ALP party elder Race Mathews has called for the resignation of Garth Head and Liz Beattie, the two-person committee appointed to investigate alleged membership abuses in the Victorian ALP.
Mathews has said that the process is hopeless compromised, and that the scandal is, for Labor, “reminiscent of Watergate”. He has urged both Head and Beattie, members of the state Right and Left, respectively, to stand down, “and save your own reputations”.
Mathews, a veteran of more than a half-century of party battles and reform, has been both a federal and state MP and was chief of staff to Gough Whitlam. In the 1990s he revived the Fabian Society in order to rebuild the process of generating ideas and policy within Labor. More recently he has been leading a campaign to revive the importance of branches within Labor.
The “giftcard-gate” scandal has consumed Labor in recent weeks, following revelations that figures associated with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s dominant “Shortcon” faction had been paying for thousands of party memberships using one-time, non-traceable gift credit cards, available for non-documented sale. The revelations follow years of exposure by ALP member Eric Dearricott of branch-stacking on a vast scale.
Calls by many inside the party for a fully independent, hands-off inquiry into the scandal were headed off by the party centre, who appointed Head and Beattie, long-term hardcore members of their respective factions, to oversee an inquiry. The appointments come at the same time as the re-signing of the Victorian “stability pact” between Left and Right, as reported in Crikey two weeks ago.
Further moves were made to prevent party accountability and openness, Mathews notes, with the banning of members of the Administrative Committee’s Membership Administration Subcommittee from accessing party records, a move clearly designed to frustrate further exposures of deep unethical, and possibly illegal, factional fighting within the party.
The revelations — and Mathews calls for the existing process to be abandoned — come days after Bill Shorten was “cleared” by the trade union royal commission, whose highly political character appeared to be confirmed by the fact that a press release announcing such was released last week on Friday night. However the TURC established that Shorten’s union had taken one-off payments from companies they were negotiating with, and had the salaries of campaigning officers paid for by such corporations.
Further scandal could have a disastrous effect on Labor’s chances in the 2016 election.
Mathews concluded: “The money trail must be pursued until the perpetrators of the scam and their protectors are identified, called to account and appropriately penalised through measures including expulsion from the party.”
Where has Crikey Land been during Race Mathew’s important campaign? Not so much Missing in Action perhaps as Missing in Inaction.
We shouldn’t be surprised — provided as always that we can retain a modicum of emotive self-control not part of the fervent Crikey Coven.
Scandals like this (at any political party) are one of the many reasons why people lose interest in politics and in joining political parties.
Christ I hope this doesn’t stop the ongoing flow of Bill’s very welcome and highly effective zingers.
Yes, Big Wobbly, what would Sean Micallef do??
No sooner has the TURC admitted defeat in trying to ‘get’ Shorten, notified in the most disgraceful way last Friday night, than the usual suspects signal they know better, and continue to drop a bucket of manure on him.
Guy – go see if you can find something useful to do. You seem to think that the Labor Party is the only one where there are faction fights and one-upmanship going on. News flash Guy – THEY ALL DO IT to a greater or lesser extent.
Why are you involving yourself in what happens in the Labor party? Are you a member? If not, p+ss off and go attack someone else.
I am a member, and I don’t care about these machinations, just so long as they come up with the policies to protect the weak, poor and vulnerable. That’s fine by me!!