Whistleblower's branch-stacking claims another crisis for ALP
A whistleblower's allegations of branch-stacking in the NSW ALP threatens another crisis for a party desperate to put its troubled reputation behind it
Opinion
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Two months before the 2011 NSW election — which Labor would lose spectacularly — there is said to have been a very odd email exchange between two political staffers.
One man, a staffer of then NSW Minister for Industrial Relations Paul Lynch, was emailing a senior staffer of federal Member for Werriwa Laurie Ferguson.
The topic? Well, it wasn’t policy. It wasn’t a Sydney-centric issue that overlapped their electorates. It wasn’t even the upcoming state election.
The point of conversation, originating from a ministerial email address, was in fact branch memberships.
Who’d paid up. Who hadn’t.
And most strangely of all, who had been paid for.
“The following have already been paid by me personally at head office,” Mr Lynch’s staffer wrote. “These people did their forms last night and I will fix by the end of the week.”
And so it went on for a page and half. Not exactly the kind of state business we expect our pollies to tie themselves up in knots over.
Mr Lynch — a political survivor who now sits on Labor’s opposition front benches — told me yesterday he was probably out doorknocking when that email was sent.
The email has, of course, left seasoned political operatives scratching their heads over just whose money was paying for these memberships. But it also exposes an overlap between boosting branches and high political office.
The email is part of a whistleblower’s 33-page dossier detailing allegations dating from 2008 to last year that officials have been falsifying branch attendance and personally paying branch members’ fees.
Federal leader Anthony Albanese and state leader Jodi McKay ordered an investigation into the allegations on Wednesday.
The scathing letter attached to the dossier, in which the whistleblower says they want the party to move forward, was sent to both leaders on November 5. I asked them about it this week after a copy was sent to me late last week.
McKay said this was the first she’d heard of it, but neither leader hesitated to refer it for investigation.
I have spoken to multiple people who allege the tactics but do not want to speak publicly for fear of reprisals.
However, that may be about to change, with several Labor members last night preparing to put their name to a charge sheet.
At the heart of all this, the whistleblower points to the “Ferguson faction” of the Labor Party.
This is a breakaway family-based faction of the Left, rooted in tight-knit relationships and even marriage.
The Ferguson Left was led by former federal member Martin Ferguson, and included his brother Laurie — the man pointed to in this week’s allegations. They are the sons of former NSW Deputy Premier Jack Ferguson.
Laurie’s stepdaughter Lynda Voltz won the Auburn preselection in 2017 — a success that now risks being marred by this week’s dossier, alleging cooked branch books in the region over a period of years, which, if proven true, could have influenced preselection votes.
Shadow state attorney-general Paul Lynch is of the Ferguson faction politically, and also by marriage as Laurie’s brother-in-law.
Remember, in our strange email of 2011, it was Lynch’s staffer emailing Laurie’s staffer about branch memberships. He told me yesterday that he knew nothing of the Granville branch activities that are at the centre of the dossier’s allegations.
This is a tight group linked by blood, marriage and politics, and in NSW they worship Laurie.
They are also considered outliers — factional enemies of the rest of the Left, including the Albanese allies.
But let’s be frank. This is all simply a messy political family tree that the average voter would care naught for.
What the average voter does care about is integrity. They care that politicians play by the rules; and that their energies are focused on things like cost of living and transport, not inflating branch numbers and fees.
This latest scandal, which Labor must examine thoroughly, proves the party has a long way to go to clean itself up.
The allegations are that various members of the Ferguson crew have been aware of, or involved in, falsification of branch books, and branch inflation. All this would in theory boost factional power.
The hunger for power — the drive to have more votes and more donations — has dogged politics on both sides.
If the allegations are true, it’s another blow for Labor. If they are not, it has been rocked regardless by bitter internal warfare and a lack of trust.
This year has been particularly brutal for Labor, with the humiliating ICAC revelations of bags of cash, secret meetings and cover-ups.
Albanese and McKay say they want to clean up NSW Labor and this comes from a place of honesty.
They know they’ll need to if they are to have a chance of getting off those opposition benches.
But McKay in particular is under pressure this week to do more.
Her shadow ministers Julia Finn and Lynda Voltz have both denied the allegations, which McKay said she took seriously.
While it was expected that the government would pressure McKay to strip the women of their ministerial duties while the investigation took place, what was not expected was that some Labor members said the same thing to me privately. One said this was a “test of her leadership”.
There is a hunger among good Labor MPs to clean the joint up.
If those who are implicated in this dossier can defend themselves, they should do that.
If they truly have engaged in branch stacking or falsifying branch books in any way, shape or form, they must accept that others are trying to put the dark days of the party’s past behind them and resign.
The public expects so much more than dirty branch warfare and powerbroker politics.