By-elections of the 44th Australian Parliament (2013-2016)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The parties that represent old-style left-wing views do much worse than the modern social democrats almost everywhere in Europe and the West.

What do we mean by 'old-style' here?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shop,_Distributive_and_Allied_Employees_Association#Criticism

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But this isn't even a union issue... so why is it important?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

On this note - and I've been wondering about this: Is the unusually high Greens vote in Australia correlated in any way to the fact that the Unions - and often very conservative unions at that - still have a lot of power over Labor selections?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shop,_Distributive_and_Allied_Employees_Association#Criticism

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But this isn't even a union issue... so why is it important?

Because the leadership still thinks the labor movement hasn't evolved beyond the days of Bob Santamaria and the domination of the old-school Catholic Right... they think they still have the right to dictate national policy issues that have NOTHING to do with their remit.

That's an issue for the ALP not for the unions themselves.