self indulgent thread alert

okay now it's morning, here's my thoughts (and full results since they've been comprehensively leaked) https://twitter.com/grugstan/status/1260151342531674116

first up, personal feelings: I’m disappointed by the result. because I support one member one vote - but also because I just wanted this to be over. and it isn’t. so after five years of fighting this, we’ve got god knows how many more to go.

now the good news: membership is up! not quite at pre-2016 levels, but close. and this is the biggest vote the Greens have ever done and despite some teething difficulties, it proves that national balloting works and members are invested.

this could translate (one day) to directly elected national officebearers or council delegates at large. it also means there's an appetite for more national engagement and scope for more policy and issues balloting.

it also means the party should seriously consider how we select Parliamentary leaders at subnational levels. and that means Victoria leading the way on giving members a vote on our Parliamentary leader.

now bad news: this isn't as big as I had hoped. less than 50% of members took part. that's extraordinary and rivals major preselections - but compared to the ALP which routinely gets 75%+ turnout for internal elections, this is abysmal.

this issue’s lead to stasis in the party for nearly five years and doesn't look likely to stop soon. the party's been fixated on resolving (or not) this issue since I joined and has had little space to consider other internal reforms.

ignoring the results of this ballot is hubris. a clear majority of members who voted support changing the system to give members more say. a slim majority of all members support One Member One Vote.

no result was ever going to be enough for the people in the party who were opposed to this change. the goalposts moved so often over the past 5 years, why would after the vote be any different?

early in the process, Party Room agreed to not get involved. our members are deeply deferential to our MPs - especially their local ones - and their opinions would change a lot of votes. our federal MPs especially have massive platforms not available to other members.

sadly Richard broke that promise and given how close the result was, it could easily be argued his intervention swung the vote. I would find it hard to take any MP at their word anymore. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/11/as-former-greens-leaders-we-ask-members-not-to-shut-the-party-room-out-of-leadership-votes

there was never a membership vote in how to determine the selection of the leader in 2005. it is unfair to consider a rule with no democratic mandate to be constitutionally unassailable.

consensus doesn't work - at least not at this scale. it assumes everyone involved is invested in the "best" outcome, which simply isn't the case. this was a politically contentious issue with no real “middle ground” or long roadmap.

there was simply two small deeply entrenched sides and a big gulf of largely disinterested members in the middle. those middle members clearly want “more say” (which we already know from countless member surveys) but can’t agree on what that looks like.

there was never going to be good faith negotiation. there was never going to be a fair process. there was never going to be a conclusive outcome. this is agonistic politics - something the Greens are simply not equipped to deal with.

our federal structure privileges smaller states over larger ones. just two member bodies can block decisions agreed by others (where they don't want to go to a vote) and those two bodies can represent as little as 6% of the total membership.

as an aside here’s some more membership stats: nearly 30% of our membership lives in Victoria, another 30% live in NSW, about 15% in Queensland, 10% in WA and roughly 5% each in SA, Tasmania and the ACT. less than 1% of members live in NT.

be wary of anyone who blocks progress or makes procedural comments to “preserve unity” or “prevent whiteanting”. they’re not doing so in good faith and while they might think they’re doing the right thing.

that said - the pro-OMOV wasn’t either. at least we weren’t playing by “the rules”. a lot of members are afraid of internal organising. they see that as a path to disunity, to conflict and to the big bad evil ALP word: Factions. so noone was prepared for actual organising.

not to say the internal organising necessarily worked. the campaign didn’t reach most members. the social media first campaign was great at getting the issue on the agenda four years ago, but it didn’t scale when it came to the actual vote.

but what it did end up being was those older members’ worst nightmare: a faction capable of organising members and who are prepared to talk to the media to get their way.

wrapping up and looking forward, I think the best path for @Greens4DL activists are:

(1) advocate for member bodies to directly elect their Parliamentary leaders where their Party Room is more than 3 MPs

(2) push for member balloting for National Officebearer positions

(3) investigate creating directly elected “at large” positions on National Council or delegates to National Conference

(4) push to make co-leadership at all levels not just an option that they can ignore, but a rule they can’t.

and if they really wanna put the spook up some folks, (5) organise into a faction on more than just leadership.

because I can’t see how federal leadership could be relitigated any time soon.