Labor minister attacks ‘rigid factional duopoly’ controlling the party

Government frontbencher Andrew Leigh has attacked his party’s factional system as a “rigid duopoly” that is stifling internal policy debate and threatening Labor’s long-term interests.

Leigh, the assistant minister for competition, charities, treasury and employment, says factions – which dole out ministries, committee chairmanships and overseas travel – can be “profoundly undemocratic” because they block rank-and-file party members from choosing candidates.

Government frontbencher Andrew Leigh has attacked the Labor Party’s factional system.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

In a speech to the Per Capita think tank in Melbourne on Wednesday, Leigh, who is one of two Labor members of the federal parliament not in a faction, will also argue the factions create unnecessary divisions within the ALP and risk alienating members who “are motivated not by power, but by altruism”.

“They should not be treated as second-class citizens within our party,” he says.

“If we stifle internal debate, we miss the chance to test our policies among ourselves, and to train new generations of thinkers,” he says in an advance copy of the speech.

“In 2023, it is worth asking whether a rigid factional duopoly – in which show-and-tell [member ballots] prevails and in which preselections are decided by the few rather than the many – is really in the long-term interests of the party.

“If a group’s practices and deals start to sound like they’ve been plucked from a John le Carré novel, those people should ask themselves whether their shenanigans befit Australia’s most important political party.”

Leigh’s comments will raise eyebrows within the parliamentary Labor Party but are likely to be welcomed by members who want a greater say over preselections and branch meetings.

The member for the ACT seat of Fenner, Leigh entered parliament in 2010 after a surprise preselection win that upended a factional deal designed to parachute a party operative into the seat. Despite a career before politics that included work at a major law firm, a doctorate in economics and writing 10 books, Leigh has never moved beyond a junior ministerial post in government, in part because he is not a member of a faction.

Leigh says he does not agree with former prime minister Kevin Rudd who argued that factions should be banned or with party elder John Faulkner who said they should not be able to bind their members to voting positions.

Rather, he argues that not being in a faction should be seen as just a valid a choice as being in one.

Leigh is particularly scathing of the so-called Victorian “stability pact”, which was struck in 2006 and has dealt out winnable seats, party positions and committee roles for more than a decade according to factional lines.

“Like the 19th-century colonial powers meeting in Berlin to divide up Africa, the stability pact effectively takes away the ability of local members to have their say,” he says.

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