Bill Shorten will use a landmark speech on Tuesday to propose sweeping changes to the ALP to weaken the influence of unions, extend direct election of candidates, broaden policy formulation, and attract thousands of new members.

Relying on what he will call ''my mandate as the first member-elected leader of the Australian Labor Party'', his radical plan involves the most significant cultural shift in Labor internal structures in decades including an end to Labor's longstanding requirement on prospective members that they be members of a relevant union.

''I believe it should no longer be compulsory for prospective members of the Labor Party to join a union, and I have instructed our national secretary to have this requirement removed from Labor Party rules,'' his speech notes say.

He also has flagged a sharp reduction in union say in Labor's supreme policy making body, its triennial national conference, by constructing its membership in future through ''a mix of people directly elected from and by Labor members, and those elected by state conferences''.