“Solidarity Forever?”

Authoritarianism starts with a jeer and ends with a whimper.

Cover: Scenes of a Labor member bring jeered by the party faithful as he is forcibly ejected from the NSW Labor conference for supporting Palestine, exemplifies the ideological transformation of the modern Labor. (Source: X)

Joel Jenkins || Signs reading “Better public transport,” “Cheaper childcare,” and “Free TAFE” were pinned to the railing at Sydney Town Hall as a demonstrator was forcefully removed by NSW Police amid jeers and applause at the NSW Labor conference. Two Labor member activists had unfurled a Palestinian flag from the balcony in silent protest at the party’s support for Israel and the oppression of those in NSW who do not share that position.

But the iteration of the Labor Party that now stands before the people of Australia is far removed from the bones of Jack Lang, Ben Chifley, and Gough Whitlam. Among the rusted-on members—using the word “comrade” as they greeted one another at NSW Labor’s night of nights—there were stirrings of objection. Not as many, however, as the majority of Australians would hope, as one of their “comrades’ was manhandled by NSW Police.

The 78 percent of Australians who oppose Israel’s actions were not represented in the sea of red that draped the Town Hall. Nor were the majority of NSW residents concerned about draconian police powers—at least, they were not speaking up as they once would have in the classic idea of what these conferences represent.

Premier Chris Minns and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, fronting the event, have both driven Labor vehicles with pro-Zionist decals for the entirety of the period in which Israel has conducted what many, including the UN, have described as genocide—and well into their careers before. On Saturday, Minns spoke about debt and deficit reduction, the infrastructure boom, education and health gains, and his claims on public safety training—all while expanding the police-state powers he now wields. On Sunday, Albanese spoke ambiguously about broader cost-of-living relief, housing, and economic management under federal Labor, while praising his government’s alignment with Minns on big projects and infrastructure.

Public Assembly Restriction Declarations (PARDs) still shape the cadence of Sydney’s streets, alongside expanded move-on and face-covering powers in the post-Bondi environment. NSW has passed more anti-protest laws in the last 20 years than any other state. According to CIVICUS, Australia’s civic space is rated as “narrowed,” with concerns around whistle-blower prosecutions, anti-protest laws that clash with international obligations, and the arrest of climate and pro-Palestinian protesters. Along with climate protesters jailed, union protesters arrested, the anti-weapons industry protesters carted away, and anti-Herzog protesters beaten and bloodied for resisting a representative of a country committing genocide—the sight of a rusted-on Labor member being dragged up the stairs by police for a silent protest, involving a Palestinian banner unfurled over a rail, paints a vivid picture of what the conference environment has become.

The legendary environment of Australian Labor conferences is no stranger to raw, unfiltered passion—argy-bargy debates spilling into drunken arguments, the occasional punch thrown in factional heat, and walkouts or expulsions that became folklore of a party still wrestling with its soul. From the turbulent 1950s Split to wild state gatherings where left and right factions physically clashed (as in the 2003 Victorian brawl at Melbourne Town Hall), these events were chaotic theatres of democracy. Dissent was noisy and expected; grassroots voices, union militants, and ideological warriors could erupt without the immediate threat of polite removal.

In contrast, modern Labor under Anthony Albanese and Chris Minns has evolved into a more disciplined, power-prioritising machine—less a movement of ideological vision and more a neoliberal footy team where rusted-on supporters cheer the ejection of their own for disrupting the script on topics like Palestine. Albanese, who rose through NSW’s hard-left faction but helped consolidate its pragmatic redesign in the Hawke-Keating era, has embodied this shift. His approach—skilled factional deals and electability over purity—has enabled a right-leaning NSW machine where Minns governs more conservatively than his Liberal predecessor on issues from protest laws to union power.

What we saw in Sydney was the sharp end of Australia’s Labor Right in NSW, approved by a Prime Minister long seen as a “left faction” voice. Minns is less concerned about mandated nurse-to-patient ratios and more focused on curtailing public freedoms in the name of security. He has been a pitbull on these issues since taking leadership. Albanese, for his part, came up through the hard left but has long prioritised power, deals, and electability—a John Howard-esque operator who helped reshape the party in a more neoliberal direction.

A 2020 Jacobin article titled “Labor’s Anthony Albanese Is Not a Friend of Australia’s Left—And He Never Was” argues that Albanese was instrumental in hammering the neoliberal redesign of the party in the shadow of Hawke’s Accord. He rose to prominence by collaborating with the Right to crush genuine left-wing elements in NSW—an environment in which Chris Minns would later join the party’s right faction and discover that personality types like his own now held the lion’s share of influence. It was an environment Minns would thrive in, thanks in no small part to the groundwork laid by figures like Albanese.

The scenes at the conference in Sydney reflect the fruits of those efforts, and the proud neoliberal policy achievements spruiked to the audience. Labor supporters themselves have become less concerned about political outcomes and more concerned about supporting the footy team—an approach that only leads to haemorrhage in primary votes. One-eyed supporters cheer blindly for the club, forgetting they used to critique the decisions of the coach, the hearts of some of the players who weren’t playing for the club, and proudly remind the executives that the team was owned by the people. Not anymore. All those in the room that day who applauded the dragging of a Labor member speaking in the spirit of the conference came to the event stepping around the genocide their party has supported militarily, economically, and diplomatically—ignoring the public freedoms being removed from them by Minns—all for a win on the board for the footy team.

The modern Labor Party, in all of its iterations, has become a political animal at the expense of everything, even its projection. The Labor that came back after a decade in the wilderness of opposition came back a different beast. Once-democratic state and federal Labor conferences have hushed dissent on AUKUS, corruption, and support for Israel. State conferences have blocked opposition to fossil fuel exploration, revulsion to gambling, or abhorrence to party links to nations committing genocide. Some may have jeered out of habit at the disruption before Minns came in to kick off his big day, but others may have jeered with clarion intent. The rusted-ons have gone from people who opposed the Iraq War with Simon Crean, to people who supported world-first anti-asylum seeker policies under Gillard and Rudd, to people who tacitly support the Zionist status quo of Labor when that means military, economic, and diplomatic backing of Israel—the most concentrated killer of children and innocents this century.

At this Minns conference, a grassroots revolt forced tighter pokie concessions—red meat for those who still believe they matter. But there was nothing on Israel, nothing recognising UN, ICC, or ICJ findings, and nothing addressing the police state closing in on a marginalised majority. That group was removed from the theatre. They will find it hard to return.

After the disruption the day before, Albanese spoke on Sunday, praising the hallowed floor of Sydney Town Hall. Flogging the nostalgic dead horse while waxing lyrical about his days as a young delegate in 1983, he channelled the energy of Labor’s titans of old—as he so often does. Yet as he spoke, a Lebanese-Australian Labor member silently walked the aisles with a Palestinian flag. His words echoed hollow, starkly contrasted with the dignified objection of the protest, while the rusted-ons clapped anyway to the regalia of those old Labor skeletons. But it doesn’t feel right anymore. The same city of Sydney hosting the NSW Labor Conference—the same city that has seen a rapid decline in public freedoms on par with authoritarian nations—is also hosting a Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion that has primarily featured submissions from Australia’s Zionist Jewish community, whose findings will help determine the future of social cohesion for us all.

All those who clapped and jeered, do so perhaps not knowing what they do. In the current environment, the footy-team rusted-ons face a clear choice: if they refuse to stop supporting the team no matter what, they must demand far more than they are getting, and support those with the steel to ask for more. The party faithful can either throw themselves on the wheel and force change, as the brave protesters did, or descend into monsters jeering alongside the captured executive that now runs the party with no apparent moral limit. The old conference environment was the sign of a healthy party—comrades who rubbed shoulders but kept the machine grounded: the real footy fans. It is now an environment our Prime Minister can no longer recall accurately in anecdote, let alone the political animals who now swim with the sharks of modern Labor and jeer at acts of courage, and it could ultimately fail them at the polls.