The very public results of some serious factional infighting have not put the party in the best light.

What, exactly, is going on? Is federal intervention in the local party a cash grab, as some speculate, to finance the next federal election? Is intervention about ensuring fair representation for the Community and Public Sector Union in the local branch?

Is it the chance to succeed federal members Bob McMullan, Annette Ellis or even Kate Lundy?

Or is it a local problem, a battle between those who would see Andrew Barr succeed Chief Minister Jon Stanhope, versus those who would prefer Katy Gallagher.

In reality, it's a bit of all four and the mess is going to take some time to sort out.

The irony is that Canberra Labor has been one of the best-run branches in the country.

Membership has been growing, locally there is a third-term government in place, federally three of four seats are held, and as is widely acknowledged, the Canberra Labor Club assets are so valuable they constitute nearly half the federal party's total asset base.

But as one Labor insider remarked recently, ''Labor people are great haters, we do hate much better than the Libs. And what's happening at the moment, this will fuel feuds here in the party for a decade. People don't forget in this party''.

How has it come to this when, seemingly, the party never had it so good? Greed, avarice, and factional jockeying have undone the seams of party unity.

This all began when long-serving Member for Fraser Bob McMullan announced the next federal election would be the last he would contest.

McMullan's announcement sparked behind the scenes jostling and talk of a pre-selection challenge this time round. Some even suggested McMullan's announcement was designed to head off such a challenge.

Just as this controversy was dying down, more erupted over the proposed re-affiliation of the Community and Public Sector Union, one of the largest unions in Canberra. Some party sources described the affiliation as a ''colossal branch stack'', a pre-emptive move that would lead to a full takeover by the union of Labor by dint of the sheer number of union-aligned Labor members. The union argued for its right, under the ALP's constitution, to full affiliation, with all the representation (and for that, read power) that affiliated membership brings at Labor's annual party conferences.

At an extraordinary meeting of the local branch, and despite Stanhope arguing against it, the party introduced a complex new quota system to limit the union's influence. Labor members opposed to full affiliation were right to be concerned.

The public sector union membership dwarfs that of all other unions in Canberra, and full affiliation would re-draw the conference numbers in the ACT. A delicate electoral balance in the ACT, both federally and locally, was in danger.

Federally, Kate Lundy belongs to the left, Annette Ellis the right, while Bob McMullan is non-aligned.

McMullan will probably not be challenged now, and will leave after the next parliamentary term. Ellis, similarly, should be safe this time around but is expected to exit after the next term. It's as these two are ready to leave the stage that problems start there are prize seats up for grabs.

Lundy is well-liked, but there is a sense of disappointment she did not secure at a minimum a parliamentary secretary-ship.

Those who take that view, however, need remember that Rudd's choice of ministers was carefully balanced along factional and state lines (despite his protestations). Lundy's time could yet come.

Meanwhile, the list of would-be replacements grows longer.

Depending on who you talk to, constitutional scholar George Williams, former Julia Gillard adviser Jamie Snashall, former Mark Latham adviser Michael Cooney and Rudd's masterful chief of staff Alister Jordan are all in the box seat for one or other of these prize seats. Some even suggest assistant national secretary and long-time Canberran Nick Martin helped engineer the intervention locally in exchange for a chance at a seat though that seems a long bow to draw.

In the assembly, meanwhile, Stanhope is non-aligned, while Gallagher has the backing of only Simon Corbell on the left. Barr, meanwhile can count on John Hargreaves, Mary Porter and Joy Burch on the right.

In other words, in a caucus shoot-out, Barr wins and gets to be chief minister when Stanhope retires except it's more complicated than that.

Stanhope wants Gallagher to succeed him, and says so publicly. Members of the right admit that Barr, the man who closed schools, could struggle against Zed Seselja at the next election, while Gallagher is well liked and thought likely to beat the Liberal Opposition Leader.

What does this have to do with the public sector union? Full affiliation of the (nominally left-leaning) union delivers numbers on the conference floor which means candidates at preselection which means more left-aligned Labor MLAs up for election. Ergo, a branch stack.

And while the union furore rumbled on, plans to sell the Labor Club proceeded. Recently arrived party secretary Bill Redpath had inherited the controversial plan from predecessor Matthew Cossey. Labor, locally and federally, derives significant income from the pokies in the four Canberra Labor Clubs, but Kevin Rudd, among others, has declared such income beyond the pale.

Redpath was caught in the middle of all this locked into the sale, trying to handle a disgruntled group of members who opposed the sale, and at cross purposes with the public sector union, who chose to go over his head and appeal to the national executive to overturn the ruling on affiliation.

In classic Labor style, Redpath was knifed before he had even, as he later put it, ''had a chance to put my feet under the desk before the leaking started''.

It was in truth, only partially deserved. As secretary, Redpath should have backed Stanhope and pushed for full affiliation of the public sector union, whatever his fears.

He was a marked man once the public sector union went over his head to Labor's national executive, who are expected to overturn the local branch's rule change shortly and allow full affiliation.

On the sale of the clubs, however, he was unfairly left holding a grenade he had not pulled the pin on.

It was not a coincidence that so soon after the Labor Club's board announced in late June it would sell the clubs for $25million to the Tradies group, owned by the powerful Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, Redpath finally resigned.

By that point in time, the national executive was well and truly interested in the little branch sitting on some seriously valuable assets.

Intervention in the local party that followed soon after was almost inevitable.

As one Labor insider says, ''Business is not donating because of the global financial crisis, unions are not donating because they are pissed off about the ABCC [Australian Building and Construction Commission] and Fairwork and there's an election next year.''

Elder statesman and former deputy chief minister Ted Quinlan was instead installed, at the suggestion of the local branch, and approved by the national executive.

Immediately party sources claimed Quinlan was a patsy of the national executive.

This is unlikely. Quinlan is a man who genuinely cares about Canberra, and about Labor he has taken on a thankless task in calming down the federal/local and left/right splits.

He has three months to clean up the party and then he will step aside.

Whether three months is long enough or whether intervention was even necessary is another matter. On balance, it probably wasn't. But all the cards are in play now, and soon the players will have to show their hands.