Labor Party strongman Adem Somyurek’s fate hangs in the balance after tapes leaked
Derogatory comments made by Labor Party strongman Adem Somyurek have cost him his ministerial position, but the bigger question weighing on everyone’s shoulders is who secretly recorded him?
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Adem Somyurek’s fate is now at the mercy of Daniel Andrews. Somyurek, who was forced to resign early in Labor’s last term over allegations – denied – that he manhandled a female staffer, has now been caught on a recording describing his cabinet colleague Gabrielle Williams as a “stupid, stupid moll”.
Those words will probably sink him, though there were phone calls taking place late into the night about what, if anything, could be done to salvage the situation.
It should be said that no one in Labor politics is actually shocked that Labor politicians – both men and women – speak this way about each other, though that doesn’t stop them also holding the view that this may not be survivable.
The rest of the allegations aired by 60 Minutes last night won’t be causing Somyurek to lose much sleep.
Did he pay the fees of Labor members?
It’s certainly against the ALP’s rules but it has never been found to be a criminal offence.
It would be a big move to expel someone of Somyurek’s stature for something that is not exactly unknown in the Australian Labor Party.
What shocked some Labor folk is 60 Minutes’ allegation that Somyurek himself should have been taking cash out of an ATM himself and handing it over to pay for memberships.
A man of his importance should have people for that sort of thing.
As to the charge that electorate office staff were using their time for party business, again, certainly not a good look but hardly unknown inside ALP or for that matter some Liberal MPs’ offices that immediately spring to mind.
No doubt comparisons will be made with the Red Shirts scandal that caused Labor so much trouble in the last term.
But even if the charges are true – and they are being furiously denied in private – using electorate office staff for internal party business is not the same thing as using them as paid campaign staff in seats where they had never met their supposed employers, a strategy which we have it on the word of no lesser authority than Victoria Police is not illegal.
The footage of Somyurek apparently attempting to persuade a businessman to sign a membership form on behalf of a relative was more troubling and will take some effort to explain away.
Some Somyurek supporters were last night arguing that this was no problem because it was not illegal as the man had not in the end signed.
Others were saying it was OK as the man had been signing with his brother’s consent.
We will see where that one lands.
None of the above was taking up nearly as much of the political class’s intellectual energy as the search to find out who it is that has stitched Somyurek up.
The candidates for who might to destroy him are fairly obvious.
Somyurek has succeeded in uniting the right wing of the Victorian ALP in a way that has not been seen in decades.
The people who have thrived under the previous disunity by playing elements off against each other have not enjoyed life under this new regimen.
Nor has the Socialist Left as Somyurek has succeed in forming an alliance with a chunk of that section of the party, most notably the CFMMEU and the public transport workers of the RTBU.
Moving on from the motive, early speculation about who might be responsible was focusing last night on where some of the footage was shot.
One of the covertly recorded scenes featured a map of the federal electorate of Holt on the wall.
Another, what looked to be corflutes or A-frames promoting that seat’s MP, Anthony Byrne, while a third included a computer with a screen shot of Parliament House in Canberra, suggesting it was connected to its computer system.
In other words the footage would seem to have been shot on cameras installed in Byrne’s electorate office.
Byrne is the Deputy Chair of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, the Holy of Holies in federal parliament’s spook world.
If his office has been bugged without his knowledge it is a major national security breach which needs to be investigated immediately.
How many of his constituents may also have been surreptitiously recorded as they discussed their most intimate problems with Centrelink or the Family Court?
The alternative scenario, that Byrne has allowed his electorate office to be used to make covert recordings is scarcely less incredible.
It is generally assumed that Byrne and Somyurek are friends and allies which is why some Labor folk are flat out refusing to believe that he could have had anything to do with the hit job on him.
And whatever the outcome, a magnificent hit job is what it was, a hit job that has astonished politicians who imagined they had seen it all.
Whatever the outcome for Somyurek, you can be certain of one thing.
There will be payback for this and it will be bloody.
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