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You get life for murder, and you vow to spend your lifetime together when you marry. A lifetime in the ALP falls somewhere between the two.

Life membership is mostly associated with service to a sporting club or group or an organisation of like-minded persons. You get it for years of membership or service, or being noteworthy in the work you have performed.

Again, life membership of the ALP falls somewhere between the two. In most state branches, life membership is conferred for 40 years' continuous membership. Gough Whitlam was given life membership of the NSW Branch in the 1980s, but was also feted at the 2007 National Conference with ‘national’ life membership. I’m sure he had something to say about the constitutionality of it, but was happy to go along with the ballyhoo in the lead up to Kevin 07.

However, for an ordinary member and especially one of my age, life membership by virtue of 40 years continuous membership has been extraordinarily difficult to achieve. I’ve been a member of at least eight branches in three states and territories since I joined in 1968.

In the early days, membership had to be renewed over a two or three month period in person at a branch meeting, with you keeping the original and a copy going to state office as well as one being retained by the branches. Nowadays with head office ticket issues, faxes and phones, membership renewals are far easier.

Loss or non retention of a ticket was all too easy by an individual - especially one without political ambitions. However, the loss of branch records happened sometimes too. I was present at a meeting of the Balmain Branch of the ALP in the late 1960s when the lights went out and, in the resulting confusion, the membership book and records went missing!

Even rarer was the loss of head office records, but this too has happened - even in Victoria. The great fire of 1985 in head office ranks along with the ‘Yes Minister’ floods of 1968 for loss of records. In the former case, this has meant that many long-serving members have been unable to receive their life memberships as they cannot prove when they joined.

The big question remains: why would anyone want to retain not just ALP membership, but continuity for 40 years? Even some good and faithful party servants, including MPs and former Ministers, missed a year here and there - often due to overseas or interstate work which took them away from their local patch at renewal time.

And the schisms, splits and rollercoaster fortunes of the party at national and state levels would have led to membership falling by the wayside in some years, or taken away as a result of suspension or even expulsion, as occurred in Victoria in the '50s, '60s and '70s.

As a babyboomer member about to receive life membership, I have asked myself the same question many times over that 40 years.

Early days
When I joined the ALP in Canberra in May 1968 - just out of university - I plunged enthusiastically into all levels of party activity. I immediately took on the unwanted role of assistant secretary (or minutes taker) along with a seat on the local branch executive. This gave me an immediate entrée into a higher level of party machinations.

I soon became branch secretary, delegate to the territory executive and - as Canberra was still part of the NSW branch - to state conference. With youthful naivete and an ideological fire in my belly, I rose before 700 (mainly elderly male) conference delegates in 1970 to speak in favour of abortion law reform. I repeat: NSW, male delegates. Branch president Charlie Oliver asked for silence to hear the girlie delegate speak and I was given that - but certainly not voting support - for the motion.

Over the 70s, I was very active in the ALP in Sydney at the Balmain Welding Company (aka Rozelle) Branch , in Bungendore in rural NSW where we reformed a branch mainly from teachers and agrarian socialist public servants (some now heads of Commonwealth departments) , and back in Canberra.

At the time of the Whitlam government, party support was so great my own suburb then - Curtin - had enough residents to form its own active branch of 30 or 40 supporters, with me as President. Like the last federal election, we had supporters everywhere with more than enough help for all local polling booths. Many of us were able to go out to neighbouring electorates and help at booths as remote as Wee Jasper (check it on a map - I suggest an army ordnance one), where our assistance helped get the charisma-less Frank Olley in for one memorable term as the member for Hume.

I also worked for various Labor Ministers and backbenchers over the next few years, including Bill Hayden, who sacked me (and Paddy McGuinness, but for different reasons), Gareth Evans, Neal Blewett and, in Victoria, Tom Roper . I attended national conferences as alternate delegate, helped organise national Labor Women’s conferences, edited what some saw as a scurrilous ALP magazine (the ACT ALP Lobby with cartoons by Patrick Cook), and worked on national health and welfare policy committees.

I also stood unsuccessfully for Federal Parliament in a ballot which included later Minister Susan Ryan, and Dr Peter Wilenski - private secretary to Gough Whitlam and head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and other departments). We all lost to a (numerate) public servant Ken Fry, who remained a backbencher throughout his long parliamentary career.

I was also an ALP delegate on the inaugural Young Political Leaders visit to the USA in 1982, just before taking up the job with Tom Roper and moving to Victoria.

The light
My party membership was continuous after arriving in Victoria but, until 2007, it has not been as active as those early years. The factionalism in Victoria, even at branch level, has been unappealing and I figure I attended enough branch meetings in my first 15 years to last a lifetime - however calculated!

The excitement of the 2007 election drew me back and, as booth captain at Aireys Inlet, I was proud to scrutineer a 5% swing to the ALP as part of an historic win in Corangamite - the first in 72 years.

With email and postal allowances, there is now a welter of information - sometimes too much - about what the party and its elected representatives are up to, along with sometimes more accurate media reports. The introduction of above the line Senate voting enables one to creatively obey the party pledge to vote for the endorsed candidate.

Having worked in a political office, I know a little of how the party operates, the role of branch member in the party and politics generally, and of the personalities of our leaders - both political and factional. So each year, when I receive my membership renewal, what has been the motivation to sign up and sign on for another year?

The light on the hill, the history, the prospect of beating the other mob, and our mob having to be better than theirs, are all part of it.

And so is that medallion I’m about to receive. I can collect it and think of the good people, the friends, the comrades who have deserved it - even if they haven’t been around, or stayed in, or lived long enough. And I’ll say, this is for you too.