Ex-Andrews minister Marlene Kairouz snared in ALP purge

Victorian Labor administrators Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin charge former minister Marlene Kairouz with branch-stacking.

Former Victorian minister Marlene Kairouz. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Victorian Labor Party administrators Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin have charged former cabinet minister Marlene Kairouz with a range of branch-­stacking offences and struck 1800 people off the ALP membership list in the biggest purge of members in the party’s history.

Ms Kairouz denied the alle­gations on Monday, saying the charges against her represented “the biggest factional hit in living memory” against the Labor Right moderates group of which she is part.

The former consumer affairs minister was forced to resign from Daniel Andrews’s cabinet in June last year alongside her factional allies Adem Somyurek and Robin Scott amid allegations of “industrial scale” branch stacking exposed through a series of videos filmed in the office of their erstwhile factional ally, federal Labor MP Anthony Byrne.

The allegations prompted Mr Andrews to announce the appointment of former premier Mr Bracks and former federal deputy Labor leader Ms Macklin as party administrators, with the voting rights of grassroots Labor Party members suspended.

Ms Kairouz faces referral to Labor’s internal disputes tribunal and expulsion if found guilty, as does mayor for the northeastern Melbourne local government area of Banyule Rick Garotti.

Mr Bracks and Ms Macklin did not identify who they had charged or the specific charges, but said they had referred “two of what we believe to be the most serious cases to the party’s internal disputes tribunal for alleged breach of branch-stacking rules.

“It is very disappointing that the administrators have chosen to take this course of action,” Ms Kairouz said in a statement. “The flimsy nature of the charges against me is another indication of a predetermined outcome.

“The charges do not allege I was engaged in branch-stacking activity but rather I was somehow promoting it or I knew it was going on and did not report it.

“It is interesting that white Anglo-Saxon men who have engaged in branch stacking to get into parliament are not being investigated and charged by the administrators, but rather a woman from a multicultural background who has never engaged in branch stacking is being pursued relentlessly,” said Ms Kairouz, whose parents are Maronite Catholics born in Lebanon.

A spokeswoman for the Andrews government said the charges were “a matter for the party”.

The 1800 members purged from the Victorian ALP after being deemed fake represent just over 10 per cent of the party’s 17,000 members.

“While the task we were given … was not an easy one, we are confident we have made lasting changes, which have helped restore the faith of party members in the branch,” Ms Macklin said.