Wayne Swan channels Bernie Sanders as he eyes party president job

Wayne Swan has aligned himself with the left-wing radical as he eyes a senior leadership role, in a bitterly contested fight.

Wayne Swan has channelled US Democrat Bernie Sanders as he targets Labor’s national president role.

As up to 53,000 Labor members begin voting today to elect a national president, opposition spokesman Mark Butler has again attacked the party for being strangled by faction bosses, shrinking in size, and needing bolder ideas to tackle inequality.

Mr Butler’s official candidate statement, obtained by The Australian, urges members to re-elect him for a second three-year term because the democratic reforms he promised to deliver in 2015 “remain unfinished business”.

“Three years on, most of the meaningful changes discussed by party members back then have been blocked by factional leaders who refuse to relinquish their stranglehold on the last bastions of machine politics,” Mr Butler said.

Mr Butler, opposition spokesman on climate and energy, and a left faction leader, said the party’s fight against economic and social inequality will not succeed while the party is losing members. This will be seen as another direct rebuke to Bill Shorten.

Despite Mr Shorten’s goal to lift membership to 100,000, it has declined by about 400 members in net terms since 2014. The party now has about 53,550 members as at the end of 2017.

“Our party is getting smaller,” Mr Butler said. “And you can’t get stronger while you’re getting smaller. You also can’t fight inequality in our nation effectively when there’s still inequality in our party.”

Former treasurer Wayne Swan is also contesting the ballot for president, along with union official Mich-Elle Myers and senator Queensland Claire Moore.

Mr Swan says he has the “experience, time and conviction” to be president and has made the battle against inequality his focus. He attacked banks, multinational firms and the media — “the Murdoch press” — who “must be defeated”.

He aligns himself with radical left US politician Bernie Sanders.

Labor leader Bill Shorten has pledged to grow party membership, which has recently declined. Picture: AAP

In a direct pitch to rank-and-file members, Mr Swan has provided his mobile phone number so they can contact him directly, promises six-monthly “progress reports” and says he will “help lead the battle of ideas” to help make Mr Shorten prime minister.

Senator Moore, who will direct preferences to Mr Butler, promises to democratise the party, empower members and campaign for “social justice and fairness”. She wants to see debate encouraged “within” the party and not “played out on the front page of the media”

Ms Myers will make “working people” and “ordinary Australians” her focus, and supporting women inside the party, if elected president. Ms Myers says “equality for workers (must be) front and centre of everything the Labor Party stands for.”

The presidential ballot has again divided the left faction with Ms Myers running as a spoiler candidate to damage Mr Butler, and is backed by the militant Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union.

The Australian can reveal that Mr Butler’s campaign sent a scrutineer to view Ms Myers’ nomination form in Labor’s national secretariat. Mr Butler’s operatives have since conducted a witch-hunt by attacking those who signed the nomination, demanding to know why they were not supporting Mr Butler.

Voting to elect a president and two vice presidents via a hybrid postal and online ballot begins today and finishes on June 15. The new president will chair the party’s national conference in Adelaide from 26 to 28 July.

While the left is divided between the Butler-Moore ticket and spoiler candidate Ms Myers, the national right faction has endorsed Mr Swan. Mr Shorten has also privately backed Mr Swan.