ALP president wants party swamped by rank-and-file members and less power for union, faction warlords

HOW will Labor weed out bad eggs and get good candidates for the next election? This is how ALP national president Mark Butler sees it all going down.

Butler’s plan to boot ‘factional warlords’

LABOR’S top official is prepared to offend the party’s union and factional elites if it ends bitter squabbling over candidates.

ALP national president Mark Butler said the selection of candidates had to be more democratic with a reduction in the power of party warlords.

“What we need to do is broaden our base as much as we possibly can,” Mr Butler, who is also shadow environment minister, told the National Press Club today.

“The best antidote to branch stacking, the best antidote to the sort of factional warlord work you see from time to time in different branches is to broaden the base, to swamp the party with people voting, energised, active.”

And he rejected claims his changes would lead to the British situation, where Jeremy Corbyn from the far-left became UK Labour leader in broad-based ballot, amid claims his elevation made the party unelectable.

“It (the UK situation) hasn’t shifted my view that at the end of the day these broad democratic decisions end up getting it right,” said Mr Butler.

“It may not please everyone, it may not please the elites or all the candidates but overwhelmingly they get the decision right.”

The ALP national executive has had to deal with bothersome preselections in Western Australia where unions have attempted to impose their choices, and in Victoria where factional warfare has disrupted.

At one point the executive had to rescue frontbencher Gary Gray from a union-backed challenge in his seat of Brand, south of Fremantle.

Mr Butler’s proposals for preselection reform were not fully accepted at the party’s national conference in July but he said today he would continue to campaign for them.

He wants to replace 50/50 ballots, which involve half the votes coming from unions, half from branch members.

He wanted a system with ballots divided equally among unions, sub-branches and direct members.

Mr Butler told the NPC the election of Mr Corbyn came after UK Labour had struggled to regain stability after previous strong leaders Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

“There were some particular issues, I think, around the position that British Labour finds itself in,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s (UK Labour) found a path from the Blair and Brown years that has the support of the Labour Party and its supporters.

“I think frankly the mix of candidates and campaigns was — this is undiplomatic to say, but — pretty disappointing, I think.

“And what was really an outsider’s candidate in Corbyn became a winning result.”

Originally published as ALP president wants party swamped by rank-and-file members and less power for union, faction warlords