Labor’s famed ‘fair go’ didn’t extend to its own when they were summarily dismissed: Matt Cunningham

A FAIR go. It’s at the heart of everything the Australian Labor Party stands for. But that’s not what happened when it sacked three of its own

Ousted Labor member Ken Vowles was expelled from Caucus after sending an email warning his colleagues of a looming economic crisis and urging better restraint. Picture: Justin Kennedy

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A FAIR go.

It’s at the heart of everything the Australian Labor Party stands for.

Look up the party’s website and you will find a great big slogan saying “A Fair Go For Australia”.

A fair go for workers, a fair go for battlers, a fair go for women and a fair go for blackfellas.

Nothing says Labor more than a fair go.

Which makes the treatment of Ken Vowles, Jeff Collins and Scott McConnell hard to fathom.

For there is no doubt they were not given a fair go when it came to the manner in which they were expelled from the NT Labor Party’s caucus last December.

The expulsion followed the leak of an email Vowles had sent warning his colleagues of a looming economic crisis and urging better restraint.

Whether you believe Vowles is a mischief-maker or a martyr probably boils down to who you believe leaked that email.

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Vowles has always maintained it wasn’t him.

But he, McConnell and Collins were kicked out of the caucus without even being afforded an opportunity to explain themselves, in a clear breach of the Labor Party’s own rules.

Section 26 of the NT Parliamentary Labor Party Constitution and Rules says a vote to expel a caucus member can only happen after they have had an opportunity to explain their actions.

Exiled Labor MLA Scott McConnell was kicked out of the caucus without being afforded an opportunity to explain himself. Picture: Justin Kennedy

“Notice of intention to deal with same must be given to the Members concerned in writing,” it says.

On Friday, caucus chair Sandra Nelson confirmed for the first time that she gave no such notice.

“I didn’t send an email about that,” she said.

“Whether somebody else sent an email to them with written notice that this was going to happen, I don’t know, but I can confirm that (if they did) they didn’t send the email to me.”

Others in the Government have refused to directly answer questions about this issue, saying only that “the proper process has been followed”.

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But Collins and McConnell say the first they knew about the meeting at which they were expelled was in a phone call from Deputy Chief Minister Nicole Manison about 20 minutes before.

Vowles had been sacked from cabinet earlier that day and told to clean out his office.

Collins was the only one of the three to dial into the meeting, conducted via phone hook-up just a couple of days before Christmas.

He says Manison opened the meeting before throwing to Chief Minister Michael Gunner who had phoned in from his holiday in New Zealand.

Jeff Collins says the first he knew about the meeting at which he was expelled was in a phone call from Deputy Chief Minister Nicole Manison about 20 minutes before. Picture: Glenn Campbell

According to Collins, Gunner then moved that the three MLAs be expelled for breaching the caucus code of conduct, with members then asked one-by-one for their vote, starting with the cabinet.

Collins says he, Vowles and McConnell had already been voted out before he was given any chance to make his case.

At that point he told his (now former) caucus colleagues to “f*** off” and hung up.

In his farewell speech in the parliament on Thursday night Vowles again argued he’d been denied procedural fairness.

“There’s no mistaking that proper caucus processes were not followed, it clearly states that in the caucus rules,” he said.

So what if those rules had been followed?

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Well perhaps the caucus members could have made a more informed decision about who was leaking and why.

If Vowles, Collins and McConnell were complicit in the leak, then they deserved to go.

If, as the banned trio have since argued, the leak came from the Chief Minister’s office to force Vowles out, then the wrong person probably got the sack.

But it’s a damning indictment on those caucus members who were happy to boot those three men out — effectively ending their political careers — without even offering them a fair hearing.

This might all seem like semantics in the dog-eat-dog world of politics.

But how can the Labor Party claim to offer a fair go to all Australians, when it can’t even offer the same to three of its own?