Spotlight exposes the ALP’s ‘invisible man’ Anthony Byrne

Anthony Byrne was the MP everyone was talking about in Canberra this week but he was described as ‘basically invisible’.

Anthony Byrne with party leader Kevin Rudd during the 2007 election campaign.

Anthony Byrne was the MP everyone was talking about in Canberra this week but he was described as “basically invisible” — having not attended the key parliamentary functions of question time or votes on legislation.

A Labor colleague quipped that the only reason he’d have turned up to Parliament House each day was to sign in and ensure he was paid for a full day’s work.

The Victorian MP was mostly bunkered down in his office avoiding questions from journalists about whether he was involved in exposing the allegations of branch-stacking against former Victorian powerbroker Adem Somyurek.

Mr Byrne’s cover for staying out of the limelight was the COVID-19 restrictions, which limit the number of MPs who can be in the legislative chambers at any one time.

He raised eyebrows by attending Labor’s caucus meeting on Tuesday, which he left side-by-side with Somyurek ally Bill Shorten.

In a blunder to the Holt MP’s strategy to escape attention, the pair walked through the public area of Parliament House, allowing The Australian to bombard Mr Byrne with questions. “It has been referred­ to two corruption integrity bodies so I’ve got no comment to make,” he told this reporter.

The Australian has been told Mr Byrne cornered Mr Shorten at the end of the meeting to tell the former Labor leader he remained loyal to Mr Somyurek.

Not that these claims of friendship were believed by Mr Byrne’s colleagues within the Victorian Right faction, after an explosive 60 Minutes episode on the Nine Network on Sunday showed Mr Somyurek secretly filmed in the Holt MP’s electorate office.

Mr Byrne, the deputy chairman of the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, did do a bit of work. The national security hawk spoke in the House of Representatives on Monday to commemorate the 80-year anniv­ersary of Australia’s alliance with the US.

On Thursday he attended a briefing with the PJCIS on a report from terror law expert James ­Renwick. That was the day his text messages with Mr Somyurek were splashed on the front page of The Australian, showing that he had discussed a possible “decapitation” of an ALP colleague, savaged Mr Shorten as a disloyal and ungrateful private schoolboy, and wished for Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews­’s “political death”.

PJCIS chairman Andrew Hastie described Mr Byrne as “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed” despite the ­controversy.

Labor MPs said it was not unusual for Mr Byrne to keep to himself, and he was rarely seen out at dinners or at faction meetings.

“For somebody that nobody sees, he has certainly brought himself a lot of attention,” one MP said.