Emma Husar ready to call in lawyers for seat fight

Labor MP Emma Husar is considering court action against her party as she fights to keep her western Sydney seat.

Emma Husar is considering court action against her party as she fights to keep her western Sydney seat. Picture: Kym Smith

Labor MP Emma Husar is considering court action against her party as she fights to keep her western Sydney seat, dismissing head office boss Kaila Murnain’s view she is no longer an ALP-­endorsed candidate for next year’s election.

Ms Husar lashed out at Ms Murnain yesterday for holding an internal investigation into staff bullying allegations that she claims was outside ALP rules and prevented her from knowing the identity of any accusers.

“She hasn’t taken responsibility, and she’s handled it appallingly,” Ms Husar said.

Ms Husar’a comments in an interview with The Australian come a day before the NSW ALP’s ruling administrative committee meets to settle on a preselection process to replace Ms Husar in her federal seat of Lindsay. Ms Husar announced in August she did not intend to run again because she was fed up with adverse media attention over allegations she had bullied up to 22 staff.

The first-time MP has since changed her mind, saying she remains the endorsed candidate and seizing on a summary of the NSW ALP’s internal report into her conduct that agreed staff were subject to unreasonable demands by Ms Husar but found “no basis” for her resigning from parliament.

Ms Murnain claims Ms Husar is no longer the endorsed candidate because party officials met immediately after her foreshadowed exit, and accepted her words as a formal withdrawal.

The NSW ALP’s administrative committee is expected to confirm tomorrow the process for re-running the Lindsay preselection. Ms Murnain’s hand-picked candidate, retired former NSW minister Diane Beamer, has been drafted to replace Ms Husar.

Ms Husar told The Australian she would fight to stay Labor’s candidate, starting with an appeal to the party’s candidate review committee and going all the way to the NSW Supreme Court if necessary with “crowd funding”.

She claimed she had been ­denied “natural justice” and “due process” when NSW Labor subjected her to a secret investigation by barrister John Whelan. She said she had been aware of only one complainant, Jeremy Anderson, until earlier this week when four other ex-staffers spoke out in letter to Ms Murnain that was leaked to Nine’s Sydney Morning Herald.

Ms Husar stirred party concerns on Monday that she was about to go rogue when she said she deliberately missed a vote in parliament called by Labor to condemn Scott Morrison for “abandoning women”. Asked yesterday if she might go to the crossbench, she said all options were open.