Mr Taylor said he wanted to have the opportunity to thank the Labor government under Mr Carr’s watch, for more than $400 million of development of the city.

“Yes we can say that Orange didn’t have a sitting Labor member, but on behalf of the city I wanted to thank Mr Carr for his commitment to Orange,” Cr Taylor said.

“The fantastic new hospital we have, the distributor road, a new police station, and the university development were all approved while he was premier and I think Labor has provided well for the people of Orange,” Mr Taylor said.

“Which is why it remains a mystery to me we still vote in a Nationals candidate,” he said.

Mr Taylor said although the party has reached rock bottom there was an atmosphere of a new beginning and optimism at Saturday’s conference session he attended.

“There’s no-where else we can go now but up and I think that was reflected in the honesty of speakers at the conference,” he said.

Mr Taylor said his meeting with Mr Carr prompted him to reflect on the former premier’s days in office.

“As far as the Labor party is concerned we need to return to the days when we had people like Bob Carr and Neville Wran.

“To my mind they were true grassroots Labor leaders and they were such strong personalities there was real discipline in the party,” he said.

Kevin Duffy, Orange’s Labor candidate for the seat of Orange in the devastating March elections did not attend the conference.

He said he had decided to adopt a wait and see policy but was still firmly committed to Labor.

“I come from a tradition of 100 years of membership of the Labor party in our family.

He said his non-attendance wasn’t from a lack of interest or a cop out.

“I just wanted to see what comes out of the conference

“But you could say I do feel disillusioned with some aspects of the way our party has performed and we have in some ways fallen into a hole.

“I think though among the issues we need to address is a more rigorous process for selecting members and look at genuine reform,” he said.

Jeff Whitton also attended the Labor party conference in Sydney at the weekend.