Labor Left to run its own party-line audit in Victoria

Labor's Victorian Left faction has voted to conduct its own examination of the state of the party in the wake of the federal and Victorian elections

Labor's Victorian Left faction has voted to conduct its own examination of the state of the party in the wake of the federal and Victorian elections and lead debate on how to reform the ALP's organisation and culture.

The executive of the Left passed a motion last night to produce an options paper independent to the findings of the Steve Bracks and John Faulkner 2010 federal election review to be released tomorrow.

It follows a messy month for the Victorian arm of Labor, where internal factional wars erupted into legal battles over the preselection of businessman Frank McGuire to John Brumby's former seat of Broadmeadows.

The Left decided to pass the resolution to "make sure members' voices are heard in this year's debate" about the future of the party across the country and to ensure that there are practical outcomes from the debate.

The options paper will look at how to increase membership of the party and take on the threat posed by the Greens and the Liberals as well as "ensuring greater levels of democracy" at all levels.

This means looking at the party preselection process, membership and encouraging more participation on the ground. It also seeks ways to avoid continuing factional disputes by "building integrity" in the party process.

"We have before us a great challenge -- with our primary vote the best evidence of the existential nature of the threat we face," Left secretary Andrew Giles told members in an email.

"The national review presents the progressive side of a movement a great opportunity. There will never be a better time than now to make the case for an open, democratic and outwards-looking party."

Mr Giles goes on to say that Labor members and voters deserve better than the bitter infighting that broke out when the federal executive decided to overstep the usual preselection process to install Mr McGuire as the candidate for Broadmeadows.

Mr McGuire, the brother of television host Eddie McGuire, was not a member of Labor when he secured preselection and lives outside the former premier's electorate. A court challenge by unions was unsuccessful.

Mr McGuire, a former journalist, is all but guaranteed to win the safe northern suburbs seat at this Saturday's by-election after the new Coalition government decided not to run a candidate.

"The first challenge is to ensure that there is a broad debate across the party around these questions, and to not be confined by the straitjacket of the past," Mr Giles says in the email.

"The choice the party had to make in Broadmeadows should not have to happen again."