LABOR has become so reliant on focus groups that it now ''listens more to those who don't belong to it than to those who do'', party elder statesman John Faulkner has said, in a swingeing attack on the ALP's narrow and undemocratic practices.

Warning the party must change its culture and structures, Senator Faulkner said Labor faced the loss of a generation of voters. He criticised the suppression of dissent, insistence on a false unanimity, and the party's move to an ''association of professionals'' that failed to embrace activists without parliamentary ambitions.

ALP elder statesman John Faulkner. Credit:Glen McCurtayne

In a counter to the ALP's poll-driven culture, Senator Faulkner said there was ''something deeply wrong when we use polling to determine our party's policies, and even our values''.

It was one thing to test advertising strategies and the like, but ''Labor must never forget that you do not earn the right to lead by perfecting the art of following''.