Today we focus on Labor's flaws, especially in Victoria, where federal leader Bill Shorten's Right faction wields substantial power. In a series of articles this year, The Age has revealed fraudulent conduct in state Labor, including instances of branch-stacking and the use of gift cards to buy memberships – against party rules.

Labor has a long and disgraceful history of this. Indeed, its more colourful characters have made it an art form, one that has endured over many decades – despite leadership changes, despite exposure and shame. Put simply, branch-stacking is fraud on the broader membership and, ultimately, on the people who would support the left spectrum of politics. It is a device designed to deceive every other member of the party.

Mr Shorten is making only a pretence of cleaning this up. His platitudes calling for tough action against branch stackers ring hollow. Instead of ensuring Labor in Victoria is washed clean from top to bottom, and instead of commissioning an independent inquiry into it, he has implicitly sanctioned an investigative committee that amounts to an inside job.

To be clear, it is Mr Shorten's Right faction that has been shown to be behind much of the branch-stacking and corrupt conduct, and he seems unwilling or incapable of facing up to it. His failure to do underscores the lacklustre nature of his leadership to date and his patent aversion to reforming the Labor Party generally.

The Age has long called for Labor to democratise and to purge itself of the disproportionate influence brandished by unions and factional chiefs in its policy-making and preselection structures. We say to Mr Shorten, as of now you are failing on several counts. It is entirely within your power to demand an independent inquiry into Labor's internal practices, and you should do so now. So far, you have demonstrated a tendency to wimp out.