Banyule mayor Rick Garotti admits involvement in Heidelberg branch stacking at IBAC hearing

Banyule mayor Rick Garotti has admitted contributing $3000 for memberships at a Labor office, but denied involvement in wider branch stacking allegations.

Banyule Mayor Rick Garotti will be grilled at IBAC this week.

A Banyule mayor linked to Adem Somyurek regularly petitioned the powerbroker to find taxpayer-funded work for their factional allies and influence ministers, anti-corruption hearings have heard.

The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission is currently probing the misuse of taxpayer resources for branch stacking and amassing power within Victorian Labor.

On Monday, Banyule Mayor Rick Garotti was grilled over his role in a Heidelberg branch that recruited a large number of Somali Australians into Mr Somyurek’s Moderates faction.

He said he helped pay for party memberships, against party rules, along with Dr Hussein Haraco, the secretary of the Somali Association Council of Victoria (SACOV) and former staffer for Mr Somyurek.

But text messages read out the commission show Cr Garotti also petitioned the factional leader to influence ministers and electorate office staffing arrangements.

In one message from 2015, he asked Mr Somyurek if he could look into “funding issues” with SACOV.

When pressed by the commission, he agreed that the text exchange was about whether Mr Somyurek would go and speak to then multicultural affairs minister Robin Scott about government grants for the organisation.

In another series of texts, Cr Garotti allegedly urged his ally to find taxpayer-funded work for Dr Haraco’s daughter.

“The idea is that she would move into the Broadmeadows branch as a regular, active member and help support our recruitment activities there,” he wrote in 2018.

“Longer term she (sic) come to work for me if/when I become an MP.”

Cr Garotti said there was a culture of factional figures being rewarded with government work and he “could not argue” against the idea that this included finding ways to give allies more taxpayer money.

“Hey, how are we going with the job for Dr Hussein’s daughter?” he wrote in another text that same year.

“He’s doing a lot of work. Need to keep him supported.”

The IBAC also heard that in 2017 Cr Garotti asked Mr Somyurek in 2017 to speak with then Attorney General Martin Pakula about getting Dr Haraco on to the Coronial Council of Victoria.

But this did not happen and Dr Haraco was not appointed.

MAYOR ADMITS LOCAL BRANCH STACKING

Cr Garotti has admitted to being involved in branch stacking in Melbourne’s north while being grilled about a larger operation linked to former minister Adem Somyurek.

Cr Garotti told the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission he had paid about $3000 to help cover memberships at the Heidelberg Labor branch, which he led.

This was paid annually over the past five or six years.

Cr Garroti also said that a fellow leader in the branch, Dr Hussein Haraco, had contributed up to $2000 at a time.

Paying for another person’s membership breaches Labor Party rules.

The mayor said he had been told by Dr Haraco that this money had come from personal expenses.

Dr Haraco is a former Adem Somyurek staffer and secretary of the Somali Australian Council of Victoria.

In further damaging claims for the Andrews government, Cr Garotti said at IBAC hearings he believed upper house MP Nazih Elasmar may also have been linked to branch stacking.

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Mr Elasmar is currently the president of the Legislative Council.

Cr Garotti told the commission that, to his knowledge, he thought the Northern Metro MP had some involvement in the practice.

“My knowledge is that there was the High St Arabic/ Darebin branch,” he said.

“I don’t have any evidence … I assumed that he might have been covering (the) costs of some of those members.”

It’s understood part of IBAC’s investigation will centre around taxpayer-funded grants given to this group and others and whether or not they were used to pay for party memberships.

Cr Garotti disagreed when he was asked whether he was involved in a larger branch stacking operation across Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

“We were recruiting,” he said.

Cr Garotti said he was aware of branch stacking across all Labor factions and had learned about the practice as part of his education into how the party worked.

He had hopes of entering parliament and said understanding this alliance system was part of that “journey”.

Over the past decade, the mayor has served in senior positions across Victorian Labor.

This included the powerful administration committee and the public office selection committee, which has a 50 per cent say on pre selecting candidates for elections.

Community grants are expected to form a major focus for the state’s anti-corruption watchdog this week.

Former multicultural affairs minister Robin Scott.

Somali Australian Council of Victoria secretary Hussein Haraco.

Mr Garotti was named to appear over two days of hearings at the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission.

He will be followed by former Adem Somyurek staffer and secretary of the Somali Australian Council of Victoria Hussein Haraco.

The Somali Australian Council Of Victoria and the Cambodian Association of Victoria were among those groups who received grants signed off by former multicultural affairs minister Robin Scott, who is also linked to Mr Somyrek.

Mr Garotti resigned from Victorian Labor earlier this year after he was sent a “please explain” letter from the party and asked to front an internal disputes tribunal.

The charges in the document did not specifically mention branch stacking, which has been a focus of IBAC, but did relate to memberships.

Former minister Marlene Kairouz received a similar letter but has been fighting the process in the Supreme Court and a verdict is expected Tuesday.

The letters were among hundreds sent out while Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin were appointed administrators of the Victorian branch.

Labor’s national executive took over after serious allegations of branch stacking were aired in secret tapes that have also been central to the IBAC investigation.

PROBE INTO BYRNE’S CONDUCT

After a week of pressure, Anthony Albanese said on Monday that he had referred federal Labor MP Anthony Byrne to the Department of Finance, after his admissions to the watchdog about branch-stacking and misusing taxpayer-funded staff.

The federal Labor leader said he spoke to the Victorian MP late last week, and decided to call in the Department of Finance to investigate his conduct.

“That’s what’s appropriate,” Mr Albanese said.

Asked if Mr Byrne would remain Labor’s candidate for Holt at the next election, he said: “We’ll deal with those matters at an appropriate time. But IBAC at the moment is still having hearings.”