Sacked Labor MP Adem Somyurek’s explosive threat to enemies
In his first interview since his sensational sacking two weeks ago, ex-Labor MP Adem Somyurek has dropped big hints he thinks a lot of people in his former party had a hand in the destruction of his political career — and he plans to expose them.
National
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Fallen minister Adem Somyurek has a warning for anyone in the Labor Party who conspired in his downfall: he’s coming for you.
“I won’t let that stand. We will be going down the legal path, I can guarantee you of that. This is not going to stand,” Mr Somyurek says.
In his first interview since his sensational sacking two weeks ago, the former Andrews Government minister is dropping big hints he thinks a lot of people in Labor had a hand in the destruction of his political career, and he plans to expose them.
“I have my views but let’s just wait until the court processes are under way — let’s just see how far it went up the chain,” he says.
“Believe me, the message to those out there is: I’m not stopping, right? We will be going all the way, going through the discovery stage. They can run but they can’t hide.”
The warning signals an escalation of Labor infighting in the wake of his downfall — and raises the prospect of even more dirty linen being aired in public.
A fortnight ago, Mr Somyurek was Victoria’s Local Government and Small Business minister, a member of the ALP National Executive and the king of the factional jungle in Victorian Labor.
But within 24 hours of TV’s 60 Minutes airing secretly recorded foul-mouthed rants against a female minister and footage of him taking money from an ATM to pay for ALP memberships, it was all gone.
Not only was he sacked from the Cabinet, but he was banned for life from the ALP.
Sitting down with the Sunday Herald Sun, Mr Somyurek alternates between contrition regarding his behaviour, anger at the way he believes he has been misrepresented, and bewilderment over his betrayal, apparently by his oldest friends in politics.
As is always the case, his fall has hit his family hard.
“My family aren’t travelling too well at the moment. The last thing they want me to do is to continue, they want me actually out of parliament now,” he says.
What particularly rankles is the portrayal of him as the taxi-driving ethnic branch-stacker of the old school, given he has an undergraduate degree in history sociology and politics, and a masters in public policy.
“Me driving a cab has been talked about, which I did. Which I enjoyed. It was a real eye-opener. But I think driving the cab fits the cliche, doesn’t it? An ethnic person driving a cab. A bit dodgy,” he says.
He accepts the way he spoke about fellow minister Gabrielle Williams was unacceptable.
Recordings captured Mr Somyurek in a private conversation calling Ms Williams a “f---ing stupid bitch” and “a stupid, stupid moll”.
“Nothing could explain the words I used — I don’t want to be seen to be trying to somehow soften what I’ve said,” he says.
“It was outrageous language. And just hearing it back it was very, very difficult to listen to, I guess it was you know, I’m a Housing Commission lad, working class, my formative years … that was the language used back in those times.”
But he is also fuming about being betrayed in an audacious hit that was several months in the making and triggered not only his sacking, but the resignation of two more state ministers and prompted an extraordinary national takeover of the Victorian Labor Party until 2023.
The person Mr Somyurek was talking to about Ms Williams is Alexandra “Alex” Stalder, a staffer to federal MP for Holt, Anthony Byrne, and a woman he considered a close political ally and friend.
It was Ms Stalder’s office that had been rigged with cameras, and her he was speaking to on the phone.
Mr Somyurek has no doubt she wouldn’t have done anything without Mr Byrne’s say-so. “She would take a bullet for Anthony Byrne. That’s a good characteristic. But I just didn’t think the corollary of that would be to completely do me over in a treacherous way,” he says.
Two weeks later, Mr Somyurek still can’t understand what made his friend turn on him.
“Betrayal. Ultimate betrayal. What did I do? We haven’t had a cross word.
“There was a text released on how proud of me he was when I got on the national executive –—on how he was longing for the days when we were in the trenches together, so to speak. That’s a metaphor he liked using,” he said.
“I just … I’m still flabbergasted. I don’t know what went wrong. I just … I think he’s not well is all I can say. You’ve got to not be well to do this to someone who’s been so loyal to you. In fact, the only reason why I was there was to protect him.“
By that, he means the only reason he was in Mr Byrne’s office was to help defend him against branch-stacking by the Socialist Left.
But he denies claims he is an “industrial-scale branch stacker”.
“If you’re talking about industrial scale, it was the Socialist Left in the southeast that recruited three times as many members in the year and a half,” he says.
“So I rock up to two to three branch meetings in the space of a month and because it’s taped, the whole Victorian branch has been taken over nationally and 15,000 branch members have been disenfranchised.
“Surely the right thing to do would have been to do an investigation into what the program was alleging? I would have thought that would have been the right thing to do.”
Regarding the ultimate beneficiaries of his downfall, Mr Somyurek says: “(Socialist Left senator) Kim Carr is probably back in the game. He should have gone a long time ago. So all these characters are back. They don’t have Adem Somyurek to kick around any more but they’ve got the old guard back — Stephen Conroy, Kim Carr will be running the show from here on.”
Former senator Conroy said yesterday he was “happily retired”.
Senator Carr said he was busy working on a plan to get workers back into jobs, and did not have any time to respond to Mr Somyurek’s “fantasies”.
But if Mr Somyurek has anything to do with it, the factional bloodshed is far from over.
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Originally published as Sacked Labor MP Adem Somyurek’s explosive threat to enemies