ALP National Secretary Noah Carroll preparing to resign

Noah Carroll will resign after a review of the Labor Party’s dismal election performance.

ALP's National Secretary Noah Carroll. Picture: Kym Smith

ALP national secretary Noah ­Carroll is preparing to resign, but will stay on until a review of the Labor Party’s dismal election performance is completed.

The Australian understands Mr Carroll will tell tomorrow’s meeting of the ALP national executive that he intends to step down, but will stay on for as long as the party requires, as former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill completes his review of the “strategic errors” made during the federal election campaign.

As Labor’s most senior strategist, Mr Carroll has taken much of the blame for its loss of an “unlosable” election on May 18.

However, his defenders point to a weak leadership figure in Bill Shorten and a raft of unpopular policies as key contributors to the defeat.

Mr Carroll was appointed as Victorian secretary of the Labor Party following the Brumby government’s defeat in 2010, and ran the campaign in which Daniel ­Andrews won back government after a single term in 2014.

He was seconded to Canberra as national secretary in September 2016.

Sources sympathetic to Mr Carroll said he and wife Sarah, who have two young children, had intended to return to Melbourne after the May election regardless of the result.

Labor’s national executive will begin the search for a replacement tomorrow, with assistant national secretaries Sebastian Zwalf and Paul Erickson, and NSW secretary Kaila Murnain all being discussed as contenders.

Mr Carroll began his career with Labor working for Victorian senators Robert Ray and Stephen Conroy, before becoming a senior adviser to state treasurer John Lenders and later gaming minister Tony Robinson.

The close Bill Shorten confidante is a member of the former leader’s Right faction.

Labor suffered a massive 4. per cent swing against it in Queensland.

While the party recorded a small swing in its favour in Mr ­Carroll’s home state of Victoria, it was not sufficient to gain any seats that had not already been redistributed in Labor’s favour by the Australian Electoral Commission.