By political reporter Latika Bourke
Wednesday 9 Apr 2014
Video: ALP secretary rejects calls for party reform (ABC News)
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NSW Labor Party secretary Jamie Clements has rejected a plea to allow the party's members to elect senators and Upper House members, but says he is open to other sorts of reforms including changing the way Senate vacancies are filled.
Labor elder John Faulkner has written to party members in NSW urging them to agree to new rules which he says would stamp out corruption.
It comes in the wake of disgraced Labor figure Eddie Obeid's seventh appearance before the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in Sydney today.
He and his former Labor ministerial colleague Ian Macdonald have been expelled from the party along with Craig Thomson and Michael Williamson who have been sentenced to jail for defrauding the Health Services Union.
Senator Faulkner wants a new rule obliging parliamentary representatives to act with "integrity".
He wants the selection of Upper House and Senate candidates taken away from trade unionists and conference delegates and handed over to party members.
Mr Clements says he is open to the first idea but not the second.
"The matter in relation to integrity, I'm going to have a very good look at and I think that's something we would all want to support," Mr Clements told the ABC's Capital Hill program
"In relation ... to the direct election of senators and Upper House members, I do take a different view to John Faulkner but I welcome the debate.
Labor needs reform
"NSW Labor has a very long history of electing very good senators ... including John Faulkner himself and Deb O'Neill, Ursula Stephens, Sam Dastyari, Doug Cameron - all of these people are very good senators who have been elected under a system that is very old [and] part of our tradition.
"People are elected by our annual conference and I think that is something that I support retaining."
But he says he is open to the idea of changing the way NSW Labor fills casual Senate vacancies.
Mr Clements says conferences could be allowed a "direct say" in choosing who should be sent to Canberra in the event of a sitting senator standing down.
Currently an administrative committee of about 40 people makes the decision.
Asked how that would sit with the party's convention of nominating an equal number of senators aligned with the left and right factions, Mr Clements said he did not see the mix changing.
"I think that it would probably see about what we're seeing right now, it would just be a more open process and give more people a say," he said.
Under the current system, about 850 rank-and-file ALP members and delegates from affiliated trade unions have an equal say in selecting candidates at the party's conference.
That means trade union officials enjoy a 50 per cent say, even though they represent less than 20 per cent of broader society.
Mr Clements disagrees it is a disproportionate system.
"The affiliated trade unions have always had more or less an even say in the Labor Party and I think that's a very good thing," he said.
"The thing in New South Wales is, that unlike other states, affiliated trade unions don't have a say in our local pre-selections, the only input that they have is in our annual conference and I think 50-50 is a system that I'm very comfortable with."
Senator Faulkner's letter argued that the system delivered Mr Obeid and Mr Macdonald into the NSW Upper House due to factional deals.
But Mr Clements says that was the result of an "old culture" that he says the party has since stamped out.
"I'm confident with the new measures - they're very strong anti-corruption measures - that we will not see a repeat of that into the future," he said.
And he warns direct elections are not necessarily the antidote to preventing corrupt officials taking up senior party positions.
"The direct election system, which is the system that some people are calling for, saw Michael Williamson elected our national president so there's no system that is entirely corruption proof," he said.
But Mr Clements is backing two reforms being pushed by the federal Labor leader Bill Shorten, which include ending a rule that new party members must also belong to a union.
The other would see state Labor leaders elected in the same 50-50 membership-caucus model seen during the last selection of the federal leader.
Acting Opposition Leader Penny Wong says she supports wider reform of the party.
"We should have the discussion about how we strengthen our party and an important part of that is extending the franchise, making our party more democratic and opening up our processes," she told reporters in Adelaide.
"If you want people to be members they have to be involved."
