There was a big online presence to the Reclaim Our Party forum, hosted by Open Labor and the Victorian independents 1 Dec 2021.
At the recent IBAC hearings, Adam Somyurek claimed that everyone in Labor was corrupt. The Age agreed with him. Whilst none of us would agree that there are no good members in Labor it is a fact that our party has been stolen from us, with safe seats hollowed out by branch stacking, ballot rigging and corruption.
Proof of the disempowerment of members is the recent 22 November notification, issued without warning, of nominations for the preselection of Victorian Labor state candidates 2022; preselections from which we, the members, will be excluded; where the successful candidates will be determined by behind the scenes deals between factional leaders; and which will be rubber stamped by National Executive.
Victorian ALP members have been neglected and ignored for years, starved of information and support, and deprived of our voting rights in the preselection for our candidates.
Further the party needs to outline what they are going to do about the abuses of party rules revealed at IBAC and tell members how the new branch structure and rules are going to affect them.
Enough is enough. It is time for genuine members and friends of the ALP to unite to rebuild Victorian Labor as a democratic, inclusive and participatory party. It is time to Reclaim our Party.
Read the Reclaim Our Party outcomes letter to be sent to The ALP National Executive.
Introduction by Janet McCalman
As was revealed in the IBAC evidence, we are ‘Genuine Labor’ – people who have decided on principle to join the Labor Party, who have paid their own dues, who put the party above their faction and themselves. And we want to participate in the party: vote in preselections, sit on policy committees, win a place at conference.
We want to ‘do’ more than hand out How to Votes and stick corflutes in our front yards. We want a political life. We want to contribute.
We are in fact, in the majority – ordinary members of many different views and leanings, mostly not in a faction, or if so, loosely. We have the numbers but not the privileges of power.
We are gathered here in the sight of Gough to remember that while ‘the pure’ are condemned to impotence, the ‘impure’ can lead us to the fiery depths.
The rest of us are languishing in Purgatory, but we have it within our power to redeem ourselves and reclaim our party.
The other thing about us is that we reside either in regional or unwinnable seats. That makes us irrelevant to the factions and to Head Office in Docklands.
The ‘Labor Party’ created by the factions – Right and Left – resides in safe seats in lower socio-economic areas – those places hit hardest by COVID where work is precarious and opportunities fewer; the places with most residents born overseas and speaking languages other than English at home. People who need the Labor Party, but the Labor Party they see, has used and abused them. It is nothing less than racist and insulting exploitation of people restricted by their lack of fluency in English.
Branch stacking is against our party rules. Deliberate racist exploitation of vulnerable people is a betrayal of our deepest values.
The Labor party in a new seat like Fraser the west, has so many members they get twenty spots at conference – must be over one thousand – but only one functioning branch because all the rest are stacks.
They cannot get campaign workers. Branches of two hundred cannot form a quorum! The Fraser FEA is a phantom and there are FEAs almost as bad all over the western, northern and outer south eastern suburbs.
That is meant to be our Labor heartland, and it has been hollowed out simply so that small groups of self-selected party warriors, can place themselves and their mates in a safe seat in parliament, irrespective of talent, character or commitment. They are parachutes, not connected to these local communities.
Tonight we will discuss and vote on four areas of action we can take to start reclaiming our party.
If we fail, we face seeing politicians named and shamed in IBAC remaining in parliament. We are doomed to have a clutch of second-rate people sitting in safe seats for years, disconnected from their constituents. We may win the next state election, but not if we take people for granted. There is time before the next state election to fix this.
We are here because, for all its faults, we love the Labor Party and Labor people. We know that if the Labor Party fails and dies, so will democracy and social justice in this country.
Proposal 1 – Lay charges arising from the IBAC revelations at the Victorian ALP Disputes Committee.
Jenny Beacham – former State Secretary
This is not a new problem. And, as always, we are having to weigh up the broader issues. We have two fine leaders at state and federal level. I don’t want to distract from their achievements or damage the ALP.
But the IBAC evidence is so disturbing that it can’t be ignored. The ALP was asked to contribute to that inquiry and chose not to. I understand that. But that does not absolve us inside the party from dealing with the systematic and wholesale corruption of party processes that are outlined in the IBAC transcripts.
Eric Dearricott’s often isolated yet determined attempt to hold back the excesses over a very long time has my utmost admiration but now we have evidence which can support him and the others who have trodden this lonely path.
There are at least ten members of the Victorian Parliament who are there because of corrupted practices, a culture based on warlords dispensing rewards, and using taxpayers’ money to support their methods. Only one has left the ALP. Will the others seek preselection as if nothing has changed?
I went through the eleven days of public hearings at IBAC and created a spreadsheet listing the people and branches named. 79 people are named, some many times. Of 56 checked 44 are still ALP members at 21 November. So assurances that it is all OK – ‘nothing to see here’ is not convincing.
What was known as ethnic branch stacking originally, has become ethnic communities deliberately pitted against each other. By providing numbers for the Mod Faction, which does not cost the relevant ethnic community group anything, they get friends in positions of power in Parliament, and support in a variety of ways; not because they support the ALP and its policies but because they handed over ballot papers.
Those of us who grew up in the Whitlam years do find these actions hard to grasp. But more recent generations have grown up with the ALP in power and the rewards that go with that – electorate office staff positions, ministerial staff positions. The opportunity to dispense largess sets a very different culture.
Adem Somyurek‘s evidence details competing community groups of Turks, Bosnians, Albanians, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Indian, Serbian, Greek, Sri Lankan, Kurds and Somalis.
It introduces a level of hostility quite outside the ALP’s policy agenda as we saw on our TVs in the brawl at a branch meeting in the West last year.
These branches are set up and paid for out of politicians’ offices, with individual renewals paid for from slush funds controlled by the MPs and with membership renewals going to Head Office with forged signatures.
Here are some direct quotes from IBAC:
On Kairouz’s office:
IBAC: Now, the bank transfers during renewal season over those five years from 2015 to 2020 from Ms Kairouz to you were just over $60,000. Do you accept that?
Kirsten Psaila: Yes.
On Anthony Byrne’s office:
IBAC: What were the sums that you observed being received?
Staff Member: In 2018 in Anthony Byrne’s case it would have been around $700 for new branch members for the Australian-Vietnamese diaspora in the south-east. In Adem’s case it would have been maybe $2,000, maybe $3,000 worth that was handed to me. In Mr Michelson’s case [Ed. note Steve Michelson is an aspiring politician], it would have been around the $4,000, $5,000, that was handed to me. It was typically given to me in wads of cash stuffed into an envelope or folder, which would then be deposited into the fund in Mr Byrne’s office, otherwise referred to as the kitty. And I do recall Byrne running around trying to get money. I recall him going to one Vietnamese gentleman and getting $7,000 off him for renewals.
On forgeries and corruption: The case of George Hanna is an example:
IBAC: Now, you can see this document here purports to be signed by George Hanna?
PSAILA: Yep.
IBAC: Dr George Hanna has given a statement that he’s never seen these documents before, certainly aren’t his signature.? This is the membership renewal form that was signed ‘George Hanna’ on 6 May 2019? Now, you see that the signature is entirely different to the signature on the previous document? Both signed in his name?
On Bosko Lazarevski:
IBAC: He had been a member since the mid-70s? That’s what he says, and he’s never paid for his membership.
And on corruption – I don’t think we have heard the last of this exchange. Dr Haraco (Somali Australian Council of Victoria) is mentioned throughout the Public Investigation. He worked for Adem Somyurek two days a week, although the definition of work is queried by IBAC.
IBAC: Mr Garotti, The conclusion that the outcome of your discussion with Mr Somyurek was that, ‘You’ve got to do what you can to get this fund going directly to SACOV’?
Rick Garotti (since resigned from the ALP): – YES
IBAC: $100,000 from the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation? ‘Organisation primary contact’ is Dr (Hussein) Haraco?
[Dr Haraco has been expelled from the ALP but the how or why is not known to me. He is not the only culprit.]
What is the ALP going to do?
We need to ask the Party Monitor or start charging people who remain in the ALP for clear beaches of the rules.
Proposal 2 – Change the Victorian State Office approach to suspected branch stacking.
Eric Dearricott
Presentation not yet available.
Summary: That representatives of this meeting seek commitments from the new State Secretary Chris Ford and the two Assistant Secretaries that whenever they become aware of the slightest inkling of a branch stacking occurrence, they will immediately refer the concern to the Party Monitor for investigation.
Proposal 3 – In the current state preselections, candidates with a strong local community record should be preferred
Peter Fitzgerald – member ALP Justice & Democracy Policy Committee
Presentation not yet available.
Summary: We are dismayed to have been denied our voting rights in this round of state election candidate preselections. Too often the factions parachute in candidates with no local connections and few (if any) community achievements, excluding strong local candidates with excellent local standing and recognition. National Executive members and others with influence in preselections should be lobbied to ensure that local community credentials are a primary criterion in their choice of candidate.
Proposal 4 – Make our ballots democratic and bring in the AEC or VEC to conduct them.
Kath Cozens – branch member
It is time for the AEC or VEC to supervise internal elections for powerful committees like Admin, the POSC, and for preselections. This will be brief, because it is not a new idea, and to put it bluntly, it is a ‘no-brainer’.
One of the most distressing parts of watching IBAC was listening to Adem Somyurek’s testimony and hearing his repeated claim, over and over again, that corruption is endemic within the ALP, that everyone is doing it.
We have listened, aghast but not surprised, to Somyurek and others explain in sordid detail how ballot papers are routinely filled in by factional operatives for important elections for Admin committee, the POSC, and preselections.
Jenny Beacham spoke powerfully this evening about the urgent need for those members implicated to be investigated through the reformed Disputes Tribunal, and expelled if – when – they are found guilty. What was the role of Party Monitor created for if not for this?
Investigation and expulsion is an urgent and necessary step to rid our organisation of the most egregious stackers and thugs.
But will this step, and the Bracks Macklin recommendations, be enough to convince members and the voting public alike that corruption has been adequately faced, named, and punished? As Somyurek made clear, again and again, the corruption was tolerated and part of ‘normal business’ for other factions, too. This behaviour was not the Mods’ alone.
It would be dangerous and wrong to go after Somyurek and his cronies and stop there, without addressing his allegations that some people from other factions are guilty of rigging internal elections. We know that the existing stacks were not all purged by DeLoitte’s audit, so allowing tainted rolls to continue to operate in upcoming elections means effectively that we tolerate the presence of large numbers of fake members making a mockery of genuine members’ participation in those ballots.
Macklin and Bracks did a wonderful job in describing the cultural malaise and failing processes that allow and encourage corruption, but they have left too many gaps for the interim committee to fill.
Our party is supposed to hold the moral high ground when it comes to being honest about the need for regulation and oversight to keep people who wield power accountable. Can a banking sector regulate itself? Can a church investigate itself? Why don’t we yet have a federal IBAC? The ALP has led the country in making the case for transparency and accountability in these bastions of power. To be calling for a federal IBAC while, at the same time, fending off calls for increased scrutiny of our own internal processes smacks of hypocrisy.
As a nation, we are rightly proud of the ‘Australian ballot’ – the secret ballot – as a jewel in our democratic process.
Appointing the AEC or the VEC to supervise elections at state conference, preselections, and the postal ballot for POSC, would go a long way to reassuring members and the public that they want to do the right thing. It might be expensive, but it is not as costly as allowing the public to think we are not serious about keeping ourselves accountable to democratic integrity.
As Peter Fitzgerald points out in his excellent explanation of abuses of the secret ballot on Open Labor’s website, the rules that exist to ensure integrity in internal ballots are routinely ignored. The rules and the punishments for wrongdoing could be stronger, to be sure, but what is there is already clear enough. Adding more rules will not change a toxic culture.
In democratic reform, there are few improvements that are so straightforward as this – this is a simple, visible, easily explainable, highly effective step that will make it that much harder to rig internal elections, and place a significant hurdle to stackers hoping to override members’ voices.
No single rule or process change will end stacking or malfeasance, but following the union movement’s lead and allowing external oversight of our elections will go a long way to ensuring integrity and restoring the trust of members and the voting public in the ALP.
Breakout group discussions (report of discussions not yet available)
Topic 1 – Change the system for electing state conference delegates.
It makes no sense to have branches based on one branch per state electorate and yet still elect state conference delegates on a federal electorate basis. If we elected conference delegates to represent state electorates with at least one delegate per state seat, every state electorate branch would have at least one delegate at conference directly answerable to them.
In addition there should be a capped allocation of delegates per state seat, so that the stacked seats (yes, there are still plenty of them) don’t continue to monopolise delegate positions at the expense of genuine members. This can’t be done now but should be pursued through a rule change lodged by rank and file members for next year’s State Conference.
Topic 2 – Preselections: The power of the Public Office Selection Committee (POSC) must change.
When local members are allowed to vote in preselections the central POSC has 50% weighting whilst local electorate members also have 50% weighting. However the stability pact agreement between the right and the left which stitches up virtually every held or winnable seat has meant that 97% of POSC members have voted for the factionally agreed candidate; and no matter how strong the local members’ vote was for an alternative candidate they had no voice in the final preselection.
Possible changes to ensure local members votes actually count (changes needing a rules change proposal to State Conference) are: have no POSC (as is the case in NSW); significantly reduce the weighting of the POSC in preselections; declare elected without involving the POSC and candidate who gains more that a certain percentage of the local votes.
Read the Reclaim Our Party outcomes letter to be sent to The ALP National Executive.
Open Labor sent out an Open Letter to supporters on 10 Dec 2021 seeking urgent action from the National Executive to stop the unfair preselections likely for ALP state candidates.
Chris Curtis says
I think Labor reform is a lost cause.
I sent a submission to IBAC last week, attaching my submission on ALP reform. Some of what I suggest is properly the remit of the ALP itself. However, four suggestions in particular are fundamental to democracy itself and should apply to all political parties as a matter of law:
• everyone able to would be required to fill in their own ballot paper in secret, with those unable to do so because of some impairment able to request assistance from the returning officer;
• the AEC or VEC would run major internal party elections and lower house pre-selections (as suggested above) to ensure that the secret ballot and voting by actual members are guaranteed;
• lower house candidates would be preselected by a direct vote by members of the party and by members of affiliated organisations (unionists, in the case of the ALP), with a weighting in favour of direct members;
• intermediary committees (the public office selection committee in the case of the ALP) would be illegal, thus preventing undemocratic deals like the “stability” pact and other arrangements under which factional bosses override local members.
I have heard nothing from IBAC. If I had heard something, I guess I could not say anything!
Chris Curtis says
Capping the number of conference delegates from each electorate is undemocratic. There is a much better way to deal with the disproportionate influence electorates with large numbers of stacks have. That is to base representation at the conference not on numbers of party members but on numbers of Labor voters.
If the number of membership delegates were based on the number of Labor voters, stacking branches would not increase any group’s say in the party by much at all. If a faction doubled party membership in an electorate, it would influence the proportion of delegates from that faction but would have no effect on the number of delegates from that electorate. However, if the members doubled the Labor vote in a constituency, they would double the number of delegates that constituency had and would thus have more say in the party. An incentive that doubles votes for the party is far more beneficial than one that doubles the membership, though doubling the genuine membership would help to double the votes. Furthermore, a conference weighted in favour of constituencies with larger Labor votes would better orient the party to the concerns and interests of those who vote for it. In essence, Labor members would be electing delegates to represent Labor voters.
Labor polled 1,506,460 votes in the last state election. If we wish to keep the conference at about the same size as now, then one delegate per 5,000 Labor voters or part thereof would be reasonable.
There is an argument for basing state conference elections on combinations of electorates that are close to equal in numbers of Labor voters; e.g., a constituency of state three electorates of 10,000, 16,000 and 26,000 Labor voters would have the same number of delegates as a constituency of four state electorates of 9,000, 10,000, 15,000 and 18,000 Labor voters, in which case each constituency could elect eleven delegates. It is in the interests of fair representation of all members that the quota for election be small rather than large. There is much more detail in my reform submission.