Please find attached the NSW Labor Rules Report for the 2014 Conference.

208 rule changes were proposed by party units, including branches, SECs, FECs, affiliated Unions, and various other party bodies. Those proposals have been considered by the Rules Committee, which has decided which ones to accept, which to reject, which to note, support in principle or refer onwards to other committees.

There are 27 proposals that have been accepted (adopted).  20 of these 27 proposals came from the Rules Committee.
The successful proposals include:
– direct election of the Leader of the State Parliamentary Party
– formally removing the requirement for party members to be union members
– removing restrictions on the use of community preselections by the Admin Committee
– removing the requirement that State Conference be held every year
– adding a requirement to behave with integrity and honesty.

There are 25 motions that have been supported in principle. These are mostly motions calling for direct election of the Parliamentary Leader.

There are 132 motions that have been rejected, from approximately 83 party units.
They include:
– motions calling for more direct democracy in the election of upper house candidates, conference delegates and other party positions. These are about 60 such motions, including two from the AMWU.
– perhaps a dozen of motions calling for the reduction of union representation at conference, and/or calling for election of union delegates to be directly by union members
– several motions calling for democratic reform of Young Labor
– a call for the reduction of preselection nomination fees

There are also 25 motions that have been noted, or referred to subcommittees. These are mostly statements of principle, rather than actual rule changes, though not entirely.  They include calls for greater democracy, reduced union representation, and other matters.

What happens next?

The report will be presented to conference.  Delegates to conference may move amendments to the report, and speak for or against those amendments.  Finally, Conference will vote to accept the amended report, which will determine what the rules are until next Conference.

An announcement on the proposed composition of the Admin Committee is still pending. It will probably go through a similar process to the Rules Report.

A copy of the full report is here.