Compromise will save Bill Shorten

BILL Shorten’s home branch is thrashing out a face-saving compromise on party rules.

Bill Shorten and opposition spokeswoman for health Catherine King in a meeting with repre

BILL Shorten’s home branch is thrashing out a face-saving compromise on party rules to avoid embarrassing the federal leader, and will defer some key decisions until next year.

Momentum is gathering for the Victorian ALP to back a wider say for the party membership in key decision-making processes, effectively watering down some union influence.

However, key members of the Victorian Right doubt that the Opposition Leader will be able to achieve his target of 100,000 party members, despite the Right being increasingly likely to back full voting rights for members who sign up via the so-called central branch.

In electorates with at least 300 members, the Victorian ALP is shifting towards local members getting 70 per cent of the say on preselections, versus 30 per cent for the central panel.

The first test of Mr Shorten’s position will be next weekend’s Victorian ALP conference, with a growing consensus that the federal leader should be seen to have a win on party reform.

The downside for the party is that backers of state leader Daniel Andrews believe the debate is unhelpful, as he attempts to fight an election on November 29.

“Bill will get his way; Daniel will lose,’’ is how a senior Right figure described negotiations.

The powerful Socialist Left faction will meet today to discuss its position, described as “fluid’’, although there is a bias towards ease of members joining.

One of the more contentious issues in the Victorian rule changes debate is a proposal to force all members to pay their memberships by traceable means, such as a credit card. This measure is designed to prevent overt branch-stacking.

The push to have a state leader elected with membership input will likely be deferred until next year, when the ALP national conference will be held. This is in large part to avoid uncertainty around Mr Andrews’s leadership of the state party.

There are currently 40,000-odd ALP members in Australia.

The Victorian Right is made up of four major groupings. Mr Shorten’s powerbase, the Australian Workers Union, is eager to protect his interests when conference votes on rule changes. He also appears to have support from members of the broad Right, who believe the broad Left will back reform because it doesn’t want to be left behind in the rules debate.

Mr Andrews’s Left powerbase wanted to postpone a rules debate at state conference until after the November 29 election.