Wayne Swan secure in top job as Labor scraps vote at conference

Wayne Swan will avoid a challenge to his role as ALP president and remain in the powerful position for another term.

ALP president Wayne Smith. Picture: Kym Smith

Wayne Swan will avoid a challenge to his role as ALP president and remain in the powerful position for another term under a plan for the party to hold a “virtual” ­national conference before Easter.

The former Treasurer and deputy prime minister said party positions would not go to a vote at the 2021 national conference, which will allow delegates to vote only on amendments to the draft party platform.

The proposed rules of the virtual conference have been backed by Anthony Albanese.

Mr Swan said the complications surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic had forced the party to take a different approach to the event, which gives unions and party members a say in the ALP’s policy platform as well as its organisational structure.

“It is an incredibly good opportunity to speak directly to, not just people who are interested in politics and our members, but the public more generally,” Mr Swan told The Australian.

“It is an opportunity for us to connect with our values and our policies and to do it in an entirely different way that hasn’t been done before. It is just going to be a policy conference. We are not (voting on) rules or positions.

“We will resume a normal conference after the next election,” he said, adding: “We are in completely uncharted territory.”

The Australian revealed in ­August that Labor’s national executive had decided to delay its national conference from its scheduled date of December because of the pandemic.

Mr Swan challenged and defeated Left faction heavyweight Mark Butler for the president role before the 2019 election. The position is usually voted by the ALP membership ahead of each conference, while the party’s 20-member national executive is usually voted in during the conference. Some Labor MPs were furious the vote on positions had been cancelled, meaning they will not get a chance to have their say on national executive and party positions until the next term of parliament.

They argued the process could have been handled through an online vote and that party democracy had been eroded.

With Labor in the midst of a brawl on climate policy, Anthony Albanese said party members and unions would be able to vote on the party’s platform through an online conference of 400 delegates. Labor’s national executive is expected to tick off the virtual conference proposal on Friday.

“The ALP national conference will go ahead. It will be online, it will be two days and it will be held before Easter,” the Opposition Leader told the ABC.

“We are a democratic party. We’re an inclusive party, and that will enable people to contribute.”

Mr Albanese said the party’s disagreements on climate policy “have been managed” and claimed the dispute was taking place only in the media. “We have a very clear policy that sees that renewables are the cheapest form of new energy, and that’s what the market is saying as well,” he said.

Mr Swan said there would be some changes to the party’s draft policy platform.