In 2015, soon after he had rolled Tony Abbott to become prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull was heckled when, with a straight face, he told New South Wales Liberals, “We are not run by factions”.
Once, there had been a contrast, at least in degree, between the factionally-organised Labor party and the Liberals. But those days are long gone.
Today the difference is that factions in the federal Labor Party are externally well behaved – albeit sometimes internally brutal as Ed Husic and Mark Dreyfus can attest – while the Liberal factions are currently creating havoc for their party.
