Friendships and factions hang in the balance amid alleged branch-stacking fallout
Explosive allegations levelled against Adem Somyurek have exposed the cracks in the state branch of the ALP, but the worst of the fallout is to come as details of the sting come to light.
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Last December, Adem Somyurek’s allies in the Right wing of the Labor Party warned him they were worried forces aligned to the Socialist Left were attempting to take over the Casey Central branch in the federal seat of Holt.
Holt, which is held by Labor veteran Anthony Byrne, has long been regarded as the home base of the slice of the Labor Right known as the “mods”. The news that the Socialist Left (SL) had stacked in several dozen members virtually overnight into the group’s heartland was not something it was going to take lying down.
A rival recruitment operation was set in train involving meetings to be held in Byrne’s electorate office at Fountain Gate. Somyurek and Byrne were old friends — before entering state parliament, the powerbroker had worked on Byrne’s staff.
But according to several Labor sources, what Somyurek didn’t realise was that Byrne had developed an aversion to his former protégé and had told people he now regretted helping to put him into state parliament.
Making matters worse, it was also whispered that Byrne had begun to suspect that despite Somyurek’s protestations that he was happy in Spring Street, he was considering replacing him in Holt. Sources close to Somyurek say he was prevailed upon to get personally involved in the operation to recruit in Holt by Byrne’s long-time electorate officer Alex Stalder.
Stalder and Somyurek have been close friends for more than 20 years.
“He would speak to her two or three times a day,” a close ally of Somyurek’s said yesterday.
Although friends of Somyurek say he trusted Stalder completely, in the recent past they had had their differences.
Stalder had wanted to replace veteran state MP Judith Graley when her retired from his seat of Narre Warren South at the 2018 state election. The seat had instead gone to Gary Maas as part of a deal with the National Union of Workers.
Stalder’s disappointment had led to a cooling of her friendship with Somyurek, but a year after the state election, it seemed the pair had repaired their relationship.
When Somyurek attended Byrne’s electorate office this year at Stalder’s insistence, he thought he was taking part in an operation to shore up the numbers in Holt on Byrne’s behalf. What he didn’t realise was that Stalder’s office inside Byrne’s electorate office had been rigged with hidden cameras and microphones and that he was being set up.
It is legal in Victoria for a person to record a conversation if they are a party to that conversation.
Somyurek has told friends that in retrospect it was suspicious he was directed to sit in that office. He was told the other offices were locked.
Sources close to Somyurek have told the Herald Sun that Stalder was present during all the recorded conversations broadcast by 60 Minutes. They say he believes she was responsible for recording him.
Stalder did not return phone calls from the Herald Sun or respond to questions regarding her involvement in the affair.
The question Labor folk in both Canberra and Spring Street most want answered is if Stalder did bug her office or cause it to be bugged, did she do so with the knowledge of her employer, Anthony Byrne?
Those who have observed their relationship find it hard to believe she would have done so without his knowledge or tacit approval.
“She doesn’t have agency on her own,” one observer said. Some pointed to the appearance of former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd — a close friend of Byrne’s — on 60 Minutes to suggest that Byrne was aware of the factional hit.
Byrne refused to comment when contacted by the Herald Sun yesterday. But sources close to him described this school of thought as a “bulls--t conspiracy theory”.
Some even floated a theory of their own: that the conversations were actually recorded as part of a law enforcement investigation.
Regardless of the truth of the matter, the revelation that Byrne’s electorate office was bugged raised the ire of Liberal MPs, as well as several on the Labor side. Byrne is respected on both sides of politics for his work leading the parliament’s intelligence and security committee, where he is privy to sensitive information on Australia’s national security. Federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese wasn’t having a bar of questions yesterday about whether Byrne’s committee work had been compromised.
“He does an outstanding job,” he said. When he fronted the media just before noon, Albanese had not even spoken to Byrne, and despite watching 60 Minutes, would not say if he was concerned the recordings had been made in his office.
“I am not aware of all of the detail,” Albanese said. “In terms of the issues resolving potential conduct, I understand Daniel Andrews has referred all of the issues to the appropriate authorities, including the police. I would have thought that was appropriate.”
Earlier in the day, Albanese went on the ABC to foreshadow “swift action” against Somyurek.
In the recordings, Somyurek admitted what many Labor figures already suspected: that he was going after the preselection of federal MPs Rob Mitchell in McEwen, Julian Hill in Bruce and Joanne Ryan in Lalor.
He claimed Macnamara MP Josh Burns and Tim Watts in Gellibrand relied on his support, as powerbrokers jostled ahead of another round of electoral boundary changes.
Burns rejected that yesterday, tweeting that Somyurek did not deserve to be a Labor Party member.
“The behaviour and attitudes displayed in last night’s 60 Minutes were shocking and have no place in the Labor Party,” he said.
These factional tensions had already boiled over this year, when SL figure Jasvinder Sidhu was punched in the head at a branch meeting he hosted at his home.
Sidhu had caught some party members by surprise with the impromptu meeting, prompting forces aligned to Somyurek to rush members to Sidhu’s backyard to try to maintain their numbers.
Video of the altercation that ensued showed one Labor figure on the phone to someone named “Somyurek”.
A Labor insider said the controversy surrounding Sidhu had highlighted the escalating bitterness between the SL forces and Somyurek’s coalition of Right-aligned unions and the Industrial Left.
Sidhu was recently found guilty of branch-stacking after Somyurek’s allies forced a party investigation into him — an irony not lost yesterday.
“Everyone is trying to outdo themselves because there’s a redistribution coming,” the insider said. “It’s like an arms race but with lots of different tactics where people get family and friends to sign up.”
To end the “arms race”, Labor’s national executive was last night considering re-endorsing all sitting federal MPs from Victoria, so that stacked members could not be marshalled to knock them off.
The executive had also planned to expel Somyurek, but he resigned.
Some Labor figures believed that was to open up the possibility that Somyurek could reapply for his membership through the state executive — where his forces recently gained a majority — in several months.
The executive saw that coming. Labor president Wayne Swan said further steps would be taken “to ensure that there will never be a place for Mr Somyurek in the ALP”.
No one in the Labor Party can agree on much right now. But they know peace won’t break out any time soon.
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