The Australian Labor Party National Conference is an internal body of the Australian Labor Party, one of the major political parties in Australia. It is the highest representative body of the party's state and territory branches. The National Conference takes place triennially, the most recent being the 47th conference held at the Melbourne Convention Centre from 24 to 26 July 2015, and which was attended by 397 party delegates. The previous Conference was the 2011 National Conference held on 3 December 2011.
Contents
The National Conference determines party policy, called the National Platform, which is executed by the National Executive. Conference does not elect the party's parliamentary leaders, which since 2013 has done by a ballot of both the Parliamentary Caucus and by the Labor Party's rank-and-file members; and the national president and vice-presidents are elected by a vote of party members. On many matters votes at the Conference take place on a factional basis. In the past, the Labor Right faction held a majority at the National Conference, though it lost the majority at the 2015 National Conference.
Socialist objective
The 1922 National Conference adopted a "socialist objective," which remained official policy for many years. The resolution was qualified, however, by the "Blackburn amendment," which said that "socialisation" was desirable only when was necessary to "eliminate exploitation and other anti-social features." In practice the socialist objective was a dead letter. Only once has a federal Labor government attempted to nationalise any industry (Ben Chifley's bank nationalisation of 1947), and that was held by the High Court to be unconstitutional. The commitment to nationalisation was dropped after urging by Gough Whitlam in the 1970s, and in the 1980s Bob Hawke's government carried out many free market reforms including the floating of the dollar and privatisation of state enterprises such as Qantas airways and the Commonwealth Bank.
Uranium mining
The 1977 National Conference voted in favour of an indefinite moratorium on uranium mining. However, the 1982 National Conference changed the anti-uranium position in favour of a "one mine policy". After the ALP won power in 1983, the 1984 National Conference adopted a "Three mine policy". This referred to the then three existing uranium mines in Australia, Nabarlek, Ranger and Roxby Downs/Olympic Dam, and articulated ALP support for pre-existing mines and contracts, but opposition to any new mining.
Same-sex Marriage
The 2011 National Conference voted in favour of recognition of same-sex marriage in Australia, and also formally endorsed a motion to allow Labor members of parliament the ability to vote in accordance with their consciences.