Liberals in crisis over secret plot to dump MPs based on skin colour, gender, ethnicity and religiou­s beliefs

A secret plot to dump seven Victorian Liberal MPs based on skin colour, gender, ethnicity and religion has sparked a new crisis.

Former federal Liberal vice-president and factional powerbroker Karina Okotel. Picture: Kym Smith

A secret plot to dump seven Victorian Liberal MPs based on skin colour, gender, ethnicity and religiou­s beliefs has sparked a new branch-stacking crisis that has embarrassed the party leadership.

An internal strategy document shows the Victorian Liberal Party’s religious right planned to purge the state’s upper-house sitting MPs, with one high-profile frontbencher to be ousted because he had white skin and was male.

The MP would be replaced by former federal Liberal vice-president and factional powerbroker Karina Okotel, described in the document as an “ethnic female” with a legal background.

Ms Okotel sent an email before the federal election outlining the strategy of retribution against the MPs as part of an attempted religious­ takeover of the Victorian party. The overall strategy called for the election of faith-based candidates with recruiting credentials and the use in one seat of the Chin­ese community to help sway a preselection.

Key federal MPs are urging Scott Morrison to force a review of the Victorian party amid concerns Ms Okotel’s role as a current-day powerbroker, with about 10 per cent of the organisation’s vote, has the potential to split the party.

Ms Okotel split from the party’s conservative grouping in late 2018, after complaining that too few religious candidates were being preselected.

But she is now forming voting alliances with party moderates, including­ those loyal to the Victorian Liberals’ state leadership. She has taken scores of votes with her, creating an influential grouping with the balance of power in the Victorian Liberal Party.

The Australian can also reveal that Ms Okotel’s brother, Joshua Bonney, is being accused of using his former position as an adviser to federal Assistant Treasurer Mich­ael Sukkar­ to pursue political agendas that favoured his sister.

A statutory declaration signed by a staff member of former ­Howard minister Kevin Andrews accuses Mr Bonney of running a political campaign out of Mr ­Sukkar’s office on behalf of Ms Okotel.

 

Cameron Manassa, who worked as a part-time electoral officer in the seat of Menzies, accuses­ Mr Bonney of forcing him to undertake party political tasks.

The Okotel sub-faction is being accused of leaking against key conservative state and federal MPs. The move, if true, could lead to expulsion from the party.

Emails between the siblings show that Ms Okotel was listed in late 2018 as a replacement for respected­ state Liberal front­bench­er Edward O’Donohue because she is “ethnic” and “female”.

Another prominent MP, Mary Wooldridge, was targeted because she “organises lefty female MPs in parliament” and voted for euthanasia. Ms Wooldridge has left the parliament.

Supporters of euthanasia were savaged in the document.

Ms Okotel emailed the strategy document to replace­ the seven upper-house Liberals to Mr Bonney on June 21, 2018. It ­includes a series of highly defam­atory and unflattering comments about several of the MPs.

It also targets some MPs Ms Okotel is now factionally aligned with, under an awkward arrangement where state Liberal president Robert Clark and state leader Michael O’Brien benefit from her sub-faction’s numbers.

Sources said there was no formal alliance between the three people but the effect was to bolster­ Mr Clark’s presidency and Mr O’Brien’s leadership.

Ms Okotel was a high-profile campaigner against same-sex marriage reform and has vowed to support the right of consenting adults to seek counselling out of same-sex attraction.

Some of the claims in the strategy­ document seen by The Australian are scurrilous and unprintable, relating to MPs’ private lives and health problems.

The document also overtly states that four people earmarked to replace MPs are “recruiters”.

Another “selling point” of the strategy was to lobby for a Christian­ to replace euthanasia-supporting former Liberal MP Simon Ramsay.

It also recommends exploiting Chinese community networks to win the preselection.

The proposed new charter emailed by Ms Okotel explicitly calls for faith-based people to be given preference over non-believers. The aim is: “To seek out and support conservative faith-based individuals at every level of the party whom we believe will act with integrity and sound judgment. And to vote for, and uphold, conservative faith-based leaders in (the) short-term to long term who are honest, good and wise.’’

The document targets several MPs who now back Mr O’Brien, including conservative Bernie Finn, Mr O’Donohue and senior MP Wendy Lovell. It was written before Ms Okotel’s falling-out with Liberal powerbroker Marcus Bastiaan.

The Weekend Australian revealed­ that this falling-out was over Ms Okotel’s anger that religiou­s candidates were not being backed by Mr Bastiaan.

While his recruiting of some religious groups, including Mormon­s, was criticised, it was not based on any allegiances to faith. This differs sharply to Ms Okotel’s agenda, which was aimed at preselecting religious people for faith-based reasons.

Ms Okotel and Mr Bonney have not responded to repeated attempts by The Australian to address­ claims they were involved in the targeting of conservative federal and state MPs after she split with the conservatives.

Mr Bonney left Mr Sukkar’s office about the same time Ms Okotel split from the mainstream conservative faction.

In his statutory declaration, Mr Andrews’s staffer Mr Manassa details the alleged activities of Mr Bonney while he worked in Mr Sukkar’s office. Mr Sukkar says he was unaware of his activities until alerted by Mr Manassa. Three months later his contract was not renewed and he was removed from Mr Sukkar’s office.

“From around late October 2017 Joshua Bonney would constantly­ harass me with set KPI’s of party-political, non electorate related tasks I was required to perform,” Mr Manassa says.

“I largely tried to ignore communications with him and any party political work I conducted for Joshua Bonney was done … during my own time.’’

He said Mr Bonney “sought to exploit me for his own political gain of attaining his sister, Karina Okotel … a seat in parliament’’.

“In mid-2018 I met with Mich­ael Sukkar in person at his Deakin electorate office and advised him the pressure I was under to perform­ party political tasks by Joshua Bonney, a member of his staff. Michael Sukkar told me to only perform work directed by Kevin Andrews.”