Labor waited four months to expel child porn accused Peter Andrew Hansen

Labor’s state secretary Kaila Murnain waited more than four months after learning a party branch president had been charged with child porn offences before ­expelling him from the ALP.

Peter Hansen, was the branch President of Cabramatta ALP at the time of his arrest. The charges do not relate to the children in the photo. Picture: Facebook

• Labor branch president charged with producing child porn

Labor’s state secretary Kaila Murnain waited more than four months after learning a party branch president had been charged and was appearing in court before ­expelling him from the ALP.

The Daily Telegraph can also reveal that Ms Murnain only removed Peter Andrew Hansen, 61, from his position of president of the Cabramatta branch because he didn’t turn up, not because he had been charged with producing material which allegedly exploited children in the Philippines and imported prohibited material to Australia.

A picture of Peter Hansen during an overseas trip. The charges do not relate to the children in the photo

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Hansen speaks fluent Vietnamese and controlled the numbers for the crucial Vietnamese Australian vote in preselections and elections the safe Labor seats of Cabramatta and Fairfield.

His patronage helped ­incumbent MPs Nick Lalich and Guy Zangari, Labor’s spokesman on police, to survive bitter preselection battles.

Peter Hansen remained a Labor member for more than four months after his arrest. Picture: Facebook.

He has been charged with three offences by police.

The Daily Telegraph ­revealed details of Hansen’s charges on Tuesday after a suppression order was not continued.

Hansen, once a local Labor candidate, has been charged with three offences by police, including produce child pornography outside Australia and possess child abuse material.

He has spent the past five months in jail on remand and is due to make a court bid for release on Thursday.

Hansen was only removed as Cabramatta branch president in February when he didn’t show for meetings — four months after he was ­arrested at Mascot and police seized his hard drive.

An ALP spokesman said Hansen had been expelled on Monday because officials had just learned of the charges.

But in October Ms Murnain’s office knew from the Telegraph that Hansen had been charged and was listed to appear in court on 26 October.

Fairfield councillor Dai Le, who is contesting the seat of Cabramatta as an independent, yesterday slammed Ms Murnain’s handling of the scandal.

“I think it’s appalling, they have known about this for a long time and nobody did anything about it,” she said.