Kaushaliya Vaghela reveals the reality behind Labor’s carefully crafted image
Daniel Andrews’ answer at a press conference was enough to convince one MP to lift the lid on the reality behind the well-polished Labor machine.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
“That person.”
It was hearing those two words from Daniel Andrews that Kaushaliya Vaghela says convinced her to break her silence.
The comments came on Thursday morning when the Premier was asked what he thought of Ms Vaghela breaking ALP rules to vote against the party.
Never before has a sitting government MP so publicly defied Mr Andrews.
Indeed so rare is it for a Labor MP to cross the floor – Ms Vaghela was the first to do it in Victoria in 35 years.
In doing so, she voted to have her own party’s Red Shirts election rort investigated for a third time.
It could mean a potentially messy saga in the lead-up to an election that will see ministerial advisers and political staffers hauled in for a public grilling.
It was no small move.
Ms Vaghela will now almost certainly be expelled from the party for breaching its rules, despite the devastating optics of booting out a migrant woman who voted to weed out corruption.
Her decision to cross the floor, and now go public with a series of damning allegations, could be viewed as merely the actions of a vengeful ex-MP.
She was dumped from Labor in December in a bloody factional war, ending her political career.
But that ignores the fact that Ms Vaghela made her first complaint about the culture inside Labor in 2019.
She says she felt sidelined, threatened, intimidated and harassed.
For almost three years she kept quiet for the good of the party and indeed her own career.
But now, with nothing to lose, she said she wanted to speak out to highlight the other side to the well-polished Labor machine that’s been on public view since 2014.
For many years the machine has been the envy of opposition MPs who can only watch on as the Premier’s support grows and grows.
Ms Vaghela said behind the carefully crafted image of Labor, and the Premier, there was a different reality.
Hearing Mr Andrews refer to her only as “that person” was a clear example of that, she says.
The real threat for Labor, and Daniel Andrews now is the potential for Ms Vaghela’s actions to embolden others to follow suit.
In her maiden speech to parliament in 2014, she thanked just three MPs: Adem Somyurek, Marlene Kairouz and Robin Scott.
Close allies, Somyurek has since been banned from the ALP, and Kairouz and Scott both disendorsed.
Like Vaghela, none of them have anything to lose.
But each could inflict their own damage should they wish to reveal Labor secrets.
As could Broadmeadows MP Frank McGuire, or former ministers Jenny Mikakos and Gavin Jennings.
Carefully crafted image control can work only as long as people are willing to comply. So the question is, will anyone speak out next?
Campbell: Pesutto may have survived if he’d swallowed his pride
Only four months after claiming the Liberal Party leadership prize, John Pesutto set off a series of events that ended with him being booted from the job — and there’s no escaping that he alone is responsible for it.
Bozempic, blockbusters and beauty trends: My hopes for 2025
We’re a quarter of the way through a new century that has galloped out of the blocks but it’s not too late for a little course correction, writes Angela Mollard.