THE MAGAZINE FOR VICTORIAN LABOR SUPPORTERS
The
Silver Lining
DECEMBER 2013
I believe Labor’s positive
vision is essential for our
country’s future.
“
“
Phoebe, Ballarat, First-time
Volunteer. #ThisisLabor
These are
some of
Labor’s stories
from 2013.
thisislabor.org
Labor’s healthcare reforms mean
better access to GPs and local
services for me and my family.
Doug, Sunbury, Long-time Volunteer. #ThisisLabor
WHAT
WILL YOUR
STORY BE IN
thisislabor.org
Labor’s DisabilityCare will offer me opportunities
to work, grow and be a part of the community in a
way I never envisioned would be possible.
Alexis, Mount Waverley Long-time Volunteer. #ThisisLabor
“
“
thisislabor.org
But for Victorian Federal Campaign Coordinator Stephen Donnelly, there are plenty
and he runs through them as part of our
Federal Election wrap-up.
We also take a quick look at some of
the different ways thousands of Labor
supporters helped local campaigns
throughout Victoria and Simon Welsh
reflects on what the leadership ballot means
to him as a Labor member.
Victorian Branch saw many new faces
get involved in the Federal Campaign,
including several from New Zealand and the
US. Evolve has a chat with one of our US
friends about what brought him to Australia
and Labor.
“
“
As we start to feel the effect of a Tony
Abbott conservative government, it’s difficult
to see the positives in the 2013 Federal
Election result.
2014?
www.viclabor.com.au
VictorianLabor
@VictorianLabor
If the Federal Election is anything to go by,
Labor supporters like you will play a more
important role than ever in the months and
years ahead. Email [email protected]
to share your campaign story, or tell us why
you support Labor.
THE MAGAZINE FOR VICTORIAN LABOR SUPPORTERS
FORGING A PROMISE
Simon Welsh
4
A TOUGH ASK
6
THERE IS NO BETTER
PLACE THAN THE FIELD
12
PEOPLE POWER IN ISAACS
Tim Richardson
14
THE SILVER LINING
Stephen Donnelly
17
Q&A – SAM SCHNEIDMAN
21
www.viclabor.com.au
facebook.com/VictorianLabor
twitter: @VictorianLabor
CHIEF EDITOR: Kosmos Samaras  EDITOR: Simon Adams  DESIGNER: Kareem Obeid
CONTACT: [email protected] or 9933 8500
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this magazine are the authors’ own, and don’t necessarily reflect the views of Victorian Labor.
but this time there seemed to be a sense of
unity that such families usually only reserve for
weddings, funerals and football matches. This
was big, it felt right and we were all happy to be
there.
in who I was going to vote for. Some even
offered up unsolicited advice. It seems the
great “leadership ballot experiment” had not just
captured the imagination of the membership, it
had also engaged a wider audience. Whether
this was just the “gimmick” factor around
something new, time will tell. But at a time when
everyone could be forgiven for being “politicked
out”, people were talking about Labor in a
positive way.
Up to that point, having had a few other priorities,
I had followed the detail of the leadership
discussion more distantly than I might have
otherwise. This, I thought, must be the reason
why I was struggling to find any differentiation
This first leadership ballot was a crucible for the
between the two candidates. The extremely
Labor Party (albeit of the fierce mild variety) and
expensive-to-produce mail-out materials I
to paraphrase Arthur Miller: there is a promise
received had told me very little – other than there
formed in such heat. A promise of a better way
was clearly some significant “left-over money”
– a way of unity, respect and progression. At
from the election campaign to fund this shinythe end of the day, this is what I actually voted
paper, recycling bin filler. I had hoped that the
debate would provide more
substance. In some ways it did
Labor supporters on Friday 27th September to view
‘the Brawl at Trades Hall’.
and in some ways it didn’t.
Forging a Promise
Labor history was made in October this year when, for the first time, Labor
members had a direct say in who would lead the Australian Labor Party
and an opportunity to hear from both leadership candidates. Party member
Simon Welsh reflects on what it means to him.
Friday 27 September seems like such a long
time ago now.
A few days earlier, my wife and I had welcomed
our new daughter into the world and we were
living in the foggy bubble that follows the arrival
of a newborn with its mix of happiness, relief,
insomnia and meconium. Into this haze came a
message from the outside world: an invitation to
attend the Labor leadership candidates’ debate
– Albo vs Shorten, the Brawl at Trades Hall. I
reluctantly wiped the baby-spew off my face, put
down the dirty nappy and accepted the invite
... grudgingly telling my wife that I would have to
leave her to fend for herself for a couple of hours
that coming Friday. Anything for the Party.
4
Maybe it was just that I had
been stuck inside for a few
days, but I remember that Friday as a stunning
day. Walking through the space and light of the
parks around Lygon Street and bumping into
friends as they sat out front of some hole-in-thewall cafe busily consuming coffee, cigarettes and
politics, it felt like there was real energy around.
It felt like something new was happening; as
though the velvet rope was being lifted and I was
being invited into a privileged part of Australian
political life. I felt that I mattered to the Party, just
as much as it mattered to me.
Sure, experience teaches us not to get carried
away by anything even remotely related to the
world of politics. Somehow, though, there was
an almost magical wilful suspension of cynicism.
And this wasn’t just me with my “baby brain”,
other members were talking the same way. Labor
is so often like a gloriously dysfunctional family,
On policy and position, both
candidates seemed to almost
be deliberately running a
campaign of looking as much
like the other guy as possible.
Bill Albanese looked the best
candidate. At least what they
were both saying seemed
to reach out to progressive
Labor values in a way that we
haven’t always seen of late. I
came away from the debate
with a very clear sense that
this vote (for the membership)
was really about personalities.
The candidates had driven
it that way – in the absence
of substantive differentiation, there was only
personal characteristics upon which to vote.
The question that decided my vote was: if both
candidates are selling the same thing, who has
the style and persona to tear shreds off Abbott
and best connect with the average mug punter?
On this superficial issue, the debate gave me the
substantive insight I needed.
Following the debate, an unexpected thing
happened. Friends and family, not otherwise
“politically active”, starting taking great interest
for. Alas, we have already begun to see the
first blemishes of rust upon this promise that
glistened so brightly only a matter of days ago.
The thing about a promise is that once it has
been broken it cannot be re-forged. We, the rank
and file, have done our bit and taken hold of that
promise with enthusiasm and trust. We hope it
is strong and not another chimera that will be
torn apart by the hard winds of self-interest and
political expedience, thereby leaving many of us
to fall by the wayside. Right now we’re holding on
tight and waiting for these initial
gusts to blow themselves out.
5
A Tough Ask
It can be tough fighting an election campaign at the best of times.
How then, do you keep your local campaign’s momentum going
in a conservative heartland? Labor Candidate Lydia Senior and her
campaign manager Melanie Johnson talk us through their efforts in
the 2013 Federal Election to ‘Make Mallee Marginal’.
Every election, dozens of Labor men and
women volunteer to stand as candidates in
conservative electorates across Australia with
little hope of success. In the 2013 Federal
Election, there were 11 such seats in Victoria.
One of those was the National Party’s heartland
seat of Mallee.
“The thing that really kept me going through
the campaign was the people I met on the
campaign trail,” Labor candidate for Mallee
Lydia Senior said.
“The passion from our volunteers and
supporters really made a difference when
it was all getting a bit too much. We knew
we could not win and the days on average
were 16 hours, seven days per week, but it
helped knowing there are other people who
supported what we were doing.”
Lydia and her Labor team launched their
campaign nearly seven months before Election
Day, expecting to campaign against one or two
candidates. By the time the writs were issued,
a record 12 candidates were contesting the
seat of Mallee.
Lydia with her mobile
campaign billboard.
6
“We started the campaign early as we felt we
needed maximum time available to get ourselves
known across one of the largest electorates in
the country,” Lydia said.
The early start proved to be a good decision
for the Labor campaign. Between June and
September, a further 10 candidates emerged to
vie for the electorate’s attention, including the first
Liberal Party candidate for 21 years.
“In those first few months, there wasn’t much
campaign activity apart from us,” said Lydia.
“Most of my team work full time, so we only really
had evenings and weekends to plan and run the
campaign. We really squeezed as much out of
every spare minute as we could. ”
Over the course of the campaign, Labor’s team
of volunteers created advertisements, sent out
weekly media releases to 47 media outlets, set
up a campaign website, organised regular media
events and put together several tours of the
electorate.
While Lydia did a high volume of media interviews
and the campaign team developed TV and
cinema ads, a major focus of the campaign was
the seven road trip tours of the electorate.
“The road trips were very tiring and hard work but
meeting people face-to-face is definitely the way
to go,” Lydia said.
“It was a huge logistical challenge to arrange
meetings, hotels, venues, marketing materials,
and generate media attention for these trips, all
on a shoe-string budget” Melanie said.
“There was also a lot of work following up with
everyone we met on these trips.”
Campaigning on a pragmatically honest platform
of ‘Make Mallee Marginal’, Lydia’s stated
aim for the campaign was to better address
disadvantage in the region and gain funding by
raising Mallee’s profile in Parliament.
“We focused on issues such as gaps in health
services, agriculture particularly Labor’s National
Food Plan, water and irrigation, the proposed
open cut mines in Stawell, the NBN and
Gonski,” Lydia said.
“Our TV ad used the tag line ‘nothing ever
changes in Mallee’ to highlight the fact that the
National Party had represented Mallee for 80
years with little to show for it,” Melanie added.
“We also invested fairly heavily in Facebook
advertising as this was the cheapest method
of reaching targeted audiences throughout the
region.”
Lydia catching up with
Stawell Ambos.
7
‘Nothing ever changes in Mallee’
A still from the Mallee campaign TV ad.
“But we couldn’t have done half of what we did
without the help of many seriously dedicated Labor
friends,” Lydia said.
This was particularly the case during the official
campaign period. With the support of local branch
members and many other volunteers, Lydia’s team
managed to staff three pre-polling booths for three
weeks and more than 70 of 114 booths on Election
Day.
“Everyone pitched in, including people in their
eighties and people with disabilities who manned
booths and gave out how to vote cards,” said
Melanie.
“We had Lydia Senior 2013 t-shirts printed for
everyone which went down really well and we had
red balloons everywhere.”
When the writs were issued for the official
campaign, Lydia took five weeks unpaid leave from
her job, while Melanie and her partner Steve both
took three weeks leave.
“Once the writs were issued, the workload really
ramped up,” Melanie said.
8
“It really was a full time job. In addition to events,
responding to media enquiries and people via
social media took up quite a bit of time. There was
also a lot of time spent in the car getting to the
campaign events. Often, it seemed there weren’t
enough hours in the day.”
Throughout the campaign, Lydia juggled her
campaign commitments against her role as CEO
of the Lower Murray Medicare Local, a role she
credits with helping galvanise her to stand as
a candidate. Introduced by the Federal Labor
Government, the Medicare Locals work to ensure
primary health care services are effectively
delivered in local communities across Australia.
“From my day job I knew that the Mallee has
become one of the most disadvantaged
communities in the State of Victoria. I see it every
day, but it’s different when you are being invited
into the homes of people who are suffering long
term poverty with no hope of that changing.”
The lack of change, a key theme of the local Labor
campaign, was a major factor in Lydia’s decision
to run. Another was her opinion of Mallee’s then
current representative, longstanding National Party
MP John Forrest.
Election night for Mildura Branch
after a big day on the booths.
“I’ve always been interested in politics and I
started to think about running after continual
disappointment in our local member,” she said.
“In my work role I frequently need to get support
from the local member for funding submissions and
the like, but I found this relationship to be absolutely
woeful.”
John Forrest had been the Federal Member for
Mallee for 21 years, and two weeks after Lydia’s
team began publicising her candidacy,
he announced he would retire. This led to a
fierce contest between the National Party and
Liberal Party over the seat, with both parties
investing heavily in their local campaigns.
“In the end, there were 12 candidates for Mallee,
and we were all fighting for our share of media
coverage. I challenged all of them to a series of
public community debates and four were held
across the region,” Lydia said.
As expected, Labor didn’t win in Mallee, but Lydia
and Melanie were happy with the result
and would do it all again, if the opportunity
presented itself.
“Our team can be proud of the job we did,”
Lydia said.
“For me personally, it was a great experience. I now
have 800 new friends that I did not have before
and I continue to enjoy our many conversations
and online debates.”
TIPS FOR BECOMING
A CANDIDATE
S
tart saving money now for a
personal campaign fund: It’s not
just for campaigning, it will help with
travel and accommodation expenses
and you might find you need to take
unpaid leave during the campaign.
 Get yourself fit and active
beforehand: There’s a lot of
unhealthy food on the campaign
trail, long hours and not a lot of
opportunity for exercise.
R
esearch your electorate thoroughly
and have a detailed plan.
S
tart early and enlist as much help
as you can.
9
He’s off and
running...
Liberals have just been an embarrassment
on the world stage.
”
“Deporting pregnant
women and
unaccompanied children to
offshore detention. What a
disgusting lack of a moral
compass from our PM.”
“Labor will oppose the Abbott
Government’s plan to raise taxes
for 3.6 million low paid workers.”
“Sinodinos: ‘We need cuts across the
“When it comes to climate change, the
“The Coalition
board which reflect our priorities.’
The priority of giving a tax cut to 16K
people with $2mill in super?”
“No Science Minister, no
have run our
relationship with
Indonesia into
the ground.”
effective action on climate
change and now 1/4 of
CSIRO scientists cut.
“With release of the updated
NBN maps the Abbott
Government is creating an
Australia of digital haves and
have-nots.”
”
“In May 2012, Abbott and Hockey attacked Labor
for raising the debt ceiling by $50 billion.
Today they raise it by $200b.”
Want to do something
about it? thisislabor.org
politics around it - why moderate reforms to
even get us headed in the right direction on
what is such an important issue are so difficult
to implement,” Owen said.
“Academics I worked with were always
complaining about it, so I decided I’d show
those grumps by getting more involved in
actually changing something. Mixed results so
far, I’ll get back to them in a few years.”
Owen Wrangle (left) and Kevin Rudd with
supporters on the campaign trail.
Local volunteers making phone calls to voters.
“It sounds glib, but it was great to feel that you’re
on the front line of a battle of ideas being played
out in your electorate,” he said.
“Corangamite was the most marginal seat in the
country, so speaking to swinging voters in that
seat could have been incredibly important.
“As the Field Officer (FO), you’re the person
marshalling the resources available to do that.
When the office was really humming - full of
people making calls to swinging voters, and
you’d listen to how good your volunteers got at
having vote-swinging conversations as you saw
the phone call/doorknock totals rack up - it was
a good feeling.”
12
“For every voter that was angry or completely
disinterested there was a voter up for grabs,”
Owen said.
“Basic things like reminding voters that Labor
stands for workers’ rights and fair pay, or telling
younger voters
about funding
universities and
the NBN were
surprisingly
effective.”
There’s no better
place than the Field
The Corangamite campaign team.
Campaigning in the most marginal
electorate in Australia was never going
to be easy, but that’s exactly what
Labor Field Officer Owen Wrangle
enjoyed about working on
the Corangamite campaign.
Over the course of the campaign, the
Corangamite Labor team had thousands of oneto-one conversations with local voters and the
results were often quite positive.
Owen’s role was to manage all direct voter
contact activity related to the local campaign.
This included finding, training, motivating, and
managing volunteers to get the most out of
community support for Labor.
Owen has previously volunteered on Victorian
by-elections and council elections, as well as the
2010 Federal Campaign in the Northern Territory,
but found his work on the Corangamite campaign
to be a little different to his previous roles.
“So many people out there are just like I was
when I joined the party, in that they feel strongly
about certain issues but they’ve never been
asked to do anything about it and don’t know
how or where to start. It’s the job of an FO to
make that ask and provide the outlet for those
latent activists.”
“Getting comfortable putting the ask on people to
help you takes some time,” he said.
Originally from Darwin, Owen worked in a variety
of industries including retail banking, insurance
underwriting and environmental research before
moving to Melbourne and beginning an Arts/
Commerce degree at Deakin University in
Burwood.
His involvement in environmental research
ultimately led to him joining Labor.
“Working in an environmental research school I
became interested in climate change and the
“Accommodating and training different
volunteers, and overcoming objections they
might raise are all things that make the job a bit
challenging, but it was always enjoyable even on
the bad days.”
The main focus of the 2013 campaign was oneto-one conversations with swinging voters, either
via phone or face-to-face. Although effective,
developing the initial skills to make these calls
was a challenge for some.
“Oddly enough the same character traits that may
lead to a volunteer to stop making calls are the
character traits that can make that volunteer’s
conversations more effective,” Owen said.
Despite their efforts,
Labor didn’t retain
Corangamite on
Election Day but
Owen was still
able to see the
positives in the local
campaign.
“Obviously the result was very disappointing,
and when you don’t win you can only really
take solace in the little things. The seat of
Corangamite was the most marginal in the
country and we did manage to beat the statewide swing. That’s something I’d like to attribute
at least in part to the local campaign,” he said.
“For all disappointment, we did manage to
tap into an activist base outside of traditional
channels (branches, unions, students) and
mobilise people to deliver an enormous amount
to the campaign.”
“Some of the feedback on election day made
you feel it was worthwhile as well. One booth
volunteer later in the day reported that she heard
from a voter who hadn’t made her mind up on
the morning and had received a call from us just
as she went to open the morning paper, which
swung her vote,” Owen said.
“Another voter remarked that we’d contacted and had
a conversation with everyone in her share house - ‘I
really feel like I know the Labor
party now’ - that’s great.”
13
People Power in Isaacs
Isaacs Campaign Manager Tim Richardson shares with us how important
Labor supporters were to the local campaign during the Federal Election
and the role he believes they will play in Labor’s future.
The federal election result was difficult for
everyone. For many months there was a sense of
inevitability in the result. As we all come to terms
with Liberal/National Coalition Governments
nationally and in Victoria, you could forgive the
pessimists amongst us.
From the deep disappointment comes renewed
hope and reason for optimism. We can be
hopeful about the immediate future, particularly
here in Victoria. The recent federal Labor Party
leadership contest rejuvenated our membership,
with many supporters taking the next step
and becoming Labor members. The federal
election campaign also inspired people to get
involved in our Party. The Isaacs campaign,
along with other Victorian campaigns, embraced
community organising and direct communication
with electors. This undoubtedly assists in the
democratisation of the Labor Party and saw a
significant increase in the involvement of our
supporters.
Rather than centralising campaign functions
and mulling over a series of
cringeworthy slogans, we
14
went back to our strengths – our people. Our
campaign brought in Labor members and
supporters to undertake various campaign
activities, while asking them to draw on their
Labor values and experiences in one-to-one
conversations with their neighbours and the
wider community.
The skills of our supporters have not been
used to full effect since the period before direct
mail was introduced in the 1980s. In 2013
campaigning has done a full circle and returned
to one-to-one conversations, where we discuss
a person’s most important issues. It sounds
simple and it is.
The Isaacs campaign would go on to support
the grassroots campaign style of Mark Dreyfus
QC MP and make thousands of calls, knock on
thousands of doors and bring in hundreds of new
supporters to the Labor Party. By opening up the
Isaacs campaign, we opened up the Labor Party
and all the values that underpin it. We are now
reaping the rewards.
Our people are our greatest strength
To quote one of Billy Joel’s hit songs “We didn’t
start the fire.” There are many people in our
community that support the work of the Labor
Party. They might have been outraged by the
ousting of Gough Whitlam, or jolted by the
savage cuts of the Kennett Government, or
inspired by Labor’s action on climate change,
but never taken that next step of becoming
an activist.
on the phoning and doorknocking. She was not
able to get to the train stations in the early hours
and could not do letterboxing.
After exhausting what seemed to be all options,
she stopped me and said… “There is one thing I
can do… I can bake!” Margaret went on to make
these tremendous cakes that were individually
wrapped for our volunteers in the campaign
office. It was a real hit, boosting morale and the
overall atmosphere amongst volunteers.
There were many Isaacs volunteers that
pointed to these milestones as watershed
moments in their support of Labor, but had
not got involved in a local campaign. Our
community organising approach during
the Isaacs campaign provided a perfect
avenue for their passion and enthusiasm.
Whether it was knocking on a door,
making a call or standing on a street and
having a conversation, the priorities of the
campaign changed.
There are three key volunteer stories that
stand out for me:
David’s story
David is a retired boilermaker and has lived
Labor’s Pony Express. Letterboxing in Isaacs.
in the community for many years. On a
Saturday afternoon he was out walking his
Nicky’s story
dog when he bumped into one of our volunteers.
After confronting the volunteer and asking, “what
Nicky’s story is one I tell regularly and featured in
he was flogging on people’s doorsteps”, David
The Age newspaper online. She has lived in the
got involved in the campaign and became one
south east of Melbourne for over 20 years and
of our key volunteers, engaging with hundreds
has always believed in Labor values. Nicky is a
of locals.
community health worker and a member of the
local school board.
Margaret’s story
She got involved after receiving a call that asked
Margaret is a key example of valuing the
her what her most important issue was locally.
contributions of all supporters and remembering
It was the first time Nicky had got involved in a
they come in many forms. Margaret was not keen
community campaign and she was hesitant at
the beginning.
Nicky described her volunteer experience as
“really taking me out of my comfort zone and
I’ve been amazed that not many people have
told me to go away.” She is now looking forward
to getting involved in the state election campaign
in 2014.
Election night in Isaacs.
15
The
Silver Lining
STRANGER MOMENTS
IN THE FIELD CAMPAIGN
No campaign would be complete without a
few stories that become larger than life over
time. Here are three of Tim’s standouts from
the Isaacs campaign.
1. Phone calls in a flood
Surely there is consensus amongst
campaigners and volunteers that winter
campaigns should be legislated against
for the future. One very cold winter night in
Edithvale, there was a significant downpour
and volunteers were amazed when a
waterfall started coming down the walls of
the campaign office. Calls were put to one
side as brooms and tea-towels were the
order of the night.
2. The sneaky Liberal
Opening up the campaign to our members
and supporters created some community
interest. In Isaacs the interest was so
significant that a Liberal volunteer tried to
get involved in the community organising.
Suffice to say he was frog-marched out of
the campaign office as quickly as he tried
to come into the place.
3. Not everyone’s a fan after dark
One lonely night the Isaacs campaign team
was hauled up in the electorate office with a
last minute mail job. We have all been there
for the campaign allnighter and on this
occasion an irate guest joined us.
The individual was clearly not okay and
tried to break his way into the electorate
office, acting aggressively and attempting
to break windows. It was lucky we had
the office doors closed and the office is
reasonably secure. After more than 40
minutes, the police finally arrived and the
individual took off. Everyone was a little
nervous exiting the office later on in the
early hours of the morning.
16
These are just a few examples of the
benefits of opening the campaign up to
the community. There is no secret society
or a silver bullet to community organising.
It requires supporters drawing on their
own experiences and Labor values during
conversations with the community.
What does it mean for the future?
The Federal Election Campaign has given
Labor members and supporters an avenue to
contribute to their communities. Many of the
supporters that generously gave their time to
the Isaacs Campaign have been activated
and are looking forward to getting involved in
the state election campaign.
Community organising provides an added
benefit to the actions members and
supporters can take locally. It does not
circumvent the local Labor Party branches,
but gives them an avenue for their passion
and energy.
Campaigns like the one in Isaacs prove
that we can back our members and
supporters to make a difference, share
their values and demonstrate why Labor is
the best option. It is also cost effective and
when facing an incumbent government with
significant resources, it will be a strong option
going forward.
Election night was a disappointing night for Labor supporters across Australia.
But Victorian Federal Campaign Co-ordinator Stephen Donnelly believes there
are some consolations, particularly in Victoria.
There was one bright spot for Labor amongst
the dark clouds of September this year. Whilst
the outcome on election night was not what we
all hoped for, the 2013 Federal Election saw
a significant shift in the way campaigns were
conducted by the Labor Party, particularly here
in Victoria.
Political campaigns are essentially about
communicating a message to a target audience
of voters over a sustained period of time with the
ultimate aim of convincing them to vote for your
party or candidate.
How this is achieved, has changed dramatically
over the generations, evolving away from the
face-to-face campaigning and supporter rallies
that were characteristic of early Australian political
discourse.
One of the single biggest changes to political
communication occurred with the introduction of
television. Since its introduction in the 1960s, this
medium has become a central focus of message
delivery for political campaigns.
Without wanting to provide a history lesson on
campaigns, let’s consider the television debate
between Nixon and Kennedy in the 1962
presidential election. It’s the view of both sides of
politics that Nixon won the substantive debate,
but Kennedy looked the more youthful, attractive
candidate as Nixon sweated under the heat of
the studio lights. Naturally, voters chose Kennedy
at the poll.
This demonstrated a clear shift in the dynamic of
political communication that remains to this day
and emphasised just how powerful a medium
television could be for a political
campaign.
17
However, Victorian Labor sought
a slightly alternative path than
our interstate colleagues in our
preparations for the federal
campaign.
Through the 80s and 90s, political
campaigners in most liberal
democracies sub-contracted the
work of communicating a message
to media advisors, direct mail houses
and advertising agencies – a task that
made political campaigns even more
expensive.
In addition, this shift also cemented
the move away from activist focused
Stephen Donnelly in a ‘thisislabor’ youtube video.
campaigning. For political parties like
Labor with a longstanding activist
media leading to more diverse ways in which the
tradition, it meant volunteers became almost
community obtained their news and opinions.
redundant, relegating them to perform task like
Pre-internet, most voters would form their opinion
letter box drops and handing out how-to-votes
on the basis of what they read in the paper, saw
on Pre-poll and Election Day.
on the television or heard on the radio. Now,
thanks to the internet and PayTV, voters gather
However, three events in the last six years have
information from a wider collection of sources
led to yet another significant evolution in the way
across a number of different platforms. These
political campaigns are run.
platforms have also diluted the power of
The first was the 2007 Federal Election. That
Free-to-Air television.
ballot was the first time in a generation that
The third event was perhaps the most significant
larger numbers of activists engaged in a political
shift in campaigning. That was the re-election
campaign when the ACTU ran their highly
of President Obama. In 2008, his democratic
successful Your Rights at Work campaign. Your
primary and presidential campaign brought
Rights at Work managed to put the Howard
together online campaigning with grassroots
government on the back foot over the issues of
community organising, which laid the foundation
workplace rights while simultaneously galvanising
for what would happen next.
thousands of workers to have personal
conversations with their workmates asking them
In 2012 Mitt Romney was ahead in the polls
to consider changing their vote.
and had raised a substantial amount of money.
However, Obama out-organised the Republicans
The second event was the explosion of social
in the key battleground states. Whilst
less people voted
for Obama in 2012
than they did in 2008,
he secured more
votes in the states
he contested than he
did in 2008. It was
a result that made
political strategists all
over the world sit up
and take notice.
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Face-to-face contact is the most effective campaigning
tool for Labor.
These three events bring us to where we were
prior to the 2013 Federal Election campaign.
Political campaigns are have become an
expensive business in this country. Mailouts are
expensive, television advertising is expensive.
The nature of this means that progressive politics
cannot match our conservative opponents dollar
for dollar and thus, we must find ways to be far
more effective in the use of resources that are
available to us; time, people and money.
In the 2010 state and federal elections,
we began to see a shift in the manner
in which we campaign and how we
seek to communicate our message
with the public.
Phonebanking – that is making calls to
voters in target seats – began in earnest,
yet with mixed results. Leaving aside
the impact it had, what it did see was
the return of party activists to playing an
important role in the campaign. The more
volunteers that took part in a phonebank
exercise, the more calls could be made
to targeted voters.
Our strategy was to take
everything we learned from
the 2007 Your Rights at Work
campaign and the community
organising tactics that Organising
for America, US labor unions and
many Australian trade unions
have developed, and let that be
the basis of
how we approached the
federal election.
The aim of Victorian Labor’s federal campaign
strategy was to cut through all the noise of
an increasingly hostile mainstream media to
persuade undecided voters in target seats with
personal one-on-one conversations.
We would do this by organising thousands of
progressive activists using the neighbourhood
team model into a network of dedicated, welltrained activists who would have a personal
conversation with voters in their own local areas
and convince them to vote Labor.
Labor activists outside the MCG.
In the lead up to the 2013 election, all state
branches of the party continued to expand
upon the use of phonebanks and doorknocking
exercises using our base to participate in direct
voter contact.
This campaign began three months out from
Election Day. Victorian Branch employed a team
of community field organisers to go into target
seats and begin to identify, recruit, train and
empower local activists to take ownership of
the campaign.
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Instead of placing all of our campaign eggs in the
one basket – the direct mail – media advisor –
television advertising basket - we went back to
our roots and re-engaged with Labor supporters
and ask them to have conversations with friends,
family, neighbours and strangers about what is at
stake at the 2013 Federal Election.
We turned the campaign hierarchy structure
upside down. Instead of the campaign manager
or candidate being the most important resource
in the campaign, it was our hard-working
volunteers that would
become the central
focus of our efforts to
communicate our important
message to voters.
did what the cynics said we could never achieve;
that this type of campaigning only works in the
United States; that volunteers don’t want to talk
to strangers; that community organising wouldn’t
work in an electoral capacity.
The end result was that Labor only lost three held
seats in Victoria. Polling prior to our campaign
suggested it could have been worse. That’s
small comfort as we watch Tony Abbott take the
axe to so many Labor government initiatives and
achievements.
The direct impact of this community organising
means that Anna Burke and Rob Mitchell are still
in parliament today.
Both candidates were facing defeat at the hands
of Liberal opponents who were outspending
Labor seven-to-one. Yet it was these campaigns
that focused its highly motivated and enthusiastic
volunteers to make thousands upon thousands
of phone calls and knock on thousands of doors
in the final weeks of the campaign. Both Anna
and Rob won by slim margins.
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Over the course of the
campaign, the Victorian Branch
Sam
Schneidman
What was your role in the Victorian
Federal Campaign?
I was the Field Coordinator in the 2013 Federal
Election, which meant that I worked with the
Training, Data and Digital coordinators and
Assistant Secretary to devise a grassroots
organising approach for Victorian Labor’s federal
campaigns. Day-to-day, I was responsible for
making sure that our grassroots organising
approach was being effectively executed. Over
the long term, I had to make sure that we had a
plan to achieve strategic objectives.
We did this to great effect.
In just three months, the
Victorian campaign built a
community organisation,
that grew and grew,
week after week. To give
you some idea of what
that growth means, the
Victorian campaign in
the final 22 days of the
campaign made more
phone calls to voters than our NSW counterparts.
A not insignificant achievement given they were
campaigning in six more seats than us. We
knocked on more doors than any other state
and empowered more volunteers than any other
state.
Q&A
Where are you from?
But we now have a corps of community activists
across metro and regional Victoria with campaign
experience. Men and women who believe in what
Labor stands for and are ready to shout it from
the rooftops if they need to.
This group of people was brought together in
just three months. Next year, we have a State
Election in November and in years to come
another Federal Election. There’s a lot we can
build in that time.
Having seen how infectious our Labor activists’
passion and enthusiasm can be on the people
around them means I feel just a little bit better
about the September loss.
Because I know this new style of campaigning
was never a trial. It is just the beginning.
I was born in Washington DC, and grew up
in nearby Alexandria, Virginia. This proximity to
America’s capital always inspired and interested
me in our government and how it impacts
people’s lives. Over time, this interest led me
to explore our political process, and eventually,
I learned how to be a political organiser – the
process of empowering people to take action on
a specific cause or issue.
How have you been involved in
US campaigns?
Each campaign that I’ve been a part of has a few
core characteristics in common: they are people
powered, community focused, data driven
and metrics based. What makes grassroots
organising so powerful is that it is the practice of
politics in the highest sense of the word; it’s all
about establishing connections with people and
asking them to take action in their communities.
To understand
how someone
can have the
biggest positive
effect possible on
their community, it is important to base everything
we do on sound data and to execute activities in
a way that is measurable. It’s this combination of
the visceral practice of politics with the objective
eye of management that has been the common
theme to all of my campaign experiences and
is something we brought to Victoria in the 2013
Federal Election.
What brought you to Australia?
When I told my friends and family back home
that I was moving to Australia, people’s reactions
spanned a range of emotions: from bemused
(not many people knew moving to Australia was
something I was considering) to “you’re crazy!”.
I got the initial phone call about an opportunity
in Australia and was on a plane within a seven
-day period! Ultimately, I was attracted by the
opportunity to come to Australia to try something
that hadn’t been done before. I have a strong
belief in grassroots organising and the difference
it can make in peoples’ lives, and coming to
Australia offered me the chance to pursue
something that I really care about. I consider
myself lucky in life because I get to do what I
love for a living. As someone who has worked
every miserable odd job you can imagine, that is
something that is too good to pass up, no matter
how far away that opportunity may be.
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What are some of the similarities you’ve
noticed between US and AUS?
You know, when we started to implement our
grassroots organising approach in the 2013
Federal election, a lot of people said it wouldn’t
work, for a variety of reasons. This skepticism
was totally understandable – after all, we were
doing something on a scale and with tools
that had never been attempted before in an
Australian campaign. I had also never been part
of a campaign that tried to implement such a
comprehensive grassroots organising approach
with such a short
timeline. But as
our campaign got
underway and
built impressive
momentum in the
weeks preceding
the election, our
team at Head Office
began to realise
something powerful.
As it had for us in
similar contexts in the US, Party members and
non-member supporters gravitated to a more
transparent approach to campaigning that asked
them to take ownership of the campaign in their
communities. This eventually provided the basis
for many deep personal relationships between
volunteers and Field Organisers. So, I would
say that the ability of grassroots organising to
empower people and generate sustainable
activism is a key similarity I noticed between my
experiences in the US and in Victoria.
What are some of the key differences you’ve
noticed between US and AUS campaigning?
The most obvious difference between the way
campaigns are run in the US and Oz is the lack
of a need for a large-scale get-out-the-vote
operation in Australia. Because voting is not
compulsory in America, a large focus of our
efforts is spent educating voters on when and
where they can vote, in addition to talking to
them about their values and the
issues they consider important.
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Another key difference between American and
Australian elections is their length. Campaigns
in America tend to run for quite a long period of
time – the standard presidential campaign now
runs for at least eighteen months! That being
said, I thought that what Vic Labor achieved
in four short months during the 2013 Federal
election is truly unprecedented.
How did this compare to your work in
the US?
The organising principals and many of the tactics
we employed in the 2013 Federal election were
similar to what I had
done in my previous
organising experiences in
the US. For example, our
approach to grassroots
organising in Victoria was
predicated on sharing
our personal stories with
fellow voters – “these
are the issues that are
important to me and this
is why I’m involved” –
and talking about the issues that matter to people
and what they want to see accomplished in
their communities. The most obvious difference
between our organising experience in Victoria
and what I’ve done previously in the US is that
because of compulsory voting, we did not have
a large focus on getting-out-the-vote the way we
do in America. Instead, the preponderance of our
organising energy in Victoria was spent trying to
persuade people why they should vote for Labor,
rather than persuading voters and then turning
them out to vote, as is the case in America.
is their desire to feel empowered and free to do
things for themselves. Ultimately, it is important
to me that government provides people with
equitable access to economic opportunity and
maximum protection of freedom of speech. I’m
not ideologically driven or motivated by a single
issue the way a lot of politically active people are.
At this point in my life, I’m more concerned with
using the skills I have to leave the world a better
place in a measurable way.
How did you find working with local
volunteers?
As I mentioned, one of my favorite things about
my experience as a political organiser is the
different type of communities it has exposed
me to. My time in Australia has reaffirmed my
belief that equipping people with the skills they
need to take action on the values or issues they
consider important is a powerful and effective
way to get things done. It doesn’t matter where
Finally, how do you think Victorian Labor will
do in 2014?
The 2014 State Election will be exciting because
it will be so close. The party that wins will be the
one that out-organises and out-smarts the other.
Because of the activist base we built in 2013 and
the organisational structure that we’re already
building for 2014, Labor supporters should be
sanguine about their chances to win back State
Government. Ultimately it will be up to Labor
supporters to get and stay active for the entire
campaign to secure a victory next November.
Every little bit makes a
difference
A guy by the name of Anthony came in to the
Corangamite Campaign office one day. Anthony
was a long-time Labor supporter who worked
part-time as a forklift driver and was on a part
disability pension. He was angry that the Coalition
was going to axe the Schoolkids bonus, and
was determined that we wouldn’t have an Abbott
government.
After running through some voter contact training,
it became clear he didn’t quite feel up to picking
up the phone and talking to voters. Although he
wanted to do his part, he didn’t fancy leafleting
either. Finally he said “Look, I think I’ll just stick to
getting around with my sign”.
Are there any particular issues that are
personally important to you?
My politics are guided by my values, which I think
a lot of people of all political persuasions share.
One of my most treasured experiences as a
political organiser is that it has taken me to nearly
every type of community in America – from innercity Philadelphia and Las Vegas, to the Alaskan
frontier and Iowan farmland. At each of these
stops, I’ve noticed that what ties people together
it takes place, grassroots organising can always
be a powerful basis on which close personal
relationships are formed. The most important
thing for us to get right in 2013 was to implement
our grassroots organising approach in a way
that was respectful of long-standing campaign
traditions and long-time party activists.
Anthony on duty.
Photo source: www.nofibs.com.au
For the last two weeks of the election and on
election day, whenever he had spare time he
would stand outside the Liberal candidate’s office
with a sign saying “Tony Abbott is a Tool”. He
also stood at the busiest booth on election day.
Anthony became a bit of a cult figure on social
media but had no idea he’d
been getting so much publicity.
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Office: 438 Docklands Drive, Docklands VIC 3008
 Mail: Locked Bag 3240, Melbourne VIC 3001
 P: 9933 8500 F: 9933 8560
 Freecall (Country Callers): 1800 638 003
 E: [email protected] www.viclabor.com.au
VictorianLabor
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@VictorianLabor
Authorised by N Carroll, 438 Docklands Drive, Docklands.