Speaking at a function to mark the 25th anniversary of his election to parliament, Mr Swan insists his values are the same as when he was shovelling chook manure in the 1970s.

But he says what has changed over the years - apart from the type of manure he shovels - is his approach to economics.

"Whereas previously I regarded tackling inequality as social policy - damn good social policy, but social policy first and foremost - I now regard it as absolutely central to good economic policy," Mr Swan will say in Brisbane on Friday night.

"A decade after the GFC, we can now see clearly that rising inequality isn't just making our society less fair, it is making our economy less prosperous, less stable, more fragile and more crisis-prone.

"And it is having similar effects on our politics."

Mr Swan - who will retire at the next federal election - warns political earthquakes are rocking global politics and the Labor faithful cannot be complacent.

"Toxic right-wing populism is on the march globally, and in this country too," he says.

"It's made a terrible mess of some formerly great centre-left parties around the world."

Mr Swan describes the US Democrats as "a hollowed-out empty shell".

"They stayed in the middle of the road and got run over," he says.

"My message to us all is that Australian Labor can and will be different."

Making his presidential pitch ahead of the party's national conference in July, Mr Swan says Labor is the only vehicle for economic and social progress.

Mr Swan - Labor's third longest-serving treasurer behind Ben Chifley and Paul Keating - claims the Liberal Party has been taken over and dominated by extreme trickle-downers and plutocrats.

"And it is backed in by wealthy business interests, notwithstanding its own incompetence and incoherence," he says.

Labor frontbencher Mark Butler will fight to be re-elected ALP president at the conference.

Lawyer Anika Wells is the party's pick for Mr Swan's Brisbane seat of Lilley.

Australian Associated Press