The Labor hunting season is on, says Guy Rundle at Crikey. Adem Somyurek had his office video bugged (military-grade equipment) and Victorian branch stacking operations were laid bare. Somyurek, a suburban MLC, has denied all wrongdoing. In (heavily rewritten) Rundle says:
Somyurek had become trouble for established faction leaders as he turned some renegade non-Anglo SDA (Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association) the ‘Mods’, into a powerful faction.
He then persuaded Bill Shorten’s AWU faction in, after the Shorten-Conroy alliance (Labor Unity), broke up.
The next step was a CFMEU alliance with the new Industrial Left faction, breaking from Kim Carr’s Socialist Left. But then the Age/Nine tapes blew up the Mods, the larger Centre Alliance, and Centre Alliance-Industrial Left deal.
Shorten’s decision to stay after the 2019 election loss was seen as flagging a come back try if there was a 2021-22 ALP/Albanese loss. This promised years of instability, branch-by-branch struggle with the former Conroyites, now led by Richard Marles. The 2020 suspension of Victoria’s powers stopped that (maybe its main purpose).
The new alliance of the Socialist Left, the NSW Left, the Conroyite Right and the SDA had as one principle to achieve stability by excluding Shorten and some small unions (the plumbers, the HWU).
But the Shorts led the legal attack of eleven unions to sue the party to open preselection in the new, safe, federal seat of Hawke. Official plaintiff, Diana Asmar, head of the HWU, provided a feminist branding against the preferred candidate for Hawke, Sam Rae.
[Ed Note: It came to pass in a rare members ballot that Sam Rae won, based in part on the members ballot. Sam Rae is a supporter of Richard Marles.]
Marlene Kairouz, an alleged Somyurek enabler, had already launched a second suit to stop the party from hearing disciplinary charges against her.
If both legal suits succeeded the “spare parts” faction would resurrect.
Next, the Age reported that State Secretary Clare Burns intended to return to the post after a year’s maternity leave. Burns, had started in the SDA orbit, was a former candidate for the state seat of Northcote, had gained the state secretary’s position on Somyurek’s insistence. On 12 August 2021, Susie Byers, President of Victorian Labor, advised Victorian members that Clare Burns decided to step down from the role for family reasons.
Rundle says: “Labor’s hunting season could turn worse. If the court cases should win they could crack the ALP open in a situation where the party could decompose into 10–12 mini-factions. However the long and winding progress of the Victorian federal intervention, and improved polling for on coming federal elections may have short circuited that.”
Postscript Oct 2021
Supreme Court dismisses challenges by unions, MP, in the wake of ALP branch stacking scandal – by Richard Willingham, ABC News, 19 Oct 2021
Related readings
Former party boss wins Labor preselection for new seat of Hawke – by Sumeyya Ilanbey, The Age, 15 June 2021
Stability Pact talks threaten to erupt between Victorian Labor – by Rob Harris, The Age 21 May 2021
Supreme Court cases challenge Victorian ALP intervention – Open Labor, May 2021
Labor in a quandary over party boss’ return from maternity leave – by Paul Sakkai, The Age, 30 June 2021
Albanese rebuffed: Supreme Court judge blocks Labor preselections amid infighting – by Michael Fowler and Paul Sakkal, The Age, 7 May 2021
Unions and the ALP – time to stay friends but end the marriage? – by Max Ogden, Open Labor, Aug 2021
Stop the shadowy preselections & give ALP members their rightful vote – by Open Labor & the Independents
How Victoria’s rotten Stability Pact keeps Labor undemocratic – by Steve Gibbons, Crikey 24 Oct 2016
Locking out the Left: the emergence of national factions in Labor – by Osmond Chiu, Jacobin Magazine, 27 July 2020
What are Labors factions & who’s who – by James Massola SMH 14 Feb 2021
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