Labor Party issue life honour for former MP Belinda Neal after she was ousted

Controversial former federal Labor MP Belinda Neal is set to be award a life membership to the party despite being expelled from it in 2017 for ‘unworthy conduct’.

Belinda Neal, former member for Robertson, attended the announcement of Liesl Tesch, as the new candidate for the seat of Gosford by-election at Woy Woy waterfront. Picture: Peter Clark

Controversial former federal Labor MP Belinda Neal is to be awarded ALP life membership, after battling her way back from party expulsion over allegations she engaged in “unworthy ­conduct”.

Ms Neal, best known for an ­altercation she had as a Labor MP with staff at a waterfront bar called Iguana Joes, will be named a life member at the NSW ALP conference next month.

Life membership is a high honour inside the ALP, intended as a reward for members with at least 40 years of continuous, loyal service. In Ms Neal’s case, the honour appears a remarkable turnabout considering she was expelled from the party seven years ago and rebuffed a number of times when she attempted to gain readmission.

While Ms Neal suffered damaging fallout from the Iguana bar incident in 2008, including direct criticism from then prime minister Kevin Rudd, and ultimately lost preselection for her NSW central coast seat in 2010, her party expulsion was unrelated, coming almost a decade later when she was still active in Labor politics but not in parliament.

NSW Labor expelled Ms Neal in July 2017 when some party ­locals accused her of a form of branch stacking, banned under party rules, which is known as “walking the books” by allegedly having branch attendance records signed at members’ homes. She never wavered in ­arguing the claims against her were false, but NSW Labor’s internal appeals tribunal upheld a formal charge and head office, then led by then NSW ALP secretary Kaila Murnain, expelled her from the party.

At the time, Ms Murnain, whose relationship with Ms Neal was tense, went public by tweeting the outcome.

Ms Murnain was forced to ­resign as secretary in 2019 over a Labor donations scandal. Any past animosity of NSW Labor’s head office towards Ms Neal ­appears to have evaporated under current party secretary Dom Ofner, who has made it known he wants to bring warring sides in the party together.

The attitude of Anthony Albanese towards Ms Neal also may have assisted her case. As federal opposition leader before the 2022 election, which Labor won, Mr Albanese is believed to have expressed sympathy for Ms Neal’s cause, suggesting that officials could perhaps find a way to bring her back into party ranks.

Ms Neal’s final godsend was not only her persistent tenacity but a ruling by the ALP’s national appeals tribunal three years ago – after hearing the matter twice – that the NSW party should re-examine allegations, taking into account claims about a lack of evidence and unfair process.

When the matter was then referred back to the NSW ALP’s review tribunal, and considered by its chair, retired judge Tricia Kav­anagh, Ms Neal’s expulsion was overturned. Ms Neal’s party membership was then reinstated as unbroken, continuous service, opening up the prospect of life membership after 40 years.

As reported by The Australian on Monday, Dr Kavanagh, 81, will move from her backroom umpiring review role to the frontline next month, when she becomes the NSW party’s state president.

Ms Neal, 61, told The Australian on Monday that she was ­elated to be named a life member.

She said she joined the ALP in 1980 and it had been very important for her reputation to fight so hard for her membership reinstatement.

“It was very important to ­establish that the claims against me were unfounded and unfair,” she said.

Ms Neal served as a NSW Labor senator for four years from 1994-98. She then quit the Senate to run as Labor’s candidate in the NSW central coast lower house seat of Robertson at the 1998 election, only to lose to the Liberals’ Jim Lloyd.

Ms Neal won Robertson at the “Ruddslide” 2007 election, but she served only one term, losing preselection for the seat to Labor’s Deborah O’Neill for the 2010 election.

In large part, the end of Ms Neal’s political career was enduring fallout from the June 2008 Iguana bar incident, when she and her husband John Della Bosca were involved in a much-reported verbal altercation with staff at the then popular Gosford waterfront nightspot.

After the incident, Ms Neal ­denied the claims of some Iguana staff that she had verbally abused them or said, “Don’t you know who I am?”

Nevertheless, Mr Rudd as prime minister admonished Ms Neal, saying “there appears to be a pattern of unacceptable behaviour” and ordering her into counselling “to assist in her own management of her relationships with other people”.

Shortly before the Iguana ­affair, Ms Neal had also been caught on tape in parliament telling then Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella: “Your baby will be turned into a demon by evil thoughts.” She later apologised.

Ms Neal told The Australian she had “no future expectations” of a political career but took a keen interest in the ALP. While a qualified lawyer, she now runs a consultancy business advising not-for-profit disability organisations with Mr Della Bosca, a former longtime NSW party secretary and NSW education minister who will also receive life party membership next month.

Ms Neal is also on the board of Amnesty International Australia and an NDIS provider company, You Connect.