Did the Victorian Labor party engage in “premeditated and systematic rorting” of taxpayer resources to fund factional wars?
That’s the question – in the words of the counsel assisting, Chris Carr SC – at the heart of the investigation by Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (Ibac).
Upper house MP Adem Somyurek, a convener of Labor’s moderate faction, was dumped from Daniel Andrews’ ministry and resigned from the party after a 60 Minutes/the Age investigation last year outlined wholesale branch stacking within the faction. Here’s what we learned during Somyurek’s evidence this week:
Somyurek was a branch stacker and used taxpayer resources to do it
Somyurek admitted he was a branch stacker who paid for party memberships (in breach of party rules), employed staff for factional purposes in his electorate and ministerial offices, and knew they were doing factional work while being paid by the taxpayer.
On Friday, he said it was “cathartic” and “liberating”, admitting he had paid for memberships, and urged other Labor figures to issue similar “mea culpas”.
There was extensive evidence about how this branch stacking was supported through the use of taxpayer-funded staff, but little that went directly to how party memberships were paid for.
Somyurek agreed with the Ibac commissioner, Robert Redlich QC, that there had been “countless” examples of him seeking factional benefit from publicly funded staff presented during the hearings, and that he “inverted” his requirements under the Members of Parliament (Standards) Act to act ethically, reasonably and in good faith when using and accounting for the use of public resources.
Of these examples, there was one that Somyurek agreed was “a lie” that could be classified as corrupt: when he signed off on a taxpayer payment to a staffer who he knew was doing factional work at the time.
Everybody does it though, Somyurek says
While Somyurek made concessions about branch stacking, and how he used taxpayer resources, he was at pains to emphasise two key points: that there were grey areas in the legislation governing how he used these resources, and that the way he used his staff was consistent with other MPs and his experience of ALP factional politics.
Essentially, Somyurek said he had used taxpayer-funded staff for factional purposes, but denied that equated to a misuse of public resources, because it was “proportionate”.
As part of his argument about the grey areas in regulation, he repeatedly emphasised that there could sometimes be quiet periods in electorate offices, meaning staff could do factional work around their proper duties; that there was never enough factional work to justify paying someone full-time to exclusively work on it; and that ministerial staff were often “activists” who wanted to do party work, meaning they did it to further their own careers, as well as to benefit the faction.
Redlich said ultimately Somyurek’s evidence was that he was “living proof of the consequences of being brought up over decades in this unethical culture”, to which Somyurek agreed, but said he wasn’t an outlier.
Politics is based on patronage
Somyurek agreed with Carr that there was a system of “patronage” within politics, with all MPs hiring staff based on their factional relationship.
Charts presented by Carr on Thursday showed the familial relationships of people employed in the ministerial and electoral offices of MPs within the moderate faction, which showed the hiring of multiple parents, siblings and children into roles that, in some instances, paid six-figure salaries.
Somyurek dismissed suggestions from Carr that the employment record within his electorate office meant Victorian taxpayers had not received value for money for the $1m in staffing costs incurred by Somyurek’s electorate office in the four years until 2020.
Daniel Andrews implicated, Somyurek claims
On Monday, Somyurek accused Andrews, the Victorian premier, of dismissing his concerns about Labor’s red shirts scandal.
It was a $388,000 scheme involving the misuse of parliamentary allowances to pay Labor’s political campaign staff ahead of the 2014 election.
Somyurek alleged that when he raised his concerns with Andrews, who was the opposition leader at the time, Andrews responded with “words to the effect ... [do] you want to win an election or not, basically”. Somyurek said he had given evidence regarding this meeting with Andrews to a parliamentary committee in 2017 or 2018.
Asked about the claims on Tuesday, Andrews said Labor had made “a number of important rule changes” and was “deeply regretful”.
Redlich said on Thursday, seemingly in response to calls for Andrews and other MPs to be hauled in before the commission to answer charges of branch stacking, that he had limited powers, meaning the scope of his investigation was narrow.
Somyurek appears emotional in remembering factional ‘war’
Somyurek became emotional on Friday when recounting comments made about his parents during a violent Labor party meeting in Melbourne’s west last year, seemingly shedding tears before the hearing was suspended.
He also made multiple references to suffering “temporary insanity” amid a factional war with the socialist left.
He also described himself as behaving as “a boofhead” during this period, and remarked after hearing himself in one conversation played before Ibac as sounding “unhinged”. But he also made multiple denials of being in charge of the faction, saying it was run by federal MP Anthony Byrne, and denied he behaved abhorrently because he wanted power over the Victorian branch of the ALP.
