So-called "factional Daleks" are meant to be good at extermination. At seeing off threats to the dominant power group.
So when they fire themselves as Stephen Conroy just has, it is a major event. Certainly that is true for the frequently dysfunctional Victorian ALP and in its wider implications for Bill Shorten's leadership.
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Senator's bombshell
Labor's Stephen Conroy has resigned in bizarre and unexpected fashion, leaving even his deputy leader lost for words. Courtesy ABC News 24.
The term "factional Dalek" was an intentionally unflattering comparison to the charmless mechanoid villains in Dr Who. Its utterer, Robert Ray, was no shrinking violet himself when it came to bruising factional warfare, but he nonetheless lamented a new brand of warriors who specialised in friendly fire.
"A whole production line of soulless apparatchiks has emerged: highly proficient and professional, but with no Labor soul; control freaks with tunnel vision; ruthless leakers in their self-interest; individuals who would rather the party lose an election than that they lose their place in the pecking order," Ray said in 2006.
Ray singled out Conroy on the Right and the Left's firebrand hardhead, Kim Carr as prime exhibits.
Carr, incidentally, was one of the people Conroy singled out for praise in his strangely, even aggressively low-key late-night resignation on Thursday.
So low-key in fact that neither Bill Shorten who is travelling abroad, nor the acting leader, Tanya Plibersek, were told.
Plibersek suffered the indignity of learning about it at a press conference. "Leading, did you say, or leaving? Leaving? Erm, erm, I'm sorry, I thought you said leading the Senate. I have only just heard of these reports so I'll be having more discussions with Stephen later in the day," she fumbled.Â
It marked a typically abrasive and inwardly referential exit for the factional hardman – more a gruff-note than a "grace-note" to a percussive political career.
From his early days as an unfashionably conservative Young Labor activist, through to his rise in the tribalistic Victorian ALP, Conroy has always been formidable. But for all his backroom focus, he was never too far from the headlines either. As Conroy's shadow communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, coined a mythical place called "Conrovia" where he claimed the Victorian's logic uniquely made sense. Their mutual antipathy was obvious.
And it was regarding broadband that Conroy found his most recent controversy after AFP officers raided his Melbourne offices during the early days of the election campaign in search of "stolen" NBN documents reported in Fairfax Media and elsewhere.
Conroy asserted "parliamentary privilege" over any documents – a matter yet to be resolved.
It marked a typically abrasive and inwardly referential exit for the factional hardman - more a gruff-note than a 'grace-note' to a percussive political career
But the most important implications from Conroy's shock departure may be for Shorten, who has just lost a key ally in his home state and an unfailing protector in Canberra. Coupled with the demotion of the NSW right faction warrior Sam Dastyari last week, Conroy's passive-aggressive retirement has left Shorten embarrassed and his leadership more exposed – a factor that will become crucial if the government regains its footing and the pressure swings back on the opposition.
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