Now a welcome relief from LW's silly childish sag grapes lemon sucking dribble.
Shorten has "PRIVATELY" backed Swan for National President, what that means is you will do if it means getting rid of the guy who supported Albo but don't count on it once I'm PM then I will have who I want in the top spot. I'm sick of reading all this crap.Shorten backs Wayne Swan for ALP presidencyTROY BRAMSTON SENIOR WRITER Sydney The Australian12:00AM March 13, 2018
Bill Shorten has privately endorsed Wayne Swan to become Labor’s national president and is annoyed by another tilt at the job by frontbencher Mark Butler, who has slammed the party for failing to embrace internal reform under his leadership.Mr Shorten has little time for Mr Butler, who ran Anthony Albanese’s rival campaign for leader in 2013 and gave a damning speech in January arguing that Labor was controlled by “factional warlords”, membership was falling and the party’s primary vote was “stubbornly low” and fared better under Mark Latham and Kim Beazley.
Mr Shorten encouraged Mr Swan to run for the presidency because his lifelong crusade on economic and social inequality meshes with his own priorities as leader, while Mr Butler’s internal focus is seen as a distraction in the year before an election.
Mr Swan, a former treasurer and deputy prime minister, is aligned to Mr Shorten’s Australian Workers Union-backed national right faction and is also close to his deputy, Tanya Plibersek, who is seen as a rising star within the left faction. Ms Plibersek, faction insiders say, could endorse Mr Swan.Senior Labor figures in the national right faction have for several months urged Mr Swan to run for president, as flagged by The Australian in January.
Mr Shorten recently told Mr Swan that he had his backing to run for president. The convener of the national right faction, Kaila Murnain, also the NSW Labor secretary, is working closely with Mr Swan.
Transport Workers Union national secretary Tony Sheldon had not secured support from the right faction to run for the presidency and withdrew on Friday and endorsed Mr Swan.
But Mr Swan had not yet planned to confirm his candidacy and was forced into making a quick declaration on Saturday.
A meeting of the national right faction leadership was held by teleconference on Saturday afternoon and supported Mr Swan as its candidate for president.
The meeting of parliamentary, party and union leaders heard from Mr Swan. His endorsement was formally proposed by frontbenchers Joel Fitzgibbon and Richard Marles and adopted.
The race for the national presidency will be a titanic clash pitting two high-profile candidates from the right and left faction, each backed by an army of state and federal MPs, union leaders, party officials and thousands of rank-and-file members.
Mr Swan is finalising plans for a nationwide speaking tour aimed at persuading up to 50,000 party members that he should be elected to the top party organisational post.
If successful, Mr Swan will chair Labor’s national conference in July and meetings of the national executive.
The contest for the presidency has sparked divisions on Labor’s frontbench, with senior figures in the left and right factions believing Mr Butler should not be running for president on a platform of spotlighting the party’s lack of democracy, transparency and accountability.
The right’s Tim Hammond, Labor’s spokesman for consumer affairs, has argued that Mr Butler should be barred running for president because it conflicts with his duties as a frontbencher.
The left’s Brendan O’Connor, Labor’s spokesman for employment and workplace relations, said it was probably better if the president was not a frontbencher. The right faction will seek to change party rules to ban frontbenchers being president.
Mr Shorten told colleagues that he wants frontbenchers to be focusing on policy development and campaigning ahead of the next election, rather than “navel-gazing” over Labor’s internal structure or waging bitter factional battles in public.
Mr Swan is expected to significantly lift the right faction’s support in the presidential election. The right faction typically attracts about 35-40 per cent support from rank-and-file party members nationally.
Voting online and by postal ballot will take place from May 4 to June 15. The election of a president and two vice-presidents is expected to be announced soon after.
In 2015 there were about 54,000 party members eligible to cast a ballot but just fewer than 20,000 voted.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/shorten-backs-wayne-swan-for-a...