Conference quashes contentious remits

Press, 5 September 1983, Page 8

Conference quashes contentious remits

From

ROBERT CROSS

adopt policy passed by three consecutive conferences.

amendment eviscerated a remit aimed as spreading caucus power. The amendment called for all members of Parliament to consult their Labour electorate councils before making a decision on the leadership — the status quo.

Contentious remits to tie Labour Party policy to annual conference decisions were quashed during a long in-committee session at the party conference. In their place emerged a compromise amendment sponsored by Labour’s spokesman on constitutional affairs, Mr Geoffrey Palmer, and the newly elected junior vice-presi-dent, Ms Margaret Wilson.

The party leader, Mr Lange, said before the conference began that he opposed the remits because he believed the conference floor was not the place to finalise party policy.

That view, shared by Mr Palmer and most of his caucus colleagues, held sway yesterday. The Palmer-Wilson amendment upheld the status quo in making the policy council the draftsman of policy, with the Parliamentary wing being the final arbiter.

“Conference decisions have been elevated in status,” said Mr Palmer, after the constitutional remits session.

It stipluated that the policy had .to give “detailed consideration” to policy decisions.

The supremacy of the caucus and the caucusdominated policy council in deciding what goes into Labour manifestos was, however, preserved. That supremacy, which had kept conference calls for withdrawal from A.N.Z.U.S. out of the manifesto, this year provoked remits to end it

If a policy that differed “significantly” from a conference resolution was to go in the manifesto, it had to be passed by a two-thirds majority of the council. Any such policy would then have to be drawn to the attention of the Parliamentary wing and the New Zealand council, and get their approval. Mr Palmer said that the amendment would ensure that the acrimony over the A.N.Z.U.S. policy would be avoided in future.

They would have meant that no policy that had not been approved by a conference could be adopted, and that the Parliamentary party would be bound to

The policy council would have to go to “extraordinary lengths” to put a policy in the manifesto that differed greatly from conference decisions. But the council would still be able to put policy in the manifesto that had not come before the conference.

“It is important to leave an element of flexibility to be able to respond,” said Mr Palmer.

Delegates had shown “overwhelming support” for the amendment.

Also quashed was a call for more rank-and-file involvement in the selection of the party's leader, also at present the preserve of the Parliamentary wing. A caucus member, Mr Russell Marshall, was again the moderator whose