Changes in Labor’s factional composition

There’s been renewed interest in a piece I wrote a few months ago after an article in The Guardian suggested the Right may lose its majority at the upcoming ALP National Conference. Whether it happens hinges on upcoming delegate elections in NSW and Victoria.

One question I have been asked is what changes have resulted in this situation. While there is some publicly available information about factional breakdowns in the ALP, it is fairly limited. For example, it was widely reported that at the 2011 Conference, the Labor Right had 218 of 400 delegates. There was, however, little information about how the state breakdowns.

The most notable piece on the factional composition within the ALP is Wayne Swan and Clem Lloyd’s journal article ‘National factions and the ALP’. Published in 1987 in the Australian Journal of Political Science, it gave a history of the rise of nationally organised factions and provided a comparative breakdown by state over 1984-1987. It is, however, of limited use today as a guide to factional compositions.

A better starting point to chart the change in ALP factional composition over the past decade is Xandra  Faulkner’s Ph.D. thesis, The Spirit of Accommodation: The Influence of the ALP’s National Factions on Party Policy 1996–2004. The thesis provides a breakdown of delegates from the 2002 Special Rules Conference in Canberra.

The 2002 Conference instituted a number of party reforms including instituting 50/50 at state conferences, directly electing the National President and also expanded National Conference to 400 which had an impact from 2004 onwards. Many of the more far-reaching reforms proposed by the Left were blocked as due to opposition from the Independents Alliance (Centre-Left) and Right.

In table below, I’ve drawn on data from her thesis and added a percentage breakdown:

Table 1. National Factions at the 2002 National Conference

	NSW	%	VIC	%	QLD	%	SA	%	WA	%	TAS	%	ACT	%	NT	%	Total	%
Right	47	73.4%	15	39.5%	12	38.7%	8	38.1%	5	25.0%	5	31.3%	1	25.0%	1	25.0%	97	48.3%
Left	17	26.6%	18	47.4%	13	41.9%	12	57.1%	9	45.0%	9	56.3%	2	50.0%	2	50.0%	82	40.8%
Centre-Left	0	0.0%	5	13.2%	6	19.4%	1	4.8%	6	30.0%	2	12.5%	1	25.0%	1	25.0%	22	10.9%
Total	64	100%	38	100%	31	100%	21	100%	20	100%	16	100%	4	100%	4	100%	201	100%

It seems the big change since 2002 has been the demise of the Centre-Left around the 2004 Conference. Much of their vote seems to have gone to the Left (particularly in WA and Tasmania).

Of note is that the Left has significantly increased its share in NSW. Gains, however, have been offset by losses in Victoria. The Right has gained significant ground in Victoria over the past decade at the expense of both the Left and Centre-Left (particularly as the National Union of Workers has rejoined Labor Unity in Victoria).

While the Left seems to have gained the most from the demise of the Independents Alliance, the Right gained enough to get an outright majority, first on National Executive in 2004 and then at the 2007 ALP National Conference.