By Callum Godde, Andrew Brown and Jacob Shteyman
Labor’s faceless men are back and they’re stifling important debate around issues such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, a rebel government MP says.
Factional leaders blocked public discussion about the party’s position on Israeli actions, including a reference to “genocide” against Palestinians, on the conference floor during a three-day meeting in Adelaide that closed on Saturday.
The only debate thrashed out in the open at Labor’s national conference was on expanding voluntary assisted dying to telehealth appointments, with all other changes passed unopposed.
Ed Husic was a lone voice of dissent at the traditionally febrile conference, with his attempt to put forward a motion on Israel and Palestine smothered by factional heavyweights.
Mr Husic, who was demoted from the frontbench in 2025, said he was disappointed that unnamed members of the party had personally attacked him for showing dissent.
As a Bosnian Muslim whose people had experienced genocide in the recent past, it was only fair that he be able to express his views, Mr Husic said.
“I’m about putting forward ideas,” he told ABC Radio National on Monday.
“The faceless men are back, and the faceless critics carp.”
Labor insiders believe the party’s unity acts as a bulwark against the relative chaos of its Liberal, National and One Nation rivals, but Mr Husic’s comments dug up the skeletons of Labor’s past.
The party’s opponents have derided it for being controlled by “faceless men” – backroom factional operatives pulling the strings of the parliamentary party – since the 1960s.
The Rudd-Gillard era of disunity has likely influenced Labor’s approach to prioritise unity over potentially fractious public debate, said prominent Labor historian Frank Bongiorno.
“This is a government and a party that is still very wounded really by its last time in office between 2007 and 2013, when there was a collapse of unity,” the University of Canberra academic told AAP.
Professor Bongiorno said the party had more frequent robust conference debates in 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, including on privatisation.
The policy adopted by Labor delegates noted the party’s opposition to Israeli annexation of Palestinian territories and called for illegal settlement activity to end.
Mr Husic, who was Australia’s first minister of Muslim faith, denied his dissent on issues such as Palestine was driven by grievance at having been dumped from the cabinet following the 2025 election.
“The reason why is because I’m a member of a great party that has existed for so many years, and has existed because when we signed our membership cards, we didn’t sign up for the status quo,” he said.
“We signed up for change. Sometimes those discussions are difficult to have, but they’re important ones to be able to move us forward.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who originates from the party’s left faction, on Sunday defended Labor limiting debate, declaring the meeting the “most transparent political conference in Australia by far”.
“The party has changed and one of the things that’s happened in the party is we are more cohesive, more united than we’ve ever been before,” he said.
Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonathon Duniam said the prime minister ruled his party with an “iron fist” and any dissent at the conference was quickly shut down.
News all day, every day at CityNewsQBN.com.au.
Leave a Reply