Anthony Albanese acts to clean up NSW Labor in wake of ICAC

Changes include overhaul of general secretary role, formerly held by Kaila Murnain, and a new executive board.

Former NSW Labor general secretary Kaila Murnain. Picture: Adam Taylor

The once all-powerful Right faction of the NSW Labor Party will be stripped of much of its authority under a reform blueprint developed in the wake of the Chinese donations scandal and driven by Anthony Albanese, a former NSW Left warrior, and state leader Jodi McKay.

Under the plan, recommended in a review by former federal attorney-general Michael Lavarch, a new “state executive board’’ and an empowered president will run the branch after being elected by a 75 per cent vote of state conference.

The provision will mean both Left and Right factions will have to agree on candidates to facilitate their election and the beefed-up roles will have precedence over the right-wing, union-dominated administrative committee.

The Lavarch review recommendations will also reduce the power of the state secretary, who always hails from the Right faction.

As part of the reforms, the federal Opposition Leader, a former assistant secretary, has acted to ban people who want to be general secretary from running for parliament for five years.

Former minister Mark Arbib and disgraced former senator Sam Dastyari used the NSW general secretary job as a stepping stone to parliament.

The reforms, approved by the party’s administrative committee on Friday ahead of national executive endorsement, were hailed by Mr Albanese as making the NSW Labor branch the “most transparent” political party branch in the country.

Under the reforms, a four-member audit and risk committee will be authorised to report dodgy donations or other issues to the regulator — the NSW Electoral Commission — without official party approval.  Members of that committee will be “independent” and not necessarily party members.

Sam Dastyari has used the position as a ‘stepping stone’. Picture: Liam Driver

One senior right MP complained that the moves, which appear to give the Left more power, would “lurch us further to the left and make us even more unelectable”.

Asked how satisfying it was for Mr Albanese to denude the power of his old foes in the NSW Right, he responded: “I have said for a long period of time that there was too much power placed in the office of general secretary of the NSW branch.

“It is true that that is not a new position for me to hold and, indeed, when we announced this review, I spoke about the concept of ‘papal infallibility’ that was there in terms of the general secretary not being able to be questioned.

“This changes that whole dynamic … this is a good thing for the Labor Party as a whole and a particularly good thing for the members of the Labor Party.”

Another former general secretary, John Della Bosca, backed the reforms: “Albanese is doing everything right … the NSW reforms are reasonable and balanced. It could have and maybe should have been tougher.”

Former NSW Labor general secretary Jamie Clements. Picture Ryan Osland

Mr Albanese said the role of general secretary would become a “professional” job with key performance indicators.

A new state executive board of nine members will be established to run the party and the right-wing administrative committee’s role will be confined to “strategic planning”.

The recommendations come after general secretaries were implicated in the ICAC Chinese donations scandal in which a suspected agent of foreign influence, Huang Xiangmo, is alleged to have handed $100,000 in an Aldi bag to former general secretary Jamie Clements.

Mr Clements’s successor, Kaila Murnain, stands accused of knowing about the illegal donation and not reporting it.