Labor Party needs new ideas, more than double the members, Federal Opposition leader Bill Shorten says

Updated

Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has declared the Labor Party needs new policy ideas and has outlined an ambitious goal to more than double its 44,000-strong membership.

Mr Shorten made the comments during a closed Labor policy forum in Melbourne yesterday, where he urged Labor to leave its days of disunity behind.

He warned that Labor could not win the 2016 election with the policies of 2013, and said once the party had settled on a new agenda all members must "lock in" behind it.

"When we arrive at a consensus, when we reach a policy position, we have an obligation to speak with one voice; shadow ministers, Caucus members, rank-and-file members, trade unions and party organisations alike," he said.

"I don't want the papers to be writing about our differences - I want them to be writing about our ideas and our policies."

The speech comes at a difficult time for the party, which is facing the prospect of losing government in both Tasmania and South Australia within a few weeks.

If that happened, the ACT's Chief Minister Katy Gallagher would be the highest Labor leader in office.

Mr Shorten acknowledged the difficulties, telling the audience "the challenge ahead of us is significant" and said the party needed to reach out to new constituencies.

"I want Labor to be the party of small business and entrepreneurs," he said.

"I want us to be the party for farmers - people who know the danger of climate change better than anyone.

"I want science to be a first-order political issue."

Mr Shorten also announced plans to increase ALP membership to 100,000 by making it easier to join the party.

"This Wednesday, it was exactly 29 years since I joined the Labor Party - it would have been 30, but back then it took me a year to go through the various membership processes," he said.

"Three decades later, it is still too hard for people to become a party member."

Mr Shorten noted Labor had more than 200,000 people on its mailing list and suggested people who donate online should also have the option of signing up.

Topics: alp, bill-shorten, political-parties, federal-government, federal-elections, federal---state-issues, australia

First posted