NSW Labor Party offers amnesty on fake branch records

NSW Labor will intervene in a number of its Sydney branches alleged to have falsified meeting and membership records.

NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay in question time on Tuesday. Picture: Jonathan Ng

NSW Labor will intervene in a number of its Sydney branches, writing to all members to check whether they attended branch meetings and offering a year-long amnesty for any evidence of improprie­ty and faked records.

Labor members in Granville, South Granville, Merrylands, Guildford and Guildford West will be required to resubmit their home addresses and attendance records in a bid to identify any potentia­l misconduct, according to a leaked internal report.

The report, dated May 28 and obtained by The Australian, also recommends providing “a 12-month amnesty against expulsion or suspension for members who come forward with honest and direct evidence about the falsification of branch records” in those areas.

Federal leader Anth­ony Al­ba­n­­ese and the party’s state leader Jodi McKay ordered the review of the branches, conducted by former Queensland Labor secretary Evan Moorhead, late last year after the branches were hit with allegations that ­attendance books had been falsified and some offic­ials had paid for membership fees for others. Those moves would have helped shore up voting blocs and determine preselections.

The allegations, first published by Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph, included allegations made against Labor’s state consumer protection spokeswoman Julia Finn.

Mr Moorehead’s report­, however, stops short of recommending ­action against any individual Labor MP, sources said.

The Telegraph reported in February that Ms Finn had been interviewed over her alleged involvement in the branch stacking. Ms Finn, elected to the seat of Granville in 2015, is aligned to a Labor faction headed by former federal MP Laurie Ferguson.

Instead, Mr Moorhead’s report recommended a number of branch members appear before the party’s internal tribunal for further investigation.

As part of the measures being considered to increase a “sense of propriety to affected branches”, each branch secretary will be required to take photographs of attenda­nce records at the end of every meeting and send these to the party’s governance director.

A spokesman for Ms McKay said she had called for an independent investigation into the matter when the allegations surfaced last November.