Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is often said that this parliament is the clearing house of Australian politics and democracy. Here, in this hallowed place, individual members representing constituencies around Australia come together within a political framework negotiated at the time of Federation by our forebears to debate and decide on issues of great moment to all Australians. Not all of the political structures that govern the fact of members sitting in this place are set out in the constitutional framework established in 1901. Political parties have formed and occupied a central place in the politics of the nation.

The Australian political system has gravitated to a point where two major political groupings dominate the political landscape: the ALP and the coalition. It is these major political groupings that have been responsible for the formation of Australian governments since Federation. From occupying this special position in the Australian political system comes a heavy responsibility to the Australian people to ensure that internal processes of the parties reflect the dominant political values of our system and to ensure that those internal processes have integrity and are free of corruptive and corrosive practices that might undermine the rights of individual members and distort the political outcomes of those processes.

In reflecting dominant political values in our political system, that responsibility is to ensure that internal structures and processes are fair and democratic and uphold a base standard expected by a free people in a free society. From time to time, the public’s attention is focused on political parties, their internal processes and structures, and the outcomes of their deliberations. In the case of my own party, that focus is currently centred around preselections for state and federal candidates to contest prospective elections in my home state of Victoria. At other times, that focus has been upon the internal structures and processes of the Liberal and National parties and of the Democrats. Common to both sides of politics is a growing debate and concern about branch stacking in political parties to gain an outcome or affect the preselection of candidates for public office. For example, in the Liberal Party, most recent media attention has focused on branch stacking in the seat of Ryan in Queensland and, of course, in the seat of Wentworth in New South Wales. At the state level in New South Wales there has been much written about the stacking of Liberal branches by the religious right to effect certain preselection outcomes.

In my own party, the debate is not new and from time to time surfaces in the context of explaining election defeats, when commenting on the future directions of the party or around preselection ballots. For example, in his Henry Parkes oration in 2005, my colleague Senator John Faulkner noted:

In our two-Party system, ... the selection of candidates and the setting of policies within the political parties has as great an influence on Australia’s governance as general elections.

He commented that historically Labor’s structures provided for participatory democracy but:

Today, the abuse of those structures too often smothers Party democracy.

He further commented on factionalism within the ALP and the feudalism that in his view:

... is killing the ALP.

After Labor’s 2001 defeat, Bob Hawke and Neville Wran attacked the ‘deadening impact of factionalism and the associated phenomenon of branch stacking’ and ‘the cancerous effect this activity has had on the democratic traditions that have been the strength of our party’. These anti-branch-stacking sentiments have also been echoed by Labor Party and Australian icon Barry Jones on numerous occasions. While many people in all political parties have grave misgivings about the corrosive impacts of branch stacking, few people outside the parties and the political process understand how it operates. In its raw form, branch stacking involves the so-called recruitment of large numbers of members to a political party from an ethnic, sporting, cultural or community group where memberships are usually paid for by another individual or they are paid for out of a fund especially established to finance the stacks. The overall aim is the same—to obtain a political benefit in party elections and preselections and in the broader distribution of power within the party.

In my own party and in my electorate of Corio persistent allegations of branch stacking by sections of the party have dogged the ALP and led to a demoralisation of the ordinary membership and a deep suspicion in the electorate at large that a party with a potentially corrupted internal process is not fit to govern at local, state or federal level. For those who may not be familiar with branch stacking and how it is financed, it is usually funded by a wealthy individual, a union or other organisation that sets up an arms-length entity or arrangement to finance memberships or through quasi party fundraisers where large sums are money raised, laundered through third parties and end up in branch stacking accounts to pay for memberships. It is the latter in my electorate of Corio that have recently come under scrutiny and public media attention.

In 1999 a luncheon at the Wool Exchange nightclub and restaurant in Geelong was organised by the then assistant secretary of the TWU, Richard Marles, who is now a candidate for the federal seat of Corio. According to the invitation, the $500 a head luncheon was to address the issue of Geelong in the next millennium and speakers included a state shadow minister, a federal shadow minister, the mayor of the City of Greater Geelong and the CEO of Toll Holdings. Cheques were made out to the Wool Exchange nightclub and inquiries directed to a Ms Eloise Wall with a Melbourne phone number belonging to the IQ Corporation, a company, as I understand it, operated by Mr Andrew Landeryou. It is estimated that $10,000 to $15,000 was raised at the function. I and the state member for Geelong, Ian Trezise, in whose electorate the function was held, were not invited to attend.

According to a statutory declaration by a former Geelong Labor Unity member Roxanne Bennett, who compered the function, individual ticket proceeds were split as follows: $50 went to Mr Damian Gorman, the restaurant owner, to cover his costs and $450 went into a bank account operated by four people—Mr Marles, Mr David Feeny, Mr Andrew Landeryou and a mysterious fourth person—and was used to finance stacks in Corio. Mr Marles has publicly denied Roxanne Bennett’s account, stating in the Age that the function was a commercial venture. The unanswered question remains as to why a union secretary, a member of the ALP, two Labor shadow ministers, the mayor of the City of Greater Geelong and a CEO of Toll Holdings were involved in a fundraising of this type for a restaurant owner.

Regrettably, this event and similar functions in Victoria around this time have not been seriously investigated by the party. In party circles it is common knowledge that huge sums of money were raised in Victoria by this means and the suspicion remains that they have been used for branch stacking purposes. In presenting itself to the public as a viable alternative government or, in the case of the state government, in seeking a continuance and re-endorsement of its mandate, the party in Victoria must ensure that not only do its internal processes have integrity but also rampant branch stacking, rorting and other excesses are weeded out.

I congratulate Simon Crean on the efforts he took as leader to tighten the rules of the party to make it difficult for branch stackers, and Geelong members are heartened by statements on the public record by Kim Beazley that branch stackers in this party will not be rewarded. Genuine party members in my electorate are disillusioned because they feel their longstanding grievances on these matters have been deliberately ignored by elements of the party leadership and by some party officials in order to convey a long-term factional advantage. Labor’s capacity to wage war on the conservatives and to defend working people has been compromised and diminished by these revelations. The fear of the membership is that a party unable to honestly address their grievances within its structures and processes is not fair dinkum about democratic practice and the great values that underpin our party, and ultimately will not be able to win the confidence of the electorate nor win government.