Grassroots Labor members in Melbourne’s outer north are threatening to quit if they are blocked from picking a replacement for outgoing MP Maria Vamvakinou and the party parachutes a candidate into the seat instead.
Some Labor members have also pledged to back an independent candidate to run a “Dai Le- style campaign” – a reference to the crossbench MP in the south-western Sydney seat of Fowler who defeated Labor frontbencher Kristina Keneally off the back of community anger about her preselection.
Maria Vamvakinou has represented her Melbourne seat for more than two decades.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
It comes after The Age last week revealed political staffer Basem Abdo had won the support of key Socialist Left figures, including Vamvakinou, to replace the veteran MP in the seat of Calwell when she retires at the next federal election.
While a preselection has been proposed for later in the year, there is growing fear from local members that they won’t be given a say in the seat of Calwell, which is nominally Socialist Left, and that Abdo’s position is all but guaranteed.
The Sunday Age has seen a letter to the party’s national secretary, Paul Erickson, from the former president of the Craigieburn branch, Spiro Pastras, threatening to quit if the 300 local members with voting rights aren’t given a vote.
This masthead has also spoken to three other local branch members, on the condition of anonymity, who said they were similarly concerned about the decision of Vamvakinou to “anoint” Abdo before discussing it with grassroots members.
Several Labor MPs and officials privately confirmed they have also been contacted with concerns about the upcoming preselection.
Pastras, who has been a member for more than a decade, said he and his four family members would all cease being party members and won’t volunteer at any elections.
“I am writing to you to highlight my concerns that the Labor members of the Calwell electorate will not be able to preselect Maria Vamvakinou’s replacement for the upcoming federal election,” Pastras wrote to Erickson.
“This has been going on for far too long in regards to local members being excluded from important decisions like these.
“If the party decides to continue on this course, my family and I – who are long-term members – will resign from the party and will not volunteer for any of the party’s activities.”
One branch member told The Sunday Age: “It was painted as a fait accompli, but we have to have a say. There is a lot of anger within the branches itself. We thought the age of bequeathing seats to people was over.”
The Sunday Age contacted the Victorian branch of the ALP and confirmed the party would not depart from the rules and that it was planning to open the seat of Calwell for nominations later in the year.
But local branch members fear factional powerbrokers will decide who gets the seat before they get a chance to have a say.
This development comes a year after Labor Party members in Victoria had their voting rights returned following a three-year suspension. Labor’s national executive took control of the troubled state branch in June 2020, after The Age and 60 Minutes revealed “industrial-scale” branch-stacking.
Following the revelation, the party appointed former premier Steve Bracks and former federal minister Jenny Macklin as administrators of the Victorian division to probe the memberships.
The party lost one-fifth of its 16,000 members, with the vast majority booted out after being found to be stacked by ALP powerbrokers from both the Left and Right factions.
If successful, Kuwait-born Abdo would be the first Palestinian-Australian federal politician. He told The Age last week: “We need to see the advancement of justice for Palestine and the Palestinian people, and their right to self-determination.”
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