ALP conference runs off script

Labor's stage-managed conference ended its third and final day running off script
with protests inside and outside the venue at Sydney's Darling Harbour.
After a long pause on Saturday morning to honour former prime minister Bob Hawke
with a national ALP life membership, the climate change debate got underway with
minister Penny Wong forced to shout over audience reaction to a protest by a dozen
people on the conference floor.
With masking tape over their mouths, the protesters faced conference delegates
holding signs which read "silenced by the coal industry", and "no green jobs in
coal".
Outside the venue, an estimated 1,500 demonstrators staged a mass wedding of
same-sex couples to protest the ban on same-sex civil unions, as part of a national
protest in state capital cities.
Despite the huge numbers, the government has made it clear it will not legalise
same-sex civil unions.
But before either protest had made their presence felt, the 45th ALP national
conference paid enthusiastic tribute to Mr Hawke, granting him only the third
national ALP life membership after Gough and Margaret Whitlam were similarly
honoured at the 2007 conference.
In a lengthy and at times emotional speech, Mr Hawke heaped praise on the Rudd
government, saying it had placed Australia in one of the best positions economically
in the world.
"No incoming government has been confronted with more daunting challenges and
difficulties, none," Mr Hawke said.
"You have been confronted with the twin challenges on the one hand of a global
financial crisis and recession and the intrinsic challenges of climate change."
Mr Hawke, prime minister for more than eight years and who spent a decade leading
the trade union movement as ACTU president, said he thanked "literally millions of
people" who had stood behind him over the years.
"The labour movement and the ALP have been an enduring love of my life," Mr Hawke
told the appreciative audience.
"I love it, I'm proud of it and I thank you for the honour you've done me."
Presenting the life membership, Mr Rudd said Mr Hawke was loved by the party and the
labour movement.
"I believe you are loved by the nation, we salute you, Bob Hawke, great achiever,
great moderniser, great unifier," Mr Rudd said.
Shortly after the proceedings, national ALP president Michael Williams cheekily
suggested Mr Hawke's obvious continuing popularity could make the "star" candidate
Labor is reportedly looking for in Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull's inner
eastern Sydney seat of Wentworth.
Aside from Saturday's protests, the conference has largely seen three days of
tightly-scripted debate virtually devoid of passion, or vocal opposition from
within.
Mr Rudd used his opening speech to call on the party faithful to work towards Labor
becoming a long-term reformist national government for the future, noting that of
the 108 years of federation Labor had held government for only 35 of them.
ALP organisers deliberately kept proceedings low-key in order to show Labor was
getting on with work on the global financial crisis at its first national conference
in government since 1994.
The only other areas of potential conflict resulted in a noisy demonstration of up
to a dozen unions in an adjacent auditorium on Friday where they called for the
abolition of coercive powers in the building industry.
They succeeded in getting the conference to pass a resolution against the
"continuing" existence of the coercive powers and calling on the government to
ensure their use does not impinge on workers' civil rights.
The next Labor Party conference will be in 2011.