Federal Labor MPs Gary Gray and Alannah MacTiernan will be able to contest their Western Australian seats after the party’s national executive stepped in and declared their nominations valid.
The intervention on Thursday came after a messy falling out between the MPs and the WA state branch, which demands that candidates sign a pledge requiring them to “obey” the directions of the state secretary, Patrick Gorman.
MacTiernan and Gray – a former resources minister who has close ties to the minerals industry – refused. The state branch then deemed the nominations invalid, but this was overturned by the national executive, who also ordered the WA branch to revise its pledge for candidates seeking federal seats to better reflect the party’s national platform.
Gray, a member of the right faction, faces a challenge from a union-aligned left faction candidate.
Gray has held the seat of Brand in WA since 2007, and has been minister for resources, tourism and small business, as well as special minister of state.
MacTiernan is relatively new to federal politics, entering parliament at the last election after she won the seat of Perth. Before that, she was a member of the WA state parliament.
The federal justice minister, Michael Keenan – another federal WA MP – said the fiasco proved that WA Labor was “dysfunctional”.
“They are controlled by a set of leftwing militant unions who seem intent on expelling a politician who, I think, in fairness and speaking in a bipartisan way, has the respect really of all his colleagues within the parliament, including on the government side, for the work that he has done as a minister,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
