{"id":400802,"date":"2021-11-22T16:21:58","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T16:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobinmag.com\/2021\/11\/adem-somyurek-australian-labor-right-alp-corruption-nepotism\/"},"modified":"2021-11-22T16:47:09","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T16:47:09","slug":"corruption-and-patronage-are-the-norm-in-the-australian-labor-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/11\/22\/corruption-and-patronage-are-the-norm-in-the-australian-labor-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Corruption and Patronage Are the Norm in the Australian Labor Party"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, disgraced former MP Adem Somyurek joined the long list of Labor politicians to be investigated for corruption. Somyurek was no outlier \u2014 the nepotism and cronyism he practiced are just part of the day-to-day running of the Australian Labor Party.<\/h3>\n\n\n
\n \n
\n Adem Somyurek speaks to the media.\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

Another day, another right-wing Australian Labor Party (ALP) power broker in the dock<\/a>. This time, it\u2019s Adem Somyurek\u2019s<\/a> turn. Formerly the convener of Victoria\u2019s Labor Right faction, this month he testified before the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC).<\/p>\n

Prior to being exposed, Somyurek served in Victorian Labor premier Daniel Andrews\u2019s cabinet as the minister for small business and local government. In June this year, Somyurek resigned from the ALP after the party\u2019s federal leader, Anthony Albanese, moved to expel him. With no principles or power left to lose, Somyurek has opted for a scorched-earth strategy. Last week, he posed as an unlikely defender of democracy<\/a> by pledging his upper-house vote against Daniel Andrews\u2019s controversial pandemic laws, earning praise from the right-wing Daily Mail<\/em><\/a> and Murdoch\u2019s Herald Sun<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The week before, Somyurek decided to lay all of his cards on the table before the IBAC. Because he knows more than perhaps anyone about the Victorian ALP\u2019s systematically corrupt practices, his testimony is a fascinating insight into Labor\u2019s party machine. It\u2019s also a window into the mindset that regards this corruption as completely normal.<\/p>\n

Somyurek\u2019s self-justifications ranged from the sublimely cynical to the ridiculous. For example, he claimed that branch stacking was \u201caffirmative action by stealth<\/a>\u201d for ethnic minorities. A little bit of corruption isn\u2019t corrupt, he suggested, as long as it is kept \u201cproportionate<\/a>.\u201d Collecting and completing ballots en masse, Somyurek proposed, should be understood as part of an Asian \u201ccollectivist<\/a>\u201d ethos, opposed to Anglo-Saxon \u201cindividualistic libertarianism.\u201d<\/p>\n

As eyebrow-raising as most of Somyurek\u2019s excuses for corruption were, he was right about one thing. At one point in the hearing, IBAC commissioner Robert Redlich stated that Somyurek is \u201cliving proof<\/a> of the consequences of being brought up over decades in this unethical culture.\u201d Somyurek agreed, before adding, \u201cThe trick is not to just think it\u2019s me, and I\u2019m an aberration, and I\u2019m an outlier. I\u2019m not.\u201d He was right \u2014\u00a0patronage and corruption is the Labor Right\u2019s business model.<\/p>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n

Public Funds for Political Patronage<\/h2>\n \n

Somyurek wasn\u2019t the only one combining the responsibilities of elected office with factional maneuvering. His staff members also spent time organizing for the Right faction, also on the public payroll. While sitting in state-funded offices, Somyurek\u2019s staffers ran<\/a> right-wing branch meetings. While collecting state-funded salaries, they \u201charvested<\/a>\u201d ALP ballot papers from members of stacked-out branches before filling them out in bulk to secure the preselection of right-wing factional allies.<\/p>\n

Using public funds in this way isn\u2019t a new development for Labor\u2019s dominant right-wing faction. Although New South Wales Labor probably holds the distinction of being Labor\u2019s most corrupt state branch, Victorian Labor is a close second.<\/p>\n

From 2015 to 2018, the \u201cred shirts\u201d scandal<\/a> dogged the Victoria\u2019s branch of the ALP. The party employed part-time electorate officers, who are publicly funded and prohibited from engaging in political activities during working hours, to don red shirts and organize electoral campaigns in marginal seats. The intention was to save Labor money and allow it to spend more than Australia\u2019s strict electoral finance caps. The party paid these red shirts as part-time campaigners, while their wages were topped up by their sinecure employment as electorate officers. The result was that the red shirts effectively campaigned full time on public money.<\/p>\n

As the Victorian ombudsman Deborah Glass found<\/a> in 2018, the red shirts notionally worked for MPs who had limited contact with their \u201cemployees.\u201d The politicians were uniformly (and conveniently) unaware of what their paid staff actually did day to day. Following a Herald Sun<\/em> investigation and a High Court appeal<\/a>, the Victorian ombudsman concluded that twenty-one Labor MPs had misused $388,000 of public money<\/a>. In early November, whistleblowers leaked police files revealing<\/a> that the fraud squad wanted to arrest and charge up to sixteen right-wing Labor MPs. However, senior Victoria police officers intervened to prevent these arrests and ensure that the case files remained secret.<\/p>\n

To most observers, the red shirts scheme seemed outrageous. Meanwhile, Labor Right activists could be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss was about. For them, these kinds of practices are entirely normal.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hard to understand their logic. Every member of parliament is granted funding to employ multiple full-time electoral officers, paid up to $269,631 per annum<\/a>. In theory, these staff members are paid to respond to letters from constituents and to act on their complaints. In practice, very few people can name the local MP who is supposed to represent them. Fewer still would think of lodging complaints with their office.<\/p>\n

As a result, electorate officers are free to spend their time on party activities or campaigning in elections. For upper house MPs, it\u2019s even easier to use electorate officers for factional work because the upper house is elected by proportional representation, and MPs have no particular constituents. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the red shirts scandal centered on Victoria\u2019s upper house<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If parliamentary staffers\u2019 duties are light and largely tedious, why do these jobs exist? The answer is to maintain party machines. Faction leaders give factional activists paid jobs as parliamentary staffers both to reward service and to guarantee ongoing loyalty. In return, these staffers spend their time stacking branches<\/a> and harvesting ballots<\/a>, with little obligation to do \u201creal work<\/a>\u201d in between. As Somyurek\u2019s evidence revealed<\/a>, the Labor Right depends on publicly funded, full-time organizers. Indeed, if electoral staffers change their factional alignment, they are usually sacked<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Publicly Funded Nepotism<\/h2>\n \n

Adem Somyurek\u2019s patronage network was motivated by more than just politics \u2014 it was also personal. In his IBAC testimony, Somyurek admitted<\/a> that he arranged to put his own son on the payroll at the electorate office of a factional ally. Allegedly<\/a>, Somyurek pocketed the salary himself as payment for a debt owed by the MP to Somyurek. It was a clear-cut case of using public resources to repay a private favor.<\/p>\n

Again, Somyurek excused<\/a> this as neither \u201ccurious nor unusual.\u201d He was right. If you mapped out where the children of Labor Right MPs are employed, the result would be a political dynasty more incestuous than the Habsburgs. For example, former consumer affairs minister Marlene Kairouz<\/a> put her own mother and sister on the payroll. She also added the daughter and nephew of legislative council president Nazih Elasmar, as well as the husband of her colleague Kaushaliya Vaghela.<\/p>\n

In turn, Vaghela hired<\/a> MP Cesar Melhem\u2019s son as an electoral officer. Meanwhile, former minister for finance Robin Scott employed Vaghela\u2019s daughter \u2014 just as he had employed Vaghela before her<\/a>. It\u2019s all very cozy \u2014 and these practices occur at all levels of the Australian Labor Party. Right-wing federal MP Joel Fitzgibbon isn\u2019t just a coal apologist<\/a>. He is also a member of the \u201cBunyip aristocracy<\/a>\u201d who inherited his seat from his father<\/a> after working for six years as his dad\u2019s electoral officer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As odious as his factional activities were, Adem Somyurek is right about one thing. He isn\u2019t an aberration or an outlier<\/a>. He isn\u2019t even an especially egregious crook. The Australian Labor Party is stacked to the brim with other Somyureks \u2014 he was just unlucky enough to get caught.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n\n\n

This post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another day, another right-wing Australian Labor Party (ALP) power broker in the dock. This time, it\u2019s Adem Somyurek\u2019s turn. Formerly the convener of Victoria\u2019s Labor Right faction, this month he testified before the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC). Prior to being exposed, Somyurek served in Victorian Labor premier Daniel Andrews\u2019s cabinet as the minister for [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1655,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400802"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1655"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400802"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400803,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400802\/revisions\/400803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}