Definitely no democracy in Victorian Labor

Further to my last post on the Victorian Legislative Council. The position has no been clarified (?) in the words of the Socialist Left faction newsletter:

At its meeting last night, Monday 20th February, it was reported to the Socialist Left Executive that the ALP National Executive Committee is likely to open nominations this Wednesday for ALP candidates for the Victorian Legislative Council, with the intention of pre-selecting candidates at the National Executive meeting to be held on Friday 3rd March. The pre-selection of ALP Legislative Council candidates was referred to the National Executive by the Victorian Administrative Committee at its meeting of 27th January, in a decision opposed by SL members of the Committee, following the intervention of the Premier.

So no ballot, so much for idea of involving giving rank and file Labor members outside Labor seats an opportunity to select a Labor MP. The people who pushed through this decision did not have the courage to argue for it at the last ALP state conference. The role of Labor Senators is generally to act as factional leaders and providers of resources to election campaigns rather than constituency representatives, hence the tendency of Labor senators to cluster in the inner-city, see Peter van Onselen here. The question for the new Labor MLCs will be whether they will follow this role or take a constituency focus, particularly in non-Labor areas. The denial of a local pre-selection vote suggests the former, so much for building Labor support outside the inner-city and old migrant suburbs.