Bill Shorten can't rise above Labor's grubby, self-interested factions

But Labor won't win on Shorten's personality. If he wins, it will be on the strength of a popular feeling that the Coalition had its chance and muffed it, and the alternative government may actually be better.

In such a circumstance, one can hardly imagine what geniuses at Shorten's right hand concluded that the Christmas break, with Shorten himself officially on holiday, was just the right moment to negotiate a dirty factional deal in his home state of Victoria.

Shorten would hardly have been far away; he has a taste, an appetite and a talent for factional machination beyond any capacity he has ever demonstrated in wooing the public. One could not imagine that the warlords of what he has regarded as a personal fiefdom would plot the double-crossing of one sub-faction of the Victorian Labor left for another sub-faction without an explicit blessing from the top. Shorten has never been able to afford to leave the infighting to others, with himself loftily above the struggles.

Shorten had, in general terms, a pretty good year, even if he was flagging a bit by its end. Labor consistently led in the opinion polls; indeed, these suggest that the electorate has made up its mind about the Coalition and will not drift back to it unless Labor does something very wrong. Turnbull outscores Shorten in personal popularity, but prime ministers usually do, even when they are on the way out. The Coalition was, at one stage, trying to convince the electorate that Shorten was a dangerous revolutionary with a plan that would send the nation into bankruptcy, or the gulags, but voters rightlyseemed unpersuaded.

More effectively, the government has portrayed him as a sleaze, a typically compromised old union boss, involved in decisions that put his own interests, and the interests of union hierarchies, before the interests of his union's members. That, and being a bit of a crawler and toady to the nobs representing the interests on the other side of the table on which he was supposed to have sat. A lot of public money, and a good deal of Coalition invective, has gone into making this charge. No doubt some of the mud sticks. But if the opinion polls are any guide, voters will not be deterred from voting Labor simply because of doubts about Shorten's character, personal loyalties or personality.

But even the public's determination to be rid of a government and a prime minister who has greatly disappointed will not necessarily blind the public to the shortcomings of the other side. Paul Keating deserved to lose the election of 1993; by then, the public was desperate for almost any alternative. But Keating persuaded the public that John Hewson, his Fightback! plan, and the image of him being some sort of "feral abacus" playing ideological havoc with the economy was more to be feared than a continuation of what they had.

Likewise, consistent polls showed John Howard and the Coalition to be well behind Labor and Mark Latham in 2004. The Coalition seemed tired and out of ideas, and was in any event spending profligately, in direct contradiction of its old rhetoric. Yet Howard was effective at planting doubts about Latham's character and personality, as well as reliability, just as he had, three years earlier, raised doubts about Kim Beazley's "ticker". It is generally true that governments lose elections and that only rarely do oppositions win them.

Yet it is within any opposition to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and, from Labor's point of view, there could hardly be anything more likely to sow doubts about its capacity than an outbreak of internal war about the corrupt spoils system, the fixing of party preselections, and the grubby and disgusting system of trading votes, stacking committees and rule from above rather than from below.

Shorten has long had a very unattractive record in such power plays, rising to the top by well-timed treachery, manipulation of questionable numbers, and adept and at times questionable fund-raising, including from businesses that, one might have thought, should have had no desire to promote or support him. But the picture is ever so much more unattractive at a time when Shorten is the leader, when the pretence of complete party unity has become more brittle, and when the Christmas slowdown and the silly season create the prospect of the divisions Shorten has opened becoming more rancorous, more gangrenous.

The outside observer need not focus much on the relative merits of one Labor faction or another in such matters, even if the Coalition will be keen to stress that the new devils with whom Shorten wants to sup represent the more militant end of the party left, including the apparently much dreaded building union, the CMFEU.

The faction system in Victoria is not much about ideas, ideals or ideology, but about personalities and appetite for personal power. It is also, inevitably, about disempowering Labor's ordinary members, and putting the party, first, in the hands of a few union warlords and then, second, making deals distributing the goodies in closed rooms.

It is entirely in keeping with the hypocrisy and corruption of such deals, particularly if Shorten is involved, that there is always a claim that the outcomes are just or democratic, or that they bring to the system much needed "stability". The draft deal, published by the Financial Review, contains recitals suggesting that Labor can win power, at state and federal level, only "if we have a strong, vibrant and democratic party at every level of the organisation".

The old power-sharing agreement, by which a few players, such as Shorten, Steve Conroy, Kim Carr and a number of other "factional daleks", decided in advance whom was to be allocated winnable seats and so on, was denounced in the draft as "fettering the democratic rights of the membership and affiliated trade unions". The old "stability deal" was said to have produced a system by which "too much power was wielded by too few, with little regard to policy, proportionality, or local democracy". This, it was said, "is not good for our members or our future".

So it is to be replaced by a similar deal, albeit with slightly different players on the Left side of the arrangement, by which much the same people would decide, years ahead, which factions would be allocated winnable seats. The old Muggins turn principles will continue to apply, with the beneficiaries being those who have found favour with Shorten or Conroy (or, when it is the Industrial Left's turn, the left unions, particularly the CMFEU). There will be a new queue, with different hacks, for the left, and old deals, old promises and old arrangements for the Socialist Left will be honoured with the new sub-faction, which has earned Shorten's gratitude and patronage.

The new deal will see too much power exercised by too few, with little regard to policy, proportionality or local democracy. It is pretended that continuing the old system with slightly different players will "forge a new path [sic] and be based on respect for ideas and values, on policy and solidarity, and on creating strong foundations that still allow for a dynamic and diverse organisation".

Thus, Centre Unity and the Industrial Left will support each other's candidates when seats become vacant. Centre Unity recognises that the Industrial Left was short-changed in the past and "is not adequately represented" in state and federal parliamentary sinecures.

Accordingly Shorten's faction has promised the Industrial Left the federal seat expected to be created in Melbourne's north-west, and "will also be supported for a safe seat in the round of 2022 federal seat preselections allocated to the Socialist Left in the old stability deal (be it Senate, or Calwell or another comparable seat) over and above any other arrangements Centre Unity and IL enter into".

One may think that a round or two of factional bloodletting, in which a number of senior federal members not party to the deal, such as Jenny Macklin and Andrew Giles, are made nervous about their futures, would not do too much permanent damage midway through a parliamentary term.

The problem is that there is a very real prospect of a number of by-elections in the early months of 2018. If the Coalition, with its newly restored majority in the House of Representatives, has its way, most of these will be opposition or independent seats, although there are mechanisms by which the positions of Liberals said to have dual-citizenship problems can be challenged.

If there is to be a round of by-elections, the timing will be in the Speaker's hands, and it is possible that all will be on the same day, presenting a mini-election. On the evidence of recent dual-citizenship by-elections, Labor has little to fear from the Coalition, but is vulnerable to the Greens. It will be even more so if there is a major outbreak of factional warfare, particularly if the Labor candidates have all of the appearance of being factional hacks or stooges of particular factional leaders.

Some observers have suggested that Shorten's interventions were focused on fortifying his position among the national right faction, especially because, it is said, the NSW right is upset with him for failing to give strong support to Sam Dastyari, when he was embarrassing and humiliating the party over his flirting with China and accepting personal money from a leading Chinese businessmen. The NSW right is deeply tribal and some of its leading members (whether in parliament or trades hall) have continuing affections for Dastyari, going back to the time when, under his leadership, the Labor state government virtually collapsed and was decisively rejected by the electorate. Readers will remember that this crashing defeat was particularly aggravated by the seeming indifference of Dastyari and his machine to fairly obvious corruption on the part of the machine's senior members and some of its parliamentary representatives, accompanied by the traditional factional ruthlessness with leaders (such as Kevin Rudd, Maurice Iemma and Nathan Rees) who came to be perceived by Dastyari as liabilities. But Dastyari, and many of his old mates, were never ones for applying such unpitying and calculating eyes on their own performance. A cynic may think that Dastyari held off his almost inevitable resignation from parliament until he had done maximum damage to the electoral prospects of Kristina Keneally, once his protege.

One may think that the Liberal Party, itself beset with deep factional problems, whether in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia, is hardly in a position to capitalise from the images of Shorten's covering himself with factional blood. And many would remember that Turnbull himself is a member of parliament, only because of ruthless and open branch-stacking against a sitting member. If Tony Abbott continues with his crusade against an overfactionalised Liberal system, it may divert attention from Labor's problem. More likely, however, it would simply deepen popular contempt for the processes by which our leaders enter parliament.

For Shorten, however, the risk is not of being embarrassed in parliament. Keneally and her predecessors were not terminated with extreme prejudice by a masterful opposition, trouncing Labor in debate. Able as he was, Barry O'Farrell was even more boring than Shorten.

Instead, Labor sank to its lowest point because the big stench coming from Macquarie Street and Sussex Street came to envelop and disgust the electorate at large. That's the risk that besets federal Labor, and Shorten himself.

Jack Waterford is a former editor of The Canberra Times. jwaterfordcanberra@gmail.com