IBAC: Adem Somyurek gets his say on Labor

Adem Somyurek at IBAC on Monday.

Adem Somyurek sat – eyes pinned – like a racing car driver at the front of the grid.

Moving backwards and forwards in his seat, the former Labor powerbroker rapidly invoked a who’s who and where’s where of the Victorian ALP … Dan Andrews, Stephen Conroy, Richard Marles, Anthony Byrne, John Brumby, Steve Bracks, Turks, Albanians, Bosnians, Tamils, Muslims and Christians.

It’s taken IBAC commissioner Robert Redlich 75 years to get to this point and he often seemed genuinely interested in Somyurek’s evidence.

Other times, less so, particularly when the subject turned to philosophy and collectivism.

Yet in a lot of ways, it was still a good enough day for Somyurek.

For the first time in nearly 18 months, the former Andrews minister was able to have his say.

He debunked any notion Byrne, his former boss who betrayed him, was a cleanskin whistleblower, reinforcing the well-known fact the federal MP has been a factional player in Melbourne’s southeast for decades.

He also directly invoked the name of Andrews as a factional manipulator from the 1990s and early into the new century. As he was. It was, he contended, he and Andrews who struck the peace deal between the Right and the Socialist Left in the southeast 2001-02.

Perhaps most damning for Andrews was Somyurek’s evidence that the now Victorian Premier was indifferent to his colleague’s concerns about the misuse of taxpayer-funded staff for campaigning purposes. This issue blew up into the so-called Red Shirts Affair, causing Labor significant heartburn and adding another layer of questions about the whatever-it-takes culture that drives the Andrews government.

The cynics were probably expecting Somyurek to fall apart. Fair enough, given the language that emerged when he was taped in Byrne’s office, leading to the current IBAC hearings, and his Twitter library.

Yet aside from some afternoon recalcitrance, Somyurek acquitted himself well. It’s clear from the way the public hearings have been going that the outcome may not be brilliant for Somyurek and others, but what also is clear is that IBAC is not dealing with a fool.

Whatever criticism can be made of the former head of the Victorian Right faction, he does not lack ability or analytical skills.

It will hurt his detractors that rather than presenting as an erratic, emotional wreck, Somyurek was coherent and spoke sense, particularly around the way Labor functions, what drives it and why it often responds as a collective.

By late afternoon, he tired and the commissioner and counsel assisting started to lose patience with each other.

Counsel assisting Chris Carr lamented the work rate in the MP’s electoral office, with a total of just 18 incoming phone calls in April, May and June in 2019.

Adding spice to Carr’s words was a memo from former staffer Emma Walters, who warned Somyurek in an email about deficiencies in the way his office was operating. He never read it.