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These public hearings are part of an inquiry called Operation Watts into allegations of corrupt conduct involving Victorian public officers, including members of Parliament.
It’s being run jointly by the Victorian Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission and the Victorian Ombudsman and its remit includes allegations of branch stacking in the Victorian Labor Party, as first revealed in an investigation by The Age and 60 Minutes last year.
Branch stacking is an organised method of accumulating internal power in a party by recruiting, and usually paying the fees for, new members.
But it’s much more pointed than just that. The real question is whether public officers, including Victorian Members of Parliament, are engaging in corrupt conduct by directing ministerial or electorate office staff to perform party‐political work when they should instead be doing ministerial or electorate work.
It will also look at whether public money given by the Victorian government as grants to community associations, has been redirected and misused to fund party‐political activities, or for any other improper purposes. It will ask if ministers or others involved in granting the funds have “dishonestly performed their functions” or “knowingly or recklessly breached public trust”.
The inquiry will look into whether any public officer, their families or their associates, received a personal benefit from these things, and looks at what systems and controls are in place to monitor these money flows.
The hearing is expected to go for at least four weeks. It’s overseen by IBAC Commissioner Robert Redlich, QC, and run by counsel assisting Chris Carr, SC.
It’s worth remembering that branch stacking, if proven, is not illegal but it is against the Labor’s own internal rules.
Ben Schneiders wrote an excellent explainer on the subject last year.
If you want to understand how it works, why it matters and why it’s suddenly so important, particularly in Victoria, it’s a very good read.
You can get it here.
Cr Garotti has now claimed that Legislative Council President Nazih Elasmar, was part of a branch stacking operation in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.
In his evidence to IBAC, Cr Garotti said although he did not have evidence the Labor MP has engaged in branch stacking he “assumed [Mr Elasmar] had been covering costs of members in that branch”.
Nazih Elasmar, President of the Legislative CouncilCredit:Eddy Khayat
Mr Elasmar is part of Adem Somyurek’s Moderate Labor faction.
Cr Garotti told IBAC Mr Elasmar had been involved in branch stacking through the High Street, Darebin branch.
He said there was an expectation in the Moderate Labor group that senior members would pay for the memberships of those they had signed up to the party, or had arranged to be signed up.
Mr Elasmar is the second Labor MP to be named in IBAC hearings, accused of paying for other people’s membership fees.
Luke Donnellan resigned last week after federal Labor MP Anthony Byrne testified Mr Donnellan had contributed to a “kitty” in his office, which was used to pay for other people’s membership.
Mr Donnellan admitted breaking party rules while serving as a minister but denied any misuse of public funds.
The Premier’s office and Mr Elasmar have been contacted for comment.
Rick Garotti said there was a widespread pattern of politicians employing factional allies and their families.
“It was part of the culture of the party in the factional system,” Cr Garotti said.
“From my perspective it was just that’s the culture and that’s how it works… it was my understanding that MPs can determine who they want to work for them. Maybe I should have questioned it, but I never really questioned it, I just thought that’s the established way it works.”
Cr Garotti admitted he had recommended Hussein Haraco be employed as an electorate officer because he was important for the Moderate Labor faction and “needed to be looked after”.
“He was doing factional work, but I honestly believed he was doing good work, he was a good community leader … he did two days a week in Adem [Somyurek’s] office and two days a week in Anthony Carbines’ office,” Cr Garotti said.
Counsel assisting Chris Carr, SC, said: “The culture as you understood it was that roles as elected officers were a form of currency to be deployed by MPs to reward those in the faction?”
Cr Garotti said there were other examples of factional allies being “looked after” and claimed Legislative Council President Nazih Elasmar and former minister Marlene Kairouz were involved in one case.
“Nazih Elasmar’s daughter worked for Marlene [Kairouz], and his wife worked for the local federal member in Cooper,” Cr Garotti said.
IBAC last week was told Mr Somyurek’s electorate office was dysfunctional and “there was no work to do”. Former electorate staffer Adam Sullivan had testified there wasn’t a lot of electorate office work to be done.
A senior member of Adem Somyurek’s Moderate Labor group said he would turn to the former Labor minister as a “mentor” to understand factions, as he admitted to spending at least $25,000 over the past five years to pay for people’s membership fees and the running of a Labor Party branch’s meetings.
Cr Garotti, the mayor of Banyule City Council, has told the IBAC hearing he started branch stacking five years ago by paying for other people’s membership.
He said he covered the costs of running the Heidelberg branch and membership fees, totalling about $5000 annually for five or six years. Of that amount about $15,000 was spent in total on branch stacking.
He said Dr Hussein Haraco had contributed a “couple of thousand dollars” to pay for people’s membership.
Cr Garotti said Dr Haraco, who is scheduled to give evidence later this week, told him the money was coming out of his personal funds.
“Costs of running the branch might have been $2000, venue hire, postage, $3000 would be a fair amount to say to contributing to the cost of membership,” Cr Garotti said.
Cr Garotti said he met Mr Somyurek in 2012 and eventually joined the Moderate faction.
“[Mr Somyurek] was someone you talked to, you learned from, tried to learn about the factional system,” Cr Garotti said.
“He was the one who explored to me there were different sub factions and how the sub factions came together within the Labor Unity and then how the Labor Unity had to deal with the Socialist Left and other factions. He was the person that I would talk to learn about what was going on within the party factionally.”
Cr Garotti said he had aspirations to become a member of parliament and part of the “journey” of putting yourself forward for preselection was understanding the factional process.
Cr Garotti said he became aware of branch stacking when he first joined the ALP in 2002, and said it was a practice that extended to all factions.
When asked how he was aware branch stacking was endemic in the Labor Party, he said there was “general talk” among Labor members about who the “stackers and recruiters” were.
He said there was a view that if many people were being signed up, there was a high likelihood of branch stacking taking place.
Cr Garotti is now giving evidence and is expected to take up today and tomorrow.
As Sumeyya Ilanbey reported this morning, Cr Garotti was secretary for the ALP’s Heidelberg branch, which was at the centre of a 2018 ABC probe that uncovered allegations of branch stacking.
The ABC reported Heidelberg was the biggest Labor Party branch in Victoria, with a membership list that ballooned from 13 to 325. It’s also reported at least 24 members did not live where records said they did.
Cr Garotti is from former minister Adem Somyurek’s Moderate Labor faction that the IBAC investigation centres around.
State reporter Sumeyya Ilanbey followed last week’s hearings closely and wrote an excellent feature on it over the weekend.
Here’s a taste of the top of that story: By late 2019, Labor politician Adem Somyurek had built a huge political empire, declared war on his rivals, threatened the careers of other parliamentarians and silenced his enemies as he seized control of large sections of the Victorian party and became a factional powerbroker of unrivalled influence.
But the picture that started emerging from an unprecedented inquiry before the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission this week was of a man who, behind the “f--- the Premier” and “I’ll be running the joint” bravado captured on secret recordings last year, was growing paranoid, increasingly agitated and afraid things were already slipping through his fingers.
According to evidence, Somyurek had begun recruiting inexperienced ministerial staff into an intense branch-stacking operation, hired people who would not turn up to work, and verbally abused those in his inner circle.
You can read the full story here.
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Corruption Commission (IBAC) inquiry into allegations of serious corrupt conduct involving Victorian public officers, including Members of Parliament.
Today, as Sumeyya Ilanbey reports, the mayor of a council in Melbourne’s north-east and a respected community elder will be questioned at public anti-corruption commission hearings this week as part of a major Labor Party branch stacking investigation.
Banyule mayor Rick Garotti – who quit the party earlier this year after being referred to the party’s internal disputes tribunal for alleged branch stacking activities – will be the fourth witness to appear before the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, which is investigating the misuse of taxpayer-funded staff and grants for factional activities.
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2021-10-18 01:23:54Z
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