Victorian Premier John Brumby’s promise to “clean up” the ALP is in tatters, after key proposals to reform party membership were rejected by the Premier’s factional backers ahead of tomorrow’s crucial State Conference.
In an email to supporters last night, the sponsor of the anti-branch stacking measures, Independents leader Eric Dearricott, said motions to abolish the yearly membership renewal deadline and stop branch executives paying for bulk memberships had been “discharged” by the right-dominated Rules Committee and are unlikely to be debated on State Conference floor.
The move will further inflame party tensions after it was revealed that a key recommendation stemming from the Victorian Ombudsman’s report into Brimbank Council — a ban on government advisers also working as local government Councillors — could also be struck down tomorrow by Labor right dissidents including former Andre Haermeyer adviser Garth Head. A last-minute Dearricott-sponsored urgency motion to implement the changes in 2010 was also sidelined after the Agenda Committee, headed by Head’s wife Rosemary Barker, rejected it.
“Things are not looking promising for those of us who believe that the way membership renewals are handled in the Victorian ALP is a disgrace to our Party and needs immediate restructure,” Dearricott said.
“We anticipated that there were likely to be platitudes of support but feigned concerns about the possible unforeseen consequences of people having to pay their membership renewals in the same way as the pay all of their other bills. We thought it possible that our proposals could be put off for years, whilst a special committee investigated the potential consequences.”
Dearricott, who famously let fly last week with a damning account of in-the-flesh branch stacking at ALP head office, said his changes would have capped the corruption that threatens to derail the ALP at next year’s state election.
Currently, membership renewals follow an antiquated system whereby bank cheques and wads of cash are ponied up to ALP head office before an annual May deadline. Dearricott’s proposals — to allow memberships to be paid like any other household bill and to stop factional heavies paying for memberships in bulk — have been backed by key party figures, including retiring Member for Brunswick Carlo Carli and former Premier John Cain. The Western Australian Branch of the ALP has already outlawed cash renewals.
But Brumby’s factional allies — the chief beneficiaries of bulk membership renewals — have remained eerily silent.
Both the ALP Rules Revision Committee and the Agenda Committee are dominated by members of Brumby’s ruling right faction, as are many of the key figures named in the Victorian Ombudsman’s report into Brimbank. Leading federal figures, including Stephen Conroy and Bill Shorten, have relied upon Brimbank identities to provide the raw numbers for their ascension into parliament.
Inside the Premier’s office, pressure is said to be mounting over the best response to the scandal, which has already stained Labor’s brand in its working class heartland. Insiders say Brumby must to be seen to be “doing something” with advisers suggesting he immediately “neck” State Secretary and former adviser Stephen Newnham.
Newnham has already flagged his departure but insiders say he is keen to leave on his own terms.
The climate at tomorrow’s conference is expected to be poisonous, despite a “stability pact” signed in January between the left and right factions, and the pre-emptive sidelining of Dearricott’s proposals. The right is yet to heal its own internal wounds after a vicious struggle for control of the Victorian branch of the Health Services Union erupted again last month. A fundraiser tonight for sacked HSU staff at a South Melbourne pub is looming as flashpoint for more factional turmoil that could well spill over onto the conference floor.
On the left the situation appears more stable. Crikey understands that the Pledge splinter group dominated by the vehicle builders union and headed Education Minister Bronwyn Pike has formally rejoined the bigger Socialist Left faction, bolstering its voting power.
Meanwhile, Dearricott will attempt to get bulk members signed up at the end of May struck off party rolls to push other proposals through the ALP disputes committee.
“We are not giving up… we will do all we can to seek justice for those members of the Party and the Unions who do pay their own memberships,” he said.
Does anybody know when Brumby will make a move to Canberra? His moves over the last two years indicate to me a grander game plan. He just seems the most nationally minded of the premiers i.e. most willing to work hand in glove with the Feds, and the only time that is ever the case is when someones next move is to the bigger game. Am I wrong?
Richard,
Perhaps you come from Victoria and see things through a different lens than I do.
In NSW Mr Brumby’s brand has very little traction in the marketplace and his refusal to do anything positive re water allocations and water trading in the Murray-Darling basin indicate parochialism at its worst, leading towards cross-border legal disputes in the High Court with both NSW and SA, if not also ACT and QLD.
I sincerely hope that Victorian ALP standards are not so low as to invite him or to permit him to stand for Canberra.
Hey guys. Brumby is not the issue. he really is trying to do the right thing, I hear. But the evil doer is one Robby J Hulls, the close mate and active supporter of many of the thugs listed in the report by the Ombudsman.
This bloke, whome one daily paper reminded us last week that he employs a convicted felon in his office and takes advice from him, is adamant that councillors cannot work directly for MPs. Yet he is silent on those whose husband or wife work for MPs. He is silent on those who have senior jobs in departments including his own Justice Dept.
And he was 100% silent on the fact that the characters named by the intrepid Ombudsman were at Conference AND standing for election to the ALP’s most senior governing body, the National Conference.
Yes on the ballot paper were names like Suleyman, Languillar and Seitz as well as most of their co horts, their stooges, their subordinates. So what has changed Mr Hulls?
These characters are still in the ALP. They were at conference. They have not reduced anything about their ALP activities.
I feel sorry fopr Madden coz he is a nice guy and very decent. I feel sorry for Brumby who is trying to lead a state in the face of minor corruption that does not affect government but which is stressing many across the state.
But mostly I feel sorry for the poor dumb lugs who still get forced to vote for the same characters that the Ombudsman would never invite to dinner at his place.
Oh get over it.
I’m one of the people who pay their own memberships that Dearicott claims to represent. I’m also proudly not a member of any faction (not even Dearicott’s).
Firstly, State conference on Saturday was great, one of the best I’ve been to and full of genuine debate about the rules.
Secondly, Dearicott is simply out for attention. He had his chance to clean up the party and blew it. His reign of terror, where truly non factional people like myself were treated like dirt because we didn’t do what Eric said, exposed him for the hypocrite he is.
Dearicott knows party proceedures as well as anyone. He refuses to follow them, instead running to his mates in the media every time his will is crossed.
Don’t give the man oxygen.
Zoomster, I have spoken with several people about conference as I was not there. But these friends were and their take is opposite ti your own. NOTHING new. NOTHING different, and the fault is due to one Stephen Newnham and the ultra right (almost Liberal) faction of the ALP. His partner is a fanatic right winger and sits in parliament. He also wants a seat but compared to her he is a mental shell.
As to dear dearicott, what a loser. He should shut up and trim the roses.
My concern is that the party is as balanced as is the government. I am NOT Labor nor do I have any interest in them other than my fiance and a few friends whom I otherwise trust implicitly
But can we afford to have the fanatics run riot, protected by a right wing machine whose supreme leader, one Bobby Hulls cares only about power and not about quality? The sole thing that guarantees that things will be fluid is that the Liberals are lead by a man that, privately, even Liberal MPs wish were gone
Maybe we can get peter Costello to now come on and take over the reins. I know that he was ALP at uni but he has improved a heck of a lot since those dark days in his life when hewas a mate of Michal Danby