALP policy for the remainder of this parliamentary term and the next (until 2019), whereupon support for gay marriage will become binding. The Right, too, endured setbacks, most notably in regard to a resolution calling for the party to unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state should the Middle East peace process fail.
To suggest this is evidence of factional bloody-mindedness or of Mr Shorten's shaky authority and standing is to ignore the reality that the ALP is a party that still fashions policy based on the frank discussion of opposing views and a recognition that compromise is frequently required to maximise the chances of electoral success. In that sense, the weekend conference represented a small ALP advance. Less encouragingly, however, nothing of Mr Shorten's performance at Melbourne suggested his leadership is growing in stature anything like what is needed to overcome voter disinterest and apathy.
