Michelle Grattan reports on the first hours of the public expose of Victorian ALP branch stacking by Nine’s 60 Minutes and The Age, as Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin are installed to run crisis-ridden Victorian ALP.
The recordings included conversations in which Somyurek boasted of his power over state and federal MPs and running massive branch stacking. He also used highly offensive language about a female colleague.
Somyurek quit the Labor party on Monday before he was due to be expelled by Premier Daniel Andrews, and two other ministers resigned, Robin Scott and Marlene Kairouz as their staff were allegedly associated with the stacking. Both Scott and Kairouz deny wrongdoing.
Andrews wrote to ALP national secretary calling for profound reform of the branch, and asking for its members’ voting rights to be suspended.
“I have no confidence in the integrity of any voting rolls that are produced for any internal elections in the Victorian branch… We must suspend those elections and begin a long and critical process of validating each and every member of the Labor party in Victoria as genuine, consenting and self-funded”
All Victorian members’ voting rights are suspended until 2023.
Some of the secret recording was in the electorate office of a Somyurek ally, long serving VIC federal Labor MP Anthony Bryne, (Deputy Chair of the Federal Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security). There is no suggestion Mr Byrne was involved in the alleged branch stacking. Anthony Byrne, is assisting police and anti-corruption authorities.
Read Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin installed to run crisis-ridden Victorian ALP [External link]
Related readings
‘Industrial scale branch stacking’ – Fed Exec. intervenes into VIC ALP 2020 – Open Labor 6 June 2020
The ALP must repair trust between leadership & members – by James Button, Open Lasbor Nov 2020
Labor has a significant problem, Premier Daniel Andrews says following branch-stacking scandal – ABC News 17 Jun 2020
12 steps to Labor reform – a petition from Open Labor & the Independents Sept 2020
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