Who is alp caucus

The Australian Labor Party is a national organisation with national rules. However, each State and Territory forms a separate Branch within the organisation. Although they share common elements such as sub-branches, State Conferences and Administrative Committees, each State branch is structured and governed in its own way. Party Members form the core of WA Labor - as a member of WA Labor you can shape decisions affecting our community, influence the policy of Labor governments and discuss ideas with others members.

For more information about the benefits of joining WA Labor click here. The Party can only function effectively with the active involvement of its members in Branches. There are two types of Branches. Local Branches are named after suburbs or towns and organised around a local geographic area. Direct Branches are generally larger and are organised around an issue or a broader group in the community. Federal Electorate Campaign Committees.

Delegates are elected each year at the Sub-branch Annual General Meeting. FECCs meet regularly to consider motions passed by Branches, to hear reports from local Members of Parliament, to help the recruitment of new members by Branches, and to campaign for the ALP.

The Administrative Committee. The Administrative Committee is responsible for the management and administration of the Party. The Administrative Committee comprises 14 members, with 10 of these members being elected annually by the State Conference. State Executive is the principle forum of the Party. And just how powerful are they?

In , Julia Gillard emerged victorious after a leadership ballot toppled prime minister Kevin Rudd, a move made possible by the Right. Credit: Andrew Meares. Factions are as old as parliamentary democracy. While the Liberal Party has groupings of interests around policy positions or personalities — social conservatives and moderates, wets and dries and, in NSW for example, three groups the Hard Right, the Centre Right and the Moderates — historically they are nowhere near as highly structured or formalised as in the ALP.

Traditionally, the Left has been more progressive, focused on social issues and more supportive of intervening in the private sector, whereas the Right has been more economically dry, more supportive of the US alliance and in some cases, more socially conservative.

Though Labor people have leaned towards, or been grouped as, left or right for decades, the factional system in the party began to be formalised in the s. Sometimes they will have been invited to join a faction at some point along the way, sometimes they might request to join a faction, but the actual process remains opaque. While the majority of rank-and-file members are Left-leaning, once in Parliament, the Right usually has more MPs — though the number of Left MPs has grown in the past decade.

As Nick Dyrenfurth, a former Bill Shorten staffer and executive director of the Labor-aligned John Curtin Research Centre points out in an essay in The Write Stuff, every single federal Labor leader to have taken Labor from opposition into government — dating back to Andrew Fisher in — has been from the Right.

Julia Gillard notionally from the Left, but close to the Right and Albanese are the only two Labor leaders since to have come from the Left faction. In the Australian Labor Party, factions gather like-minded rank-and-file members and MPs into cohesive groups to advance policy positions — for example, to argue for more ambitious climate change policies or for a change in refugee policy. In Canberra, factional conveners manage the egos and ambitions of MPs seeking entry to the ministry and help parcel out promotions on the basis of merit and quotas see below.

Factions are also used to manage internal policy fights, from those over the privatisation of Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank in the s and s through to same-sex marriage and refugee policy in the s.

Factions play a key role in choosing candidates for safe seats and newly created seats. The Left, for example, will run a more progressive candidate in the Greens-held seat of Melbourne, whereas the Right might get to stand a candidate in an outer-suburban seat in Sydney that Labor wants to win back from the Liberal Party.

Factions also play a role in deciding the order of candidates on the Senate ballot at an election, where the difference between being first, second and third position can mean a place in Canberra or not. After retaking the leadership in , Kevin Rudd brought in sweeping changes to democratise the ALP and reduce the power of factions, including giving members a 50 per cent say in the leadership vote and making it harder for the caucus to replace the leader.

Similarly, in , it was a shift by enough people in these factions that helped get Rudd back into the top job. At the moment, of the 94 Labor MPs in the House of Representatives and the Senate, 49 belong to the Right, 43 are in the Left and two are not factionally aligned.

The Left is currently allocated 14 of the 30 seats in the shadow ministry on a proportional basis and the Right receives 16, though they allocate those spots differently.

The Left chooses its 14 frontbenchers from a national list of MPs, whereas the Right hands out frontbench spots using a state-based quota formula. While Thistlethwaite is the national convener of the Right — and his state faction — frontbench MPs Chris Bowen and Tony Burke are the most influential in that state.

In Queensland, Anthony Chisholm is the convener of the Right but Jim Chalmers as shadow treasurer is the most senior member of the group.