THE JUNE 2009 VICTORIAN ALP STATE CONFERENCE:
REPORT TO ALP MEMBERS

IAN HUNDLEY
KOOYONG FEA DELEGATE

Conference prelude

In April, Keilor MP, George Seitz, attended a weekend workshop run by the Higgins ALP Federal Electorate Assembly. The purpose of the workshop was to encourage greater active membership involvement in the Victorian ALP. George Seitz, who knows a lot about membership recruitment, did not share his views with us on the day. However, he was happy to have his photo taken during the afternoon tea break.

Six weeks on and George Seitz’s fascination for the camera remained undiminished. One of the most bizarre sights at the 13 June State Conference (and there were a few of them) was George Seitz wandering around and taking pictures of various conference delegates. He wandered up and blazed away, leaving the subjects like the startled subjects of a rabbit-shooting spree.

Were these photos for election posters or the family album? As we now know, not for any future election in which he might be a candidate because his days as a Labor MP are numbered. The recent abolition of the ALP’s age-restrictive preselection rules, which Seitz did so much to sponsor, will not assist in prolonging his parliamentary career. Even the most bone-headed of factional types realised the game was up for George.

George Seitz, with his parliamentary attack on 30 July 2008 on his long-time nemesis in the ALP, Hakki Suleyman, and others, did more than anyone to trigger the recent inquiry into corruption in Brimbank City Council by the Victorian Ombudsman. Now he is amongst its first victims after 27 years of “public service” as MP for Keilor. According to recent press reports, his departing gift is to nominate nuisance preselection candidates against other sitting ALP members. Perhaps he could really go out on a limb and join the Liberal Party. However, as Billy Hughes explained when asked why he had not joined the Country Party, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.

George Seitz is off to civy street whilst Hakki Suleyman flies to National Conference in Sydney at the end of July, one of 86 Victorian delegates who were elected by State Conference delegates on 13 June.

As I will discuss below this conference could be called the “Hakki Suleyman and George Seitz Show,” as the empire building animosities of these two collided with the Ombudsman’s report on the Brimbank City Council. The repercussions will last for a long time. But these events provide an opportunity for the ALP and for good government if the Victorian Branch comes clean and fixes its problems.


Party reform

First, a bit of recent history. A report of an inquiry into branch stacking in the Gorton FEA presented to the Administrative Committee (the executive body of the Victorian ALP) in March 2005 found significant evidence of forged signatures on membership renewals, phantom branch meetings and bogus branch records, the payment of membership fees by others and false membership addresses. The Administrative Committee refused to consider the report on the pretext that it had been leaked to the media. It subsequently issued an apology to individuals named in the report.

A three-member audit committee then reported in October 2005 on branch stacking in the Gorton, Corio, Isaacs and Scullin FEA’s. Faced with a welter of evidence of wrongdoing, the committee disintegrated on factional lines and the Administrative Committee merely noted the competing views of reality provided by the committee members.

Prior to the June 2009 State Conference there were further highly unfavourable public revelations about branch stacking in the wake of the Ombudsman’s Brimbank report. There were also media reports of large payments (known as “bulk renewals”) being made in cash on behalf of large numbers of members by certain branch officials and other party identities for the renewal of existing memberships just prior to the cut-off for 2009 renewals on 29 May.

A motion submitted by Eric Dearricott of the Bendigo FEA proposed reforms to apply from 2010 which would:

· make the anniversary date of branch membership the date upon which each member is required to renew his membership (currently all members are required to renew membership by 12.00 pm on the last Friday in May); and
· ban all bulk membership renewals.

These straightforward proposals, if they had been implemented by Conference in June, would have been highly beneficial. Their virtue is their simplicity. It would make it much more difficult, logistically, for branch stackers to pay multiple memberships because they would have to arrange to pay for each member they controlled on separate days and in separate amounts. They would no longer be able to turn up at the end of May with a large cheque to deliver to a complaisant party administration.

Similar reforms had also been submitted for a change in the rules but these had been “discharged” by a Rules Revision Committee too much influenced by the “stacks” amidst the delegate numbers at Conference.

Reforms along these lines were implemented in January 2008 by the ALP in Western Australia. The fact that the official membership of the WA Branch dropped by a reported 30% in the wake of the change shows the extent to which the party had also been corrupted by branch stacking in that state.

However, in Victoria it is “business as usual” for the branch stackers who exercise immense influence (through their numbers) in factional caucuses to resist like reforms. As a consequence, the motion was ruled out of order by the Agenda Committee, without reasons being given, and was not listed for debate at Conference.

A much weaker motion was admitted by the Agenda Committee and adopted by Conference. It re-establishes a protocol, previously adopted in February 2004, and to be administered by state secretary Stephen Newnham which requires membership payments received from individuals by branches to generally (my emphasis) be banked in the official Branch account (i.e. to make it traceable). The resolution also places a limit of $500 per day in membership payments received from any Branch in the form of cash or money orders where branches cannot avoid the inclusion (my emphasis again) of such payments.

In my view this decision continues to provide the generous operating space needed by the sponsors of branch stacking to maintain their stacked memberships in 2010 and beyond. This element of corruption in the Victorian ALP will not be brought to heel until individual members are made personally responsible for the payment of their membership fees (like their other household bills) along the lines proposed in Eric Dearricott’s proposal that was disallowed by the Agenda Committee.

The Special Purpose Membership and Audit Committee

However, Conference did provide a semblance of a response in the wake of the damning public revelations of malpractice in the Victorian Branch. It voted for the establishment of a Special Purpose Membership and Audit Committee in these terms:

“This Conference directs the next meeting of the Administrative Committee –
fixed for Friday 19 June – to establish a Special Purpose Membership
Review and Audit Committee to:
· investigate concerns in relation to branch stacking within the Victorian
Branch; and
· conduct a complete review of membership processes and procedures across the Victorian Branch

Conference notes that Rules proposals presently before it and relating to
the administration of membership renewals raise important questions around
managing our membership systems with integrity. However, the adoption of
such proposals as rules of the Party should be considered following wide
consultation amongst the membership and on the basis of evidence – such as
the experience of the WA branch which has recently introduced changes to
its Rules similar to those set out in submission 23.

Moreover, Conference believes that a Committee, responsible in the first
instance to the Administrative Committee and properly resourced, should in
the present circumstances take a broader look at our processes, administrative capacities, procedures and work with the Rules Revision Committee in respect of any Rules changes that will help build a more democratic and growing Party.

This challenge is far too important to be considered solely in the context of two relatively minor administrative steps and without broad dialogue across Party activists.

Accordingly, this Conference resolves that submissions 22 and 23 of Part C
of the Rules Revision Committee report be referred to the Special Purpose
Review and Audit Committee.

The Committee is to report its findings to the Administrative Committee, and
to the next State Conference.”

At its meeting on 19 June the Administrative Committee appointed the Committee which is comprised of Administrative Committee members Noah Carroll, Andrew Giles and Sebastian Zwalf. These members are respectively associated with the Labor Unity, Socialist Left and NUW factions of the ALP.

The Committee is charged with investigating concerns in relation to branch stacking within the Victorian Branch; and conduct a complete review of membership processes and procedures across the Branch. It is also required to consult widely with members and affiliates and is to invite written submissions from any interested parties.

The Committee is to report in the first instance to the next meeting of the Administrative Committee and to present detailed findings to the August 2009 meeting. Recommendations concerning any changes to the Rules of the Party to combat branch stacking and increase party democracy are to go for endorsement to the next ALP State Conference.

Head Office has issued invitations to members or branches to make submissions to the Special Purpose Membership and Audit Committee, which will be accepted until at least mid-August. It is important that members and branches do make their voice heard in this process. Submissions should be sent to admin@vic.alp.org.au or Attention Assistant Secretary Lisa Carey, Australian Labor Party, Victorian Branch, Locked Bag 3240, Melbourne 3001 or by fax to 03 9933 8560.

In the absence of a major breakthrough, however, the party leaves itself exposed to further corruption. This has also been made more likely by another conference decision which reduced the eligibility period for new members to vote for parliamentary preselections and FEA elections from 12 months from 18 months. This increases the opportunity for speedy, transitory and unverified recruitment of new members in the cause of personal electoral ambition (the Malcolm Turnbull model).

Reform of Victorian ALP: Hawthorn Branch urgency motion

The Hawthorn Branch contribution to the reform debate at the conference was an urgency motion adopted by our June Branch meeting. The motion called upon Premier Brumby to give his unqualified support for:

· “a purging of the membership lists of all stacked “members” in preparation for the next round of parliamentary preselections; and
· the restoration of integrity to internal disciplinary processes in the Victorian ALP Branch to ensure that all charges that are brought by members are dealt with justly.”

The motion was mindful of the fact that Premier Brumby, and before him Steve Bracks, resisted providing support to those calling for reform of the Victorian Branch. They did so on the grounds that the government was separate from the organisational wing and that the conduct of the party was in the hands of the State Secretary, Stephen Newnham, and the administration. This might have been a tenable position during normal times but has become less sustainable as evidence of corruption has piled up and calls for reform have gone unheeded.

I pointed out to Conference that the ALP has major governance problems which discourage member participation. I noted that previous efforts to use internal disciplinary processes to deal with these issues have failed, including the deep-seated problem of branch stacking in Gorton (which more or less coincides with the City of Brimbank geographically). The effect of this is to dilute the influence of bona fide members of the ALP and benefited those who sponsor stacked memberships.

Ethnic branch stacking

George Seitz’s outburst against Natalie Suleyman and others in the Legislative Assembly on 30 July 2008 was very informative. The Seitz and the Suleyman groups have reportedly been at loggerheads for 14 years in seeking control of local ALP organisation in the Brimbank area, with major influence in the Gorton FEA and, to a lesser extent, the Maribyrnong FEA. The major prizes are the control of local preselections and preferment in employment as “advisers” and general staffers in ministerial and electorate offices. It is basically a system of patronage and is devoid of policy content.

Ethnic branch stacking most recently hit the headlines in May 2007 with the establishment of the Thomastown West Macedonian Branch in the Scullin FEA with an inaugural membership of 85. George Seitz, whose state electorate of Keilor is not in Scullin, was reportedly in attendance at the first meeting. The branch was established by the Right-controlled State Conference in March 2007 after being refused by the Administrative Committee. The establishment of the branch evidently anticipates the retirement of the left-aligned current member and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Harry Jenkins. Also double click below and listen to John Faine’s May 2008 interview on ABC Radio with ALP electoral aspirant, Nathan Murphy at:


The emergence of branch stacking in the Victorian ALP coincided with the multicultural agenda in the early 1970’s and has had the effect of elevating ethnic representation over broader issues of distributive justice and community-based values as an organising force in the ALP. It is most prevalent in the electorates such as Scullin and Gorton where the ALP is most electorally competitive. It started in the Socialist Left faction and was then embraced in retaliation by the Right which turned it into something of an art form.

Branch stacking has had the effect of crushing broad-based community involvement in public affairs, including local government, in the areas of Melbourne where it is most prevalent. It has probably been assisted by the system of single member wards that prevail in many local government authorities in Victoria. Single member wards facilitate highly organised factional groups using “dummy” candidates in preference arrangements to defeat other contestants who have strong grass roots support. And it makes no difference whether or not the candidates are endorsed by the ALP. The corrupting influence is the same.

Most importantly it has the effect of diluting the influence of bona fide ALP members throughout Victoria in representation at state and national conference and in the membership of the Public Office Selection Committee.

It has stymied Labor as a progressive community based organisation as ethnic interests have come to dominate local politics. The quality of local government in these areas is hamstrung as a result. The shenanigans at Brimbank which were documented by the Ombudsman provide a good example of the demoralising effects of branch stacking in just one area of Melbourne.

This bastard child of multiculturalism is not what its original enthusiasts would have sought or anticipated. The behaviour of the branch stackers over many years show that they have been on the same side as the centralising bureaucrats of the ALP whose major commitments and allegiances are corporate rather than a membership-based local organisation. This is principally because the centralising bureaucrats are able to gift sinecures to branch stackers who have no real interest in democratic and participatory local organisation.

Justin Madden, celebrity politics and local democracy

It is important to reflect how MP’s like Justin Madden fit into this dysfunctional power structure of ethnic branch stacking. Prior to his initial election Madden was a worker for the party, but as far as I know he was not a long-term member. An archetypal “celebrity” candidate, he grew up in Airport West and was best known as a former league footballer. Madden was elected to the Victorian Parliament in 1999 as MLC for Doutta Galla and, following the reforms to the Legislative Council in 2006, as MLC for Western Province.

Not devoid of talent but without any roots in a local democratic and representative ALP structure (not least because the branch stackers were unimpeded by State Office in making sure that no democratic local structure was permitted to develop) Madden would have understood very early in the piece that his elevation had its Faustian elements. It meant that he was to avoid genuine participation in the local ALP organisation and the employment of Hakki Suleyman (not a merit appointment) was also part of the deal.

How little authority Madden has over his own future was revealed when he said recently that he would not depart the upper house for next year’s state election and, more specifically, he would not contest the lower house seat of Essendon, as he was being directed by factional horse traders. At their dictate he has now complied in doing both because the people behind the scenes have doled out his Western Province seat to Legislative Council president Bob Smith. Such is the lot of the celebrity in politics.

Unaccountable and out of touch locally and not having won the endorsement of local party members, celebrity candidates do what they are told by their hidden benefactors. Justin Madden was speaking for all celebrity politicians when he told The Age on 13 June that “I never engage in the “machinations” of grass roots politics. “I have more important things to do.”

Premier’s request for national intervention in preselections

When Premier Brumby addressed the State Conference he had nothing to say about party reform. And nor did any other member of the Victorian government that was in attendance. Yet the following Thursday he wrote to the National Executive requesting that they terminate the current process for Victorian upper house preselections with the preselections to be determined by the National Executive instead of a vote of local members and the Public Office Selection Committee.

In an email to Victorian Branch members on 19 June he said he took these steps because of “issues facing the ALP highlighted in recent internal and external debate pose significant challenges for the ALP in Victoria.” The Premier could not bring himself to say what these issues are. However, it is clear that even though this action was well in train before the conference to deny democratic preselection ballots we were told nothing of it on 13 June.

The Premier professed to be a supporter of the rights of members to vote in local pre-selections. He said in his email “I have always been of the view that pre-selections should afford Party members a local vote. This has been the case for the three by-elections held since I became Premier.” This is disingenuous. There was no by-election for Southern Metropolitan Province when Evan Thornley departed in 2008 to be replaced by executive decree by Jennifer Huppert. This was reportedly decided in a discussion between Michael Danby and John Lenders. Nor was John Brumby’s voice to be heard amongst those who called for a membership ballot for the preselection for the Gippsland by-election held in mid 2008.

Following the Premier’s recent intervention, nominations for all upper house seats except Western Province Region, close on 17 July with the National Executive Committee to determine a date for a ballot of the National Executive as soon as practicable thereafter.

The preselections for the Western Metropolitan Region were decided by the National Executive on 19 June, along with all other preselections for federal and state seats which were deemed to be “Brimbank affected.” The preselections of federal ministers were also decided by the National Executive as well as the first and second Senate positions.

What is one to make of the request by Premier Brumby for all state upper house seats to be chosen by the National Executive of the ALP rather than by local membership ballot and the Public Office Selection Committee?

It has been projected as “a bid to contain the problems of branch stacking within the party” (The Age, 20 June 2009). This is fair comment-but only up to a point. It quarantines the problem of branch stacking by having the National Executive endorse candidates that are, in many cases, supported by the dominant factional groups that are themselves sustained by branch stackers. In other words the branch stackers are immediately rewarded whilst the problem of systemic corruption lingers on.

Elections for National Conference delegates

Every three years State Conference elects the Victorian delegates for National Conference. On this occasion the 600 State Conference delegates elected the 86 Victorian delegates who are to attend National Conference. Two hundred and seven members contested the 86 positions. I have reported previously on the failure by the Returning Officer to observe democratic procedure during the course of these and other ALP elections. Such failings, readily observable on 13 June included:

· Non-confirmation of the identity of voters who were issued with ballot papers;
· Non-provision of the minimum physical facilities to allow delegates to complete their ballot papers in secret; and
· Non-confirmation of the identity of persons who placed completed ballot papers in the ballot box.

The more observant might have picked up evidence of the nefarious practice of “show and tell.” That is where voters show others how they voted to ensure that they all tow the “party” (read factional) line. In the extreme (and quite common) case factional operatives collect the ballot papers and complete them on behalf of the voter.

During the course of the ballot some delegates were sprawled on the floor of the conference hall filling in ballot papers. However, it appears that most ballot papers were completed within the confines of other rooms in the Melbourne Town Hall which had been allocated for factional caucuses. I know I did. It was either that or the floor. The scope for the manipulation of the ballot in these circumstances is self-evident.

If we were to imagine for a minute that the Victorian ALP was a fledgling nation-state seeking legitimacy within the democratic community of nations for new electoral processes it would most certainly fail. It would be reported upon as a banana republic by any international electoral observer. The Victorian ALP has been a banana republic for quite a long time, and a banana republic it remains.

For the last bit on these elections: when I attended the counting of the ballot on the following Monday 15 June at Victorian ALP headquarters I observed several ballot papers which appeared to have been completed by the same person.


Who did John Brumby vote for?

In the week following the conference you will have seen the press speculation that John Brumby caste his vote in favour of Hakki Suleyman, the suspended electoral staffer of Planning Minister Justin Madden who was named unfavourably in the recent report on the City of Brimbank by the Victorian Ombudsman.

Brumby has denied voting for Suleyman. To understand what is involved here it is important to know that of the 86 delegates from Victoria who are elected to National Conference, 23 of them, including Suleyman, were elected by the right wing Labor Unity group which is substantially controlled by right wing unions and the Maribyrnong MP, Bill Shorten, and Senator Stephen Conroy.

In simplified terms, a delegate is elected if he garners a “quota” of seven first preference votes from the 600 voting delegates. The chances, therefore, of Suleyman requiring Brumby’s vote are pretty small. In any event, Brumby was likely to have been provided by his faction with a how-to-vote card directing him on how to vote. These directions are issued by the faction to optimise the numbers of National Conference delegates they elect.

Whilst Brumby probably did not vote for Suleyman the bigger disappointment, in my view, was that he provided no leadership at Conference in publicly declaring Suleyman and those who were supported by branch stacking activity to be unsuitable for election as National Conference delegates. He just drifted with the dictates of his factional grouping and said nothing at all in his speech about the need to reform the party.

In the week following State Conference, Attorney-General Rob Hulls struck off Suleyman as a Victorian Justice of the Peace following a review by an independent panel he had appointed, and based on behaviour revealed in the Ombudsman’s report into Brimbank City Council. A check of police records, conducted as part of the review, also revealed Suleyman had incurred a conviction following an “altercation” (as the delicate terminology in the Attorney-General’s media release put it) in 1989.

Policy and urgency motions

To conclude on a policy-related issue. The Hawthorn Branch submitted an urgency motion on transport policy, which called upon the Victorian Government to give priority to the development of public transport infrastructure and services in outer suburbs and, as a first step, to undertake an immediate reassessment of public transport planning, and infrastructure needs on the Mornington Peninsula.

The Agenda Committee omitted the motion from the conference agenda. This was done on the pretext that the subject matter was already covered by existing policy. In fact our motion sought a change in existing policy. The Agenda Committee admitted other motions which similarly took issue with current policy, primarily from affiliated unions.

I believe that the real reason for the scrapping of our urgency motion on transport was quite different. A political judgement was made by the forces that control the Agenda Committee that they did not want the item listed. This was because it would throw out a policy challenge that they were either told by responsible ministers, or they second-guessed, that they did not want the matter debated. In other words, in assuming the role of lap dog for the executive government, the Agenda Committee was effectively usurping the role and status of the Conference itself.

It has been evident at recent conferences that forces on the Right, in particular, wish to close down conference debate. Their most recent target, as I mentioned in my report to members on the October 2008 State Conference has been the urgency motions.

The urgency motion is an avenue for individual branches and members even to bring issues to conference for debate. The rightist opponents of the urgency motion claim that motions usurp the role of policy committees and, besides, the doors of ministers “are always open.” These avenues are, in reality, not mutually exclusive, even if they were as open and effective as the rightists claim (which they are not).

The drift is unmistakeable, however, with the steady decline, propelled by party bureaucrats, of conference itself and all other forms of meaningful policy engagement throughout the ALP.

It is telling that in recent years the Hawthorn Branch and others have been able to use urgency motions to highlight key policy issues. We have been involved in pushing proposals on Public- Private partnerships (this was especially hilarious, as the right wing whips lost concentration and we won the vote), remuneration of teachers and transport policy, to name a few. But no more, it seems.
Conservative interests can understandably be upset (hyperbolic sometimes, I hear) in these circumstances. That indeed is the purpose. No trouble. We’ll find another way around the corporate suits and controllers and their branch stacking cohorts. We always do. 13th July 2009

Blog initiated on Wednesday 24th June 2009 in time for Branch push for greater communication within the local ALP Branches and individual members.