In 2009, I argued in a significant article in The Age that there was a “Race for Labor’s Soul” between a ‘politically correct’ or ‘woke’ Anglo elite that wanted to purge the Labor Party of its ethnic members, and those who believed that Labor should reflect in its membership Australia’s multicultural mix.

After decades of tension between these two forces the ‘woke’ Anglo elite have won that race. They have taken over Labor’s soul. The non-English speaking ethnic branches that have been a feature of the Labor Party for 50 years are no more.

Non-English-speaking branches were introduced into the Labor Party during the period of the Whitlam Government to increase participation by non-English speaking communities in the Australian Political system. Greek Speaking branches were amongst the first and were successful in supporting Greek background members into Parliament beginning with Theo Sidiropoulos.

But with a recent restructure that was introduced following the Nine News program, 60 Minutes revelations regarding Adem Somyurek and others, these branches have been effectively closed down. In no way do I wish to defend the actions of Somyurek. It was necessary to respond to the revelations in the Age and 60 minutes. But the changes introduced by Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin have gone way too far.

Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin have with the stroke of a pen, destroyed the multicultural base of the Labor Party with their recommendations. They have handed the party to the politically correct largely Anglo elite and to powerful unions with their changes to party rules.

The Bracks/Macklin changes have resulted in four main outcomes:

1. The effective elimination of all of the ALP’s ethnic branches thereby ending diverse non-English speaking political dialogue within the Party.

2. The elimination of any possibility for emerging communities to organise, participate and recruit a critical mass of members through new non-English-speaking branches to gain leverage and get political representation in parliament.

3. The entrenchment of a small number of established ethnic groups that were able to renew enough of their members to remain a force – although at a diminished level.

4. A rise in the power of the unions affiliated to the Labor Party such that new up and comers wanting to contribute in Parliament should go work for a union or be attached at the waste to a powerful union secretary.

How did this backward slide to a pre-multicultural ALP happen?

The most important structural reform proposed by Bracks and Macklin was to establish only one legitimate branch for every state seat. It’s only in these branches that new members can be recruited and it’s here that important motions are moved. The area covered by these single branches sometimes had 3 or 4 branches from divergent ethnicities. All the members who were previously in these separate ethnic branches were allocated to the new much larger single branch in each electorate.

In my experience most remaining non-English-speaking ALP members do not attend these new branches. Many have poor English and do not feel comfortable within a dominant English-speaking cultural environment. In a practical sense these new super-branches are run by Anglo background members with a smattering of people of ethnic background from established communities who speak good English.

What has happened is an affront to the history and traditions of Labor and will have long term consequences. Excluded migrant groups always looked to the ALP for representation, beginning with the Irish, Jews, Italians, Greeks, then Lebanese, Turks, Vietnamese and Cambodians. With the new changes the ALP cannot offer hope to new emerging migrant groups.

To purge the ALP of its ethnic base and eliminate ethnic branches is to deny Labor’s historic mission in representing the disadvantaged and the excluded. It will affect social cohesion as emerging communities increasingly feel alienated and are denied a road to representation in the only mainstream political party that has welcomed them in the past.

Despite Bracks and Macklin arguing that their changes would increase Party membership, in the first renewal year after they were introduced Labor lost more than 4000 mostly ethnic background members. Since then, there have been steady declines.

The increase in union power is also evident. When Senator Linda White died in February 2024, three unionists vied for her position. Ultimately, Australian Services Union public sector branch secretary Lisa Darmanin was anointed by the union dominated National Executive. It led to some in the party claiming that the Senate had become a “dumping ground” for union officials seeking a sinecure. Despite declining union membership, now below 12% of workers, more than 50 per cent of ALP senators are former unionists.

In response to the Bracks/Macklin changes, some in the party have sought to establish a Multicultural Labor Group to promote greater diversity through quotas or affirmative action. This will fail.

ALP members of ethnic background learned the hard way from countless unfulfilled promises that the road to gaining representation was only one – organise, become a force, leverage your power. Quotas will also fail because of the difficulty in establishing what individual ethnic groups are proportionately entitled to. Even if some voluntary targets were established, they would still be filled by union nominated ethnic candidates.

Labor will not find its way until it finds a way for people of ethnic background to again participate in the party.

Re-establishing non-English-speaking branches capable of processing new members and allowing online membership with full voting rights within 12 months whether or not the new member has attended a branch meeting would restart the ALP multicultural broad-based membership journey. This can be done within verifiable traceable membership payment rules if the concern is that members are not paying their own membership.

One thing is certain, many party members are affronted by the ongoing lip service to multiculturalism by the new politically correct elite that now run the branches, while at the same time the party travels headlong down the road of eliminating its multicultural membership base.

Theo Theophanous is a Former Victorian Labor minister, commentator, and President of the Cyprus Community of Melbourne and Victoria