There was a slight frisson of excitement amongst pundits last September when word got out that Labor left figures had vehemently argued in caucus against the Malaysia people-swap deal. Though some observers smirked (‘where has the Left been all this time?’), there was a sense that maybe the ‘party of principle’ of which Gough Whitlam once spoke, was not entirely lost.

Much has been written about the decline of principle in the ALP. Yet, that most acerbic of Labor statesmen, Paul Keating, asserted recently that the party ‘hasn’t lost its soul, but it has lost its story.’

It is the Great Australian Story. From post-war nationalist awakening, to the union struggles that later enshrined collective bargaining, to the fight for equity which gave us Medicare and superannuation, to the modernisation of the economy, to an aborted repositioning within East Asia, to a belated acknowledgment of the dispossession and suffering of our Indigenous peoples, this story has been written more willingly and successfully by Labor than by any other political party It is a story that has been lately muted by bi-weekly polls, 24-hour news cycles, radio shock jocks, trollumnists, and a pugilistic Opposition. Yet it is its own failure to present a unifying narrative that has left Labor vulnerable to the onslaught. For instance, the support that it galvanised for the carbon price scheme, it squandered through its asylum seeker policy. Its competence in policy detail is annulled by the lack of articulation of its vision.

In brief, at least since 2009, Labor has wielded neither power nor principle with conviction or grace.

Its support base has withered. Having been carried into its second term of office by three independents, it has yet to level with the Coalition in the polls. Its rank and file members have departed by the thousands, demoralised by the machinations of factions and careerists. National membership is at a historic low of 0.002 percent of the population — enough of a haemorrhage to warrant an internal review, panelled by Steve Bracks, Kim Carr and John Faulkner.

Its standing as a reformist party has also withered. Some of its significant policies such as the carbon scheme and pokies reform, are shaped more by political pragmatism than by anything else, borrowed as they are from its alliance with the Greens and independents. One of the things which it did initiate, the Malaysia deal, is regarded as a moral regression. Voters still looking for the light on the hill of The Great Australian Vision have turned away.

In brief, Labor is courting obsolescence. Its remaining members are aging even as it has failed to keep young recruits — recruits who did not feel heard or valued. Such disenfranchisement and lack of debate is painstakingly detailed in the Bracks/Carr/Faulkner report.

Indeed, one of the more vivid passages in the report describes party conferences as ‘bland, anodyne affairs where the colour and movement of the party has been replaced by set piece speeches and consensus voting.’ This is a far cry from the party which, as Faulkner remembers it, used to have internal policy contests ‘that make today’s so-called factional brawls look mild.’ No wonder people got a bit excited at the news that there was strong cabinet dissension about the Malaysia deal.

The focus on poll results has left the organisation anaemic. The concern over electability has quelled dissent and diversity of views, the very things that would reinvigorate this 120-year old party.

The national conference this December provides an opportunity for Labor to demonstrate that it does take seriously the recommendations made by the review, but that much more importantly, it can still be a vehicle for progressive policy. It needs to look beyond the review recommendations (which largely promote structural changes) to remember that the structure must primarily support Labor ideals. This means abandoning the speeches and consensus voting, and instead opening the floor for an impassioned engagement with contemporary issues. It needs, as Keating put it, the ‘intellectual renovation’ that took place in the 1980s.

These ideas have to be animated by a belief in The Great Australian Story and Labor’s role in it. This is the story that Labor needs to tell, and it must tell it well before the year draws to a close.

Otherwise, the Australian public might stop listening for good.

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Fatima Measham is a Melbourne-based writer and occasional shit-stirrer. She blogs www.thisiscomplicated.net and tweets @foomeister

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