‘Power grab by a cabal of lobbyists’: Former Labor minister

Marlene Kairouz has described Victorian Labor’s latest round of preselections as ‘a power grab by the cabal of lobbyists who have taken over the party’.

Former Victorian consumer affairs and gaming minister Marlene Kairouz. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

A dumped former Andrews government minister has described Victorian Labor’s latest round of preselections as “a power grab by the cabal of lobbyists who have taken over the party”.

Former consumer affairs and gaming minister Marlene Kairouz is among seven sitting MPs – including five allies of disgraced former powerbroker Adem Somyurek – whose state political careers will end in November next year courtesy of a factional carve-up of their seats.

On Tuesday Ms Kairouz accused former factional ally turned whistleblower Anthony Byrne of having “planted illegal surveillance in his electorate office as he defected to the lobbyist faction” and asked why he was not also facing disendorsement from his federal seat of Holt, in Melbourne’s southeast, as were she and other Somyurek allies implicated in branch-stacking claims.

Ms Kairouz cited evidence Mr Byrne gave to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Com­­mission ­in which he admitted to recruiting ALP members en masse, paying for recruits’ memberships and renewals through party fundraisers, and maintaining a “kitty” to pay for branch stacking. “Why is Byrne still a preselected candidate of the ALP? The answer is that the preselections were about a power grab by the cabal of lobbyists who have taken over the party and want compliant MPs,” Ms Kairouz said.

“As for renewal, Byrne has been in parliament for 23 years. There are people who have been knocked off after one term.”

Acting Premier James Mer­lino downplayed the significance of the factional carve-up, which cements power in the hands of Premier Daniel Andrews’ Socialist Left faction, Mr Merlino’s Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association Right faction, and the Right faction associated with Stephen Conroy, Richard Marles and the Transport Workers Union.

Asked whether he was concerned disenfranchised MPs could spark by-elections or join the upper house crossbench between now and the election next November, Mr Merlino said: “I don’t have the gift of foreseeing the ­future … but these things sort themselves out.”