THE Labor Party continues to "haemorrhage members" and faces a crisis in membership that can only be addressed by setting a five-year target for growth and launching an "outreach organisation" for Labor supporters yet to sign up.
The 2010 ALP National Review Report examining the party's election performance, which was delivered to the national executive yesterday, also said that former members who had let their membership lapse over the past five years would be able to rejoin for free and be entitled to the same voting rights as other members.
And the party should create an online presence where it can engage with progressive ideas and policies. It envisages a place to "organise progressive campaigns" similar to the left-leaning online activist outfit GetUp!.
Labor Party elder and review committee member John Faulkner has said it was fundamental for the party to arrest the decline in its membership, which had fallen to about 38,000 from 50,000 in 2007.
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Membership through affiliated unions plummeted by more than 100,000 from more than 1.2 million in 2002 to fewer than 1.1 million.
"What this review is very clear about is growing the party's membership," Senator Faulkner said.
"We say, very clearly, we must grow and rebuild Labor's membership across Australia. Nothing came through more clearly as we went around Australia and heard the views of Labor Party members."
According to the report, more than 100 branches in NSW alone have closed in the past 10 years. The review says Labor's membership continues to age, and as existing members retire from active membership in coming years, the decline will become even more severe.
And members feel alienated and disenfranchised in the modern Labor Party, with modern campaigning techniques introduced over the past 30 years diminishing and degrading the role members once played in political campaigning.
"Today, the Labor Party struggles to staff polling booths, even in held seats," the report says.
"The 2010 election saw many important polling booths around Australia unstaffed or understaffed for the first time in living memory.
"Labor has always been proud of its ability to generate and rely on its membership for strong electoral organisation on the ground."
It argues for Labor to effectively articulate a modern reform agenda; to stay closely connected to the broader progressive community; and the connection to Australia's youth must be revived. It calls for Labor to reach out to the progressive movements that already exist in Australia and which have previously provided the party with innovation in policy and ideas.
In a reflection of the steady growth of the Greens, the review concludes the party can no longer consider itself as solely occupying the progressive political space in Australia.
The review committee believes a new national director for party organising should be hired to deliver on a membership target agreed by the national executive.
The party should also formalise training activities through the creation of a national organising and training institute or academy.
The review calls for a budget allocation to new party-building activities.
And the party should explicitly adopt a community organising model aimed at equipping members to work in their local communities on campaigns to recruit members.
