The troubling power of Labor's factions

The Age

11-05-2025

Hamas is source of misery
Your Letters correspondents who criticise Israel have not a word to say about the chief architect of Gazan misery – ie, Hamas. Hamas started all five wars since Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005.
It's Hamas' own leadership that has repeatedly admitted to adopting a human shield strategy, describing civilian deaths as 'necessary sacrifices' to achieving its aim of Israel's elimination. But this is either ignored or denied by Israel's critics, who were also largely silent when hundreds of Gazans recently protested against Hamas.
All those who sincerely wish only the best for Gazans should, instead, focus on pressuring Hamas to disarm and free the remaining Israeli hostages.
Geoff Feren, St Kilda East
A grim reality
Your correspondent argues (Letters, 10/5) that sanctioning Israel is a moral imperative, but this approach ignores a grim reality: Hamas continues to jeopardise the Palestinian population through its own brutal tactics Hamas continues to jeopardise the Palestinian population through its own brutal tactics. These tactics virtually guarantee high civilian casualties and ensure ongoing suffering.
Sanctioning Israel will not protect Israelis from a group that has vowed to repeat the atrocities of October 7. Nor will it dismantle the tunnel networks under Gaza, or end Hamas' diversion of humanitarian aid for military use.
Calls for moral clarity should not ignore the threat posed by Hamas, nor demand that Israel relinquish its right to self-defence. True progress will require confronting all parties perpetuating violence — not just the one with a recognisable flag.
Jennifer Stewart, South Chadstone
How to stop assault
Your correspondent rightly laments the barbarity committed against children in Gaza (Letters, 11/5), as do I. However, I also lament the barbarity against Israeli children and the rape and murder of their mothers by Hamas-aligned Palestinians, the plight of the hostages and that Israel's prime minister puts his own interests ahead of the hostages.
But if Hamas releases the hostages and surrenders to Israel's armed forces, which it can't defeat, that will go a long way in stopping Israel's assault on Gaza.
Henry Herzog, St Kilda East
Betrayal of Menzies
Jacqueline Maley (Comment, 11/5), documents the ongoing myopia and misogyny of the Liberal Party culture. An inexorable reckoning has come to pass. The great paradox here is that the party's founder, Robert Menzies, despite his perceived historic persona of having been a patriarchal and conservative presence, was remarkably prescient in pioneering political campaigning to women.
Notably, 80 years ago, his direct support for the seminal Victoria-based mass movement, the Australian Women's National League, took their message of women's political rights directly to homes through mass door knocking; culminating in having a 'status of women' section inserted in the Liberal Party's platform in the late 1940s.
As Menzies put it in 1942, 'in the long run won't our community be stronger when the last artificial disabilities imposed upon women by centuries of custom have been removed?' In a very real sense, the past few decades have represented an ongoing betrayal by right-wing male politicians of the Liberal Party's pro-female founding ethos. It has taken Anthony Albanese's electoral victory to put the opposition's wanton failure on the feminist front into stark relief.
Jon McMillan, Mount Eliza
What are the odds?
Columnist Victoria Devine (″⁣ PM must stick to gambling vow ″⁣, 11/5) would be correct to hope that Anthony Albanese will do something about Australia's gambling problem, but along with most people she will be disappointed. Albanese is in the strongest possible position in this new prime ministership yet he refused to stand up to Richard Marles and the factions in defending Mark Dreyfus and Ed Husic. He is hardly likely then to stand up to the gambling industry if he can't stand up to his own party.
Ross Hudson, Mount Martha
Liberals out of touch
For many people the right-wing policies of the Liberal Party are the right thing, and are what this country needs to ″⁣get it back on track″⁣. For many more people these policies are outdated, and have been since the political demise of John Howard.
The stuffed shirt, suited white old men who recall the good old days of Howard and those who went before him are out of touch with a new generation of voters who have no time for or memory of the '90s, and the decades before that.
Progress involves appealing to the ″⁣now″⁣ generation, and catering to their ambitions.
Unless the Liberals get ″⁣on track″⁣ and more woke, dump the Nationals' agenda, and look at the population of the future they will be remembered after the next election as stuck in the mud fools who fell off the track, and, still believing they were going the right way, became completely lost and irrelevant.
George Houlder, Cambrian Hill
Post-poll interest
It says a lot about Australian politics when the major parties create far more interest post-election than they did during the actual election campaign.
David Parker, Geelong West
All that is left
″ ⁣Left is on the brink of irrelevance ″⁣ (11/5). Yet again Richard Flanagan encapsulates the realities of our political system. It is as if we are mostly atrophying (except perhaps for the rise of some independents) and sadly the left is part of that.
The winds of change that we need are being stymied with short-term offerings. As Flanagan suggests only time will tell whether individuals or alliances offer a more promising future.
Judith Morrison, Nunawading
Begone, factions
I'm one of many ALP members appalled by the factional warlords and the end of two competent ministers in Ed Husic and Mark Dreyfus. These mainly faceless men are ruthless and unaccountable and do the ALP no service.
Factions should have no place in a modern Labor Party Elected politicians and members more widely can and should coalesce around issues and policies as they arise.
Tony Delaney, Warrnambool
Handed to PM on a plate
Before Anthony Albanese gets too stuck in the slow lane hastening slowly on climate change, he should notice the recent lesson he's had that voters are a fickle lot, as should all those talking not one but two future terms for Labor. Albanese did not win this election. Peter Dutton handed it to him on a plate.
Margaret Callinan, Hawthorn
Appalling disconnect
I concur with Gareth Evans' and Paul Keating's rebuke of the government in removing two cabinet ministers (″⁣Evans joins chorus of ire over axing of ministers″⁣, 10/5). Labor might have won the election through a disciplined campaign strategy that focused on domestic issues rather than culture wars, but it has also shown blindness to broader geopolitical dynamics in its most recent decision to oust attorney-general Mark Dreyfus and industry minister Ed Husic. What works in winning elections is not what works in governing a country.
At a time when antisemitism and Islamophobia are rife in our community, removing Muslim and Jewish ministers from cabinet suggests a disconnect to issues that are animating divisions in our country. The prime minister may be on an election high but the war in Gaza continues to be played out all over the world, including Australia, with tensions running high on our streets and in our institutions. The moral symbolism of Muslim and Jewish cabinet ministers working side by side would have continued to provide an exemplar for hope in a divided society. The prime minster has unfortunately blown up this opportunity in favour of appeasing factional interests.
Hannah Piterman, Toorak
Oxymoron in action
Surely the headline 'The Liberals had a plan ...″⁣ (11/5) is an example of an oxymoron.
Paul Chivers, Box Hill North
Demonic last quarter
The feeling was tense at Hawthorn's three-quarter time huddle. Everyone could sense that coach Sam Mitchell was frustrated. Then someone piped up, ″⁣Wait, have Melbourne even won a final quarter this year?″⁣ Some players smirked; the mood eased. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Denny Meadows, Hawthorn
Take a bow, Australia
A week on from the election it is hard not to reflect. There at the 'G' on Saturday, sitting in the sunshine, I looked around and thought everyone, those over 18 of course, did their democracy duty last Saturday. Whoever they voted for didn't matter, it was just we all had a say. And there we were about to watch our great Aussie rules. Back into it , as we do so well. Onwards and upwards Australia. Well done.
Kate Read, Canterbury
AND ANOTHER THING
Politics
By defining the evolution of Australian society over the past 50 years as ″⁣a war against Anglo Celtic culture ... we need to resist″⁣, Tony Abbott tells us everything we need to know about the culture and ethos of the Liberal Party (″⁣ Turning toxic ″⁣, 10/5).
Peter Rushen, Carnegie
Dreyfused (verb, colloq.): A loyal older worker who does their job with excellence being dumped for a younger person with the right connections.
Alex Judd, Blackburn North
″⁣PM must stick to gambling vow″⁣ ( 11/5 ). Odds on, the PM will ″⁣consult″⁣ with the affected parties first.
David Cayzer, Clifton Hill
If Jacinta Price is the answer, the Liberal Party is asking the wrong question.
Ivan Glynn, Vermont
Anthony Albanese, reconsider Mark Dreyfus and Ed Husic.
Arnold Grodski, Heidelberg
The infighting of the opposition is a good indication of why they'll remain in opposition.
Greg Bardin, Altona North
No wonder the major parties keep seeing a decrease in their primary vote. With the brutal turfing of Mark Dreyfus and Ed Husic, the factions show that numbers matter more than merit or performance. What a workplace.
Manuela Hancock, Brunswick
Well may they WEEP – the Liberals have a Women problem, an Environment (climate) blind spot and an outdated Economic Policy.
Greg Curtin, Nunawading