LABOR leader Bill Shorten is believed to be preparing to further cut Labor ties to the union movement by scrapping rules that restrict ALP membership to those who belong to a union.

The move, according to senior ALP sources, would be the most significant symbolic reform to the ALP in decades and send a message to the community that Labor was no longer run by unions.

The Labor leader is expected to make an announcement on further reforms to ALP structures within weeks in an attempt to limit damage to Labor ahead of the government’s royal commission into the union movement.

Sources close to Mr Shorten, a union leader before he entered parliament, revealed he had privately decided to make the symbolic break with the industrial base for the good of the party. He would have to take the reforms to the party’s next national conference, which is not until 2015.

During a Press Club speech yesterday, Mr Shorten hinted at the reforms, claiming the ALP needed to broaden its appeal. He wants to more than double the ALP’s membership from 45,000 to 100,000.

“When it comes to modernising our relationship with the unions, we have to. Let there be no one under any doubt. I think we have to,” Mr Shorten said yesterday.

“We have to appeal to people who might think they don’t want to be in a union but they’d like to be involved with the Labor Party.”

While many ALP branches do not strictly enforce the rule that requires members to be in a union, the fact it remains is regarded as a powerful symbol of Labor’s union ties.

Senior Labor sources agreed that removing the rule would be a “powerful symbolic gesture that Labor is interested in its future”.

“It’s a starting point,” a senior federal Labor source said.

“It would send an appropriate message to the community that the Labor Party is not run by the trade union movement.”

Senior Labor sources confirmed Mr Shorten had told them he was committed to the reform, despite the likelihood of a dangerous backlash from unions and left wing elements of the ALP.

It is expected he would get the backing of the powerful NSW right faction of the party, which has led the way in reforming and democratising the party since the corruption scandals that have rocked the NSW branch.

NSW Labor will be the first to have direct-elected delegates to the party’s national conference and has always maintained 100 per cent rank and file preselections.

But the move to broaden the membership of the branches is regarded as vital to being more representative of the community and bringing Labor back to the middle political ground.