Bracks and Macklin to lead Victorian Labor overhaul

Labor’s national executive has endorsed a motion putting party luminaries Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin as administrators of the Victorian branch of the ALP.

Labor MP Anthony Byrne asking questions in a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security hearing last year. Picture Kym Smith

Labor’s national executive has endorsed a motion putting party luminaries Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin as administrators of the Victorian branch of the ALP.

ALP president Wayne Swan said the pair would be in their roles until January 31 next year.

“The administrators will provide the national executive with recommendations on how the Victorian branch should be restructured and reconstituted so that the branch membership comprises genuine, consenting, self-funding party members,” Mr Swan said in a statement.

“In developing these recommendations, the administrators will consult with the party membership and affiliated unions.

“The conduct exposed in recent days is reprehensible and at odds with everything the ALP stands for.”

The motion, proposed by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, was endorsed in a meeting of Labor’s national executive.

Under the requirements imposed by the motion, state and federal preselections will be cancelled until 2023.

All 16,000 memberships will be audited.

Mr Bracks and Ms Macklin have been tasked with handing down an “initial scoping report” by July 31 which will provide recommendations to national executives on “integrity measures for the Victorian branch membership”.

A final report will be completed by November with recommendations on how the Victorian branch can be restructured and reconstituted.

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The Australian understands Mr Andrews will make further announcements on Wednesday regarding the process involved in reforming the ALP’s membership system.

Sources close to the Premier said the key aims would include ensuring all members pay their own fees and are engaged.

Locked out of offices

The move follows an expose aired by the 60 Minutes program, which alleged former Labor Mr Somyurek handed over cash and used parliamentary employees to create fake branch members and amass political influence.

Recordings also captured Mr Somyurek using vile language against colleagues and staff.

It is alleged staff members of Marlene Kairouz and Robin Scott were involved in Mr Somyurek’s branch-stacking efforts.

Marlene Kairouz. Picture: Ellen Smith

Ms Kairouz on Tuesday became the third minister to leave cabinet over the scandal, after Mr Somyurek and Mr Scott left the ministry on Monday.

The Andrews government’s leader in the upper house has revealed Mr Somyurek, Ms Kairouz and Mr Scott have been prevented from re-entering their offices without “appropriate supervision” as they face inquiries by Victoria Police and corruption watchdog IBAC into allegations of widespread branch stacking.

During Question Time on Tuesday, the state opposition’s leader in the Legislative Council, David Davis, asked his Labor counterpart, Jaclyn Symes, what steps she had taken to ensure that “no document shredding has been undertaken” since the allegations aired on 60 Minutes on Sunday night.

Ms Symes said all Victorians should comply with IBAC and Victoria Police investigations.

“I think that anyone who acts in a way that does not meet those standards should be dealt with appropriately by the appropriate authorities,” she said.

“In relation to your specific question, I can confirm that there have been exclusions placed on people re-entering their offices without appropriate supervision.”

The Australian understands the “exclusions” to which Ms Symes was referring involve the requirement for the former ministers to be accompanied by a staff member from their previous department when returning to their former ministerial offices to collect items.

This is standard practice when an MP departs the ministry.

The former ministers still have unsupervised access to their electorate offices.

National security implications

Andrews government MP Tim Richardson has claimed there could be national security implications for the covert recordings taken out of the office of Labor MP Anthony Byrne.

Mr Richardson, an ally of Mr Adem Somyurek, said the recordings were a concern given Mr Byrne’s role as deputy chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

He called for an investigation by the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.

The Australian has also spoken to a Liberal member of the powerful committee who says there should be an investigation into Mr Byrne’s role in the recordings.

“It is great concerning some of the things we saw with a federal office, no less, it was covertly recorded,” Mr Richardson told Sky News.

“We don’t know who put those recordings in. We don’t know what has been compromised. That is a great concern for our commonwealth and our national security.

“That office obviously is a participant to the joint standing committee of the commonwealth parliament overseeing national security.

“That committee has made a number of comments about the sovereignty and its relationship with China.

“So the notion that there is an unknown, covert recording is a great concern on our democracy and our sovereignty.

Adem Somyurek. Picture: David Crosling

“That needs to be investigated no less by the Australian Federal Police and, if it is a national security issue, ASIO.”

In one of the covert recordings obtained by 60 Minutes, Ms Kairouz refers to Mr Richardson as a “good friend of ours” in a conversation with Mr Somyurek.

Ms Kairouz, whose parents are from Lebanon, complains to Mr Somyurek, who was born in Turkey, that “white” politicians such as Mr Richardson would not be suspected of branch stacking if they used white people to branch stack.

“I’ll give you an example, if Tim Richardson was able to recruit, and he’s a good friend of ours, I don’t know why he is not here … if he goes out and recruits 10 people in the Labor Party they will probably fly him around the country and say … good on him,” Ms Kairouz said in the recording.

“But if I recruit my sister, my brother, my mum and my dad, I’m a stacker.”

Federal intervention

Mr Richardson told journalists outside state parliament on Tuesday that he saw the covert recording as federal Labor interfering in Victorian state matters.

Tim Richardson. Picture: AAP

“Interventions by the federal wing of the party into Victoria is a great concern, especially when they’ve won one election in the last 25 years,” the Parliamentary Secretary for Schools said.

Mr Richardson said Mr Somyurek’s comments about Minister for Women Gabrielle Williams and his description of young Labor staffers as “little passive-aggressive f..king gay kids” had “rightly” cost him his job, but called for a broad investigation that went beyond their faction.

“Adem’s no longer got his job and lost a lot more, and so this is a real watershed moment for the Australian Labor Party to look at culture more broadly, culture across parliamentary grouping, culture across staffing, across the 59th parliament, and that’s really important,” he said.

“This is a line in the sand for so many, and really important to reflect on where we go into the future.”

Less than an hour before Ms Kairouz tendered her resignation, Mr Richardson was standing by her, saying she was doing an “outstanding job”.

“It’s a very hard slog for an MP of an ethnic background who represents so many people, but also (being) a woman in politics is very difficult,” he said.

“Marlene can speak for herself about those things.

“Marlene and (fellow former minister and factional ally) Robin (Scott) have welcomed an investigation, they’ve welcomed that investigation taking place, and, I think, welcomed any oversight from either the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, Victoria Police.

“It’s not limited. It’s about culture across the board.”

Asked whether an inquiry was likely to find branch stacking was not confined to Mr Somyurek’s faction of the Labor Party, Mr Richardson said: “Well, who knows?”