Political historians are urging Kevin Rudd to be wary of changing Labor's leadership rules to prevent a surprise knifing.
The prime minister's push to avoid a repeat of the Rudd-Gillard feud is believed to be the first time in 87 years that a Labor leader has sought to dilute the power of caucus to force a spill, as the federal ALP caucus meets in Sydney on Monday.
In November 1926, NSW premier Jack Lang ordered a special state conference to confirm him as leader "for the period of the present parliament" after a series of challenges.
But the move proved to be disastrous, with the Lang government later refusing to pay British debts during the Depression.
A new party grouping, called Lang Labor, went on to bring down the Scullin Labor government in Canberra after just one term in December 1931, with Lang himself dismissed as premier five months later by NSW governor Philip Game.
Lang lost the 1935 and 1938 state elections, with caucus powerless to remove him despite their firm opposition.
The Labor caucus didn't regain the power to choose its leader until 1939, following federal intervention.
University of Sydney associate professor Michael Hogan says the origin of the so-called "Lang dictatorship" should serve as a warning to Rudd.
"If a leader, like Rudd, for example, has the majority of caucus opposing him, then there has to be some mechanism, even if it is only electoral defeat, for replacing him," he said.
"I don't think that the Gillard coup was well managed, but the leader needs to be answerable to his or her colleagues.
"I don't think that anyone in the Labor Party, who knows any history, would like to repeat the Lang dictatorship."
Unlike Lang, Rudd is also proposing to give power to Labor's rank-and-file to help choose the leader.
The Labor caucus meeting at Sydney's Balmain Town Hall is debating the merits of allowing grassroots party members a 50 per cent vote on the parliamentary leadership.
But Professor Hogan isn't rapt with the idea, which is a variation on British Labour rules allowing unions and party members a say on the leadership.
"The rank-and-file may well have a role in electing the leader but they are in no position to judge what is going on inside the parliamentary party, and are even more manipulable by polls and the media than MPs," he said.
NSW Labor is examining the idea of allowing grassroots members a vote on the parliamentary leadership, the very branch that Rudd has ordered a federal intervention into.
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