Opposition leader Bill Shorten addresses the National Press Club saying Tony Abbott has always been a 'political brawler'. Courtesy ABC/The Press Club
Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten wants to distance the ALP from the unions. Picture: Marie Nirme Source: News Corp Australia
BILL Shorten is severing century-old ALP ties with the union movement in a parcel of changes he will today insist are needed for Labor to regain government.
The Opposition Leader will declare himself "a proud union member" but will reveal he has directed ALP national secretary George Wright to eliminate rules making a union ticket compulsory for Labor membership.
"This change makes it plain that in 2014 Labor is not the political arm of anything but the Australian people," Mr Shorten plans to say in a speech today.
He will criticise the power of unions over the party: "... The role of unions within our party has developed into a factional, centralised decision-making role.
"If we are to renew and rebuild the Labor party, we must rebuild as a membership-based party, not a faction-based one."
He will also outline a more gradual reshaping of Labor rules to give rank-and-file members greater involvement in preselections, and will set the scene for a major debate over Labor's platform at the 2015 national conference.
Mr Shorten will stake his personal authority on pushing through the changes and claim he has a mandate as the first member-elected party leader.
He had intended to deliver the speech on April 7 but it was postponed after the sudden death of his mother Ann. That postponement has not altered the urgency he places on reforms.
Party sources have told news.com.au his aim is not to tidy up Labor's rules for neatness' sake but to make drastic changes he believes necessary for electoral success.
"So today is a day for facing up to some hard truths," he is expected to tell the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne this afternoon.
"Friends, Tony Abbott did not put Labor in Opposition – the Australian people put us here.
And unless we change, it is where we will stay.
"Unless we change, we will be forced to watch on as the Liberals undo and unmake everything that modern Australia is, everything that modern Australia can be."
Mr Shorten wants:
* Greater community involvement in selecting candidates with further limits on the party executive to impose choices. He will refer to the debacle in Western Australia in which the top Senate candidate was a former union official who had admitted he didn't always vote Labor.
* A "membership based party" of 100,000 members; A "one-click online joining model for new members" to replace the current cumbersome application system by June; "Low cost, uniform national membership fees" to attract young people, people on low incomes, students, apprentices and trainees; Make the ALP national conference more representative of community groups.
The most controversial change will be the cutting of 113 years of compulsory links between party and trade union membership. Mr Shorten believes it is a symbolic tie but union colleagues of the former AWU secretary are certain to disagree.
"As a party we can't remain anchored in the past – we need to rise with the modern tide," Mr Shorten will say.
"I believe it should no longer be compulsory for prospective members of the Labor party to join a union...
"People have said that this a symbolic change – it is. And it is more than that. It is a change that makes it clear that Labor is not exclusively for one group of Australians.
"We are for an economy where everyone prospers, a society where everyone benefits, an Australia where the fair go is for everyone. Union and non-union employees. The self-employed, small business and wage earners."
Mr Shorten will condemn the royal commission into unions ordered by Prime Minister Tony Abbott as politically motivated and the "low use of high office", but will warn anyone found to have acted corruptly would not receive Labor's help.
"Corruption is a profound insult and a deep betrayal of everything the Labor party and the union movement stand for," he will say.
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