Rudd-Gillard era disunity driving PM’s ‘iron fist’ rule

The Rudd-Gillard split is likely to have influenced Labour’s approach to prioritizing unity over potentially contentious public debates, a political historian says.

Faction leaders blocked public debate in the conference room about the party’s stance on Israeli actions, including references to “genocide” against Palestinians, during the three-day meeting in Adelaide that ended on Saturday.

The only debate openly discussed at Labour’s national conference was the expansion of voluntary assisted dying to include telehealth appointments; all other amendments were passed without objection.

Leading Labor historian Frank Bongiorno said backroom deals on policy platform proposals were not unusual but the conference was very well run compared to past events.

“This is a government and a party that is still very scarred from the last time it was in office between 2007 and 2013, when the union collapsed,” the University of Canberra academic told AAP.

“Going back to that period, you wouldn’t say there was a strong culture of debate at the conference, but there were clearly discussions about marriage equality and also about selling uranium to India.

“The overall drive for unity stems from the cost of division experienced during these six years.”

Professor Bongiorno said the party held strong conference debates more frequently in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, including on privatisation.

“It was taken for granted that there would be some sort of debate, especially when it was a controversial topic,” he said.

“I think about someone like (Prime Minister Paul) Keating taking action on the ground for allowing foreign banks into the country in 1984.

“There doesn’t seem to be that culture… it’s clearly wounded and I suspect the media environment is one reason for that.”

The policy adopted by Labor Party delegates stated that the party was against Israel’s annexation of Palestinian lands and called for an end to illegal settlement activities.

Former cabinet minister Ed Husic, now in the background, led the push for the party to make its policy public.

But Prof Bongiorno said Gaza had not universally divided Labour’s left and right factions as it had on other foreign policy issues in past decades.

“Look who the biggest, clear dissenter is: someone from Ed Husic from NSW,” he said.

“It would have been completely unheard of for someone from this group to take that kind of position in the 1980s and ’90s.”

The prime minister, who hails from the party’s left wing, defended the debate on limiting Labor on Sunday, declaring the meeting “by far the most transparent political conference in Australia”.

“The party has changed, and one of the things that’s happened in the party is that we’ve become more together, more united than we’ve ever been before,” he said.

Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonathon Duniam said the prime minister was ruling his party with an “iron fist” and any opposition at the conference was quickly shut down.