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  Labor Party Seats for Sale? LUIS BARRIGOS – ALP MEMBER: What hurt me deeply was the fact that I was starting to see our democratic rights being thrown out the window. DEAN MIGHELL-VICTORIAN STATE SECRETARY, ETU: Bus loads or car loads of ethnic, non English speaking people were basically driven or bused into the centre and an arm would go around the person by their leader or one of their peers and they'd be escorted in to shown how to vote the right way. LES TARCSON – ALP MEMBER: I experienced seeing a candidate's daughter being spat on, a candidate's wife's coat being burnt by cigarettes. REPORTER – PAUL RANSLEY: It's an ugly portrait of the Labor party that they're painting. And from what these members say, it's becoming even uglier. RAY TUNKS – ALP MEMBER: People are getting into office because of the amount of people they are bringing into their party through their chequebooks. GRAHAM HUDSON – POLITICAL SCIENCE LECTURER: $5000 can buy you a seat that buys you I think around about 300 members if that's the game you're in. EDDIE MICALLEF – VICTORIAN MP: Divisiveness, amongst, in the party along race lines certainly plays into the hands of the opponents and the critics of multi-culturalism. REPORTER: Their concern is about branch stacking. Not the benign numbers game that all parties and their factions have played since politics became a dirty word. But a malignant and cynical kind that exploits ethnic communities, divides people along race lines and sees manipulators achieve positions of power and influence by hijacking the ballot box. MEHMIT BOYLU – ALP MEMBER: They really trick some of my friends I've seen that with our own eyes, they went to their places and they picked them up and just for their votes. BARRIGOS: It brought me back memories as to what my father used to tell me would happen in Franco's Spain when elections were held, where people were forced to vote for the candidates that they chose. VICTOR BORG – VICTORIAN ETHNIC COMMUNITIES COUNCIL: I think it's a corrupt process, it's a process that uses members of the ethnic communities not to make an objective decision but actually to put their hands up and go in as a number. REPORTER: Ethnic branch stacking has become the weapon of choice in the bitter turf wars that divide the ALP's factions allowing them to buy seats in parliament and in the process stain the very heart of democracy. If this is how an organisation governs itself, it's reasonable to ask how it will govern the rest of us. HUDSON: Anything that taints the political process that brings it into disrepute. I think we should all be concerned about. REPORTER: It's difficult to broach ethnic branch stacking without being accused of attacking ethnic communities, but that's not what it's all about. Many people in those communities are active and loyal ALP members. The criticism is at individuals who are using their positions for personal and political gain. And critics are also frightened of being called racist. Indeed that ugly smear has been directed at us by no less than the ALP's Victorian office. They wrote to us saying that our inquiries were being seen as politically biased, if not racist and they'd been asked to investigate if we'd broached any race discrimination laws. It's interesting though that not one senior member of the ALP, state or federal would appear on camera to discuss those issues. MICALLEF: Well I think it's a bit like paedophilia in the Catholic Church. I mean somebody has got to speak up about it. REPORTER: Eddie Micallef is speaking up. Though his detractors accuse him of sour grapes. At the recent round of preselection battles in Victoria, the member for Springvale, was dumped by his party after holding the safe Labor seat for 13 years. Micaleff claims his rivals in the right wing Labor Unity Faction stacked the ballot with members of the Cambodian community loyal to this man, Hong Lim, MP for the neighbouring seat of Clayton and a member of Labor Unity. MICALLEF: When I tried to doorknock some of them with some Cambodian speaking people, they said they had been visited by a member of the Cambodian Association and given their orders on how to vote. REPORTER: Cambodians comprise a tiny proportion of Springvale's rainbow of races. There are little more than a thousand in a population of 53,000 Yet they make up almost 20 percent of the local Labor party's membership. Micallef claims that's because a government funded welfare body, the Cambodian association of Victoria, has mounted an active recruitment campaign, in some cases pressuring people who come to it for help to join the ALP. MICALLEF: We have evidence to suggest that we have people who have worked for that association have been coerced, pressured and even harassed into joining the ALP. REPORTER: The member for Clayton, Hong Lim, is a former president of the association. Its senior welfare worker, Chea Youhorn, is Hong Lim's brother in law and a labour councillor for the city of Dandenong. As the peak welfare body for Cambodians in the area, particularly for immigration, legal, and health matters, the association wields enormous influence over their lives. GEOFF LEIGH – LIBERAL MP (In parliament): In respect of allegations by ALP branch members about the use of ethnic communities as part of the ALP's branch stacking activities and what action does he propose to take in regard to this matter? REPORTER: In state parliament last week, Micallef received unlikely support from a liberal party MP who tabled statuary declarations alleging some Cambodians were being forced to join the ALP. The key allegation was contained in a stat dec supplied by a Salvation Army worker employed as a job skills coordinator in Springvale. Sunday has a copy of her statement in which she says: ACTOR [VOICE]: “It was drawn to my attention by one of my co-workers that jobskills participants working at the Cambodian Association were being pressured to join the ALP.” “I found that it was common knowledge that people approaching the Cambodian Association for welfare assistance would be expected to join the ALP.” “Stories were related of Hong Lim saying that gratitude for coming to Australia should be shown by joining the ALP as that was the party that made it possible for them to do so.” REPORTER: In response to those statutory declarations, the premier who is also the minister for multi-cultural affairs, referred the allegations to the police, to the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal and the Equal Opportunity Commission. JEFF KENNETT – VICTORIAN PREMIER (in parliament): That it appears that a number of people in the Cambodian community have had their rights as citizens of this state grossly violated. REPORTER: The Labor party's membership lists also appear to support claims of an attempt to stack the electorates of Springvale and Clayton. WOMAN: They were scared. There was fear written on some of these people's faces. REPORTER: This woman doorknocked for Eddie Micallef before the pre-selection ballot visiting members of the exclusively Cambodian Chandler branch which has 88 members. She discovered a number of them didn't live at addresses they were supposed to. WOMAN: In many cases, there were whole groups of people who didn't live there. You go to a door. You knock on the door and you say does x person live here and they say, no never heard of them. What about a, b, c, d and e? No they don't. REPORTER: What percentage, do you think, of the branch list was not at the addresses specified? WOMAN: From what I did, and that was over a two week period, I would have to say that every day at least one third, at least one third. REPORTER: According to the branch list a house in this street has six members of the ALP living in it, indeed all six voted at the last pre-selection ballot and said they lived here. But that's not true. Only two of them actually live in a house. A teenage occupant we spoke to said the four others didn't. In fact she had never heard of them. With an interpreter we also visited a number of houses in Springvale and called people on the phone. It's unfair to identify these people most of whom don't speak English, let alone understand the implications of their membership in the Labor party. It was also clear very few were informed and active members. This woman voted at the pre selection. When we first asked her if she was a member of the Labor party she said she didn't know. She said she never attended meetings, didn't pay her own membership and that other people told her who to vote for. This woman's severely intellectually disabled son is also a member of the ALP. She doesn't know who pays his membership fees, but said that on the day of the vote Chea Youhorn arrived to take him to the polling booth. MICALLEF: The fact is, in many cases, members don't realise they are members of the party. In doorknocking in the recent pre selection process there was even one case of a person saying that they don't vote Labor, they actually supported the Liberal party and have been trying to get out of the party for a couple of years. REPORTER: We asked Hong Lim for comment. He declined. Although in parliament this week he denied the claims made in the statutory declarations. HONG LIM – VICTORIAN MP (in parliament): I have never visited, coerced or pressured any Cambodian woman to sign a statutory declaration and I repute all allegations made by the honourable member for Mordialloc. REPORTER: Eddie Micallef's factional rivals accuse him of being a hypocrite. Claiming that a number of years's ago he stacked Springvale with 90 Latin American voters. Micallef says it was closer to 60, but denies allegations that he paid their membership fees. So you did bring some people in? MICALLEF: Of course we brought people in but I see the difference between bringing in people who have some political understanding and I have no objections to members of ethnic communities coming into political parties knowing full well what they are coming in for. Even coming in in large numbers. But I have a question about people who are harassed, coerced, brought in under threats into the party to achieve an objective. REPORTER: Allegations of branch stacking aren't confined to Springvale and members of the Cambodian community. As you'll see later, these members of the Turkish community, and these from Latin America were stacked into branches by party heavies. Some have been members for up to five years, never pay membership fees, never attend meetings, but are required to vote when called upon. MIGHELL: Well, I think there is a great exploitation, I call it exploitation, of ethnic groups. Turkish groups, Cambodian, Vietnamese and Greek groups. Branches set up specifically to deal with ethnic groupings and I think that's a loss. And I think it really stems out of the isolation of these groups and they are certainly open for manipulation. A lot of non English speaking people are instructed how to vote, don't understand the process and the party doesn't make enough effort to make sure they do. BORG: My organisation at the same time has been encouraging Australians born overseas to be involved in the political process, but this is not being involved in the political process this is an abuse. It is a form of corruption and regrettably many of the people that we represent are involved in it. Many of them not really knowing what it is all about. REPORTER: Many people claim that ethnic branch stacking allows factions to buy seats in parliament, the stackers pay the membership fees of the people they recruit. So the faction that dominates the party, or even a government, is the one with the deepest pockets. HUDSON: Head office of the Labor party did a survey of the membership and it may well be that about 30 percent of branch members in Victoria do not pay their own fees. REPORTER: What does that mean? HUDSON: It basically means that somebody else is paying membership fees and it almost certainly means they have been branch stacked or multiple recruited. REPORTER: That's about 5000 members, a minimum of $100,000 dollars a year that must come out of factional slush funds. Though it doesn't take much to swing a single electorate your way...as few as 50 members, depending on the factional alliances. For some factions and their anointed lieutenants, the price of a seat in parliament can be negligible. MIGHELL: You need a hundred people to be stacked in a branch and 20 dollars a head, $2000 you can buy yourself a seat. HUDSON: The prizes are so big. A federal seat. A safe Labor seat in the state or federal parliament, that's like winning Tattslotto several times over, so people will be strongly motivated to seek endorsement for that seat and yes, moving branch stackees around, changing their addresses, having false records all of that is part of a sophisticated system. MIGHELL: I think it has reached a stage where it's just over the top. You just can't tolerate the bastardisation of ALP processes. The way it‘s going on and I think it's just too extreme. None of it was ever right, but the party can't allow it to continue. Otherwise it's going to rip the party apart. REPORTER: While all factions are guilty of branch stacking the latest bout has been blamed on a coalition of the right win Labor Unity Group and the Labor Renewal Alliance. It's a coalition that supports federal heavyweights like Gareth Evans, Simon Crean, Robert Ray and Martin Ferguson as well as Opposition Leader John Brumby. There's no evidence they've instigated it, but they know about it and benefit from it in some way. MIGHELL: Some key figures have built a very good power base out of it in recent times and they use that for their own self gain and self promotion. REPORTER: The key numbers man on the Labor unity side is Senator Stephen Conroy. Described by party insiders as an accomplished branch stacker. When the former backroom operator for Senator Robert Ray, moved to Melbourne in search of a federal seat in 1987 he joined a branch with fourteen members. Almost overnight membership rocketed to 117 including a large group of Vietnamese and Turks. He wouldn't speak with this program but in a newspaper report in 1994, was quoted as saying: “Stacking is in the eye of the beholder. You could say I recruit. The socialist left stacks.” REPORTER: We have no evidence to suggest Conroy is directly involved in some of the questionable ethnic branch stacking practices of recent times, but he has certainly worked hard, behind the scenes, to establish the right's dominance in Victoria. HUDSON: Senator Conroy has been willing to do the work, I think. Not many people necessarily want to be involved in machine politics, but he's been willing and do that, I think very interested in doing it and has done it very successfully for his faction. MICALEFF: Stephen Conroy is certainly the architect of the right's strategy in relation to winner take all at the current time. So it's very difficult to accept that he doesn't either understand what is going on, accept it and support it. It's interesting that I had a private conversation with Senator Conroy immediately after the last state election where I was questioning the branch stacking that was going on in my electorate. I was told not to worry, we are not after you. We are not after Springvale and if need be I will move ten members of the central panel across to support you. That was words that Senator Conroy actually said to me. REPORTER: How do you feel now that you've had your head chopped off? MICALEFF: Well, I didn't believe it at the time so I'm not overly disappointed in the fact that it didn't come through. REPORTER: Alongside, Conroy, in the Labor unity camp can be found state MP's, Sang Nguyen, Tayfun Erin, and Hong Lim, who, prior to winning Labor preselection for safe seats had all been accused by political rivals of stacking ethnic numbers for the right. Their elevation to high office is regarded in some quarters purely as a reward for bringing in the numbers. LES TARCSON: Candidates who have been put in because of stacking aren't good candidates, aren't good parliamentarians, they're puppets perhaps to a faction. REPORTER: Collaborating with Labor unity is the Labor Renewal Alliance dominated by Theo Theophanous, the upper house member for Jika Jika. THEO THEOPHANOUS – VICTORIAN MP: We are now in the process of renewing the Labor party. There is now as you can see a democratic process taking place here, now, today. REPORTER: Theophanous is a controversial figure. his faction was formed and entered a coalition with the right after he was expelled from the socialist left. In an extraordinary debate last year, the state's upper house condemned him for consistently and recklessly failing to tell the truth. Thirteen members of the government railed against him. Two of his own party spoke in his defence. During the argument references were made to his reputation as a branch stacker. Have you been stacking branches? THEOPHANOUS: My position in the party is that we need to have as many members as we can in the Labor party. The reason we need members in the party is because we need people to go out and campaign for us. REPORTER: Supporting Theophanous are Carlos Baldevera and Telmo Languiller who have won preselection for safe Labor seats and have also been accused of ethnic branch stacking. After the break, evidence that some Labor heavies will go to extraordinary lengths to influence a ballot. DANIEL ALVAREZ – ALP MEMBER: He accentuated the words, if I have to use a shotgun I will use a bazooka, If I have to use a bazooka I will use missiles and he counted them off on his fingers as he was saying it. REPORTER: For many Labor supporters, preselection ballots are a joke. Branch stacking determines the outcome long before the poll closes. And it's alienating many traditional voters. MIGHELL: I think you are certainly disenfranchising the true believers if you like. The long term people who join the ALP for genuine belief in Labor principles and they are certainly getting turned away and the party is getting eroded as a result. REPORTER: This preselection ballot for the safe Labor seat of Northcote was one that caused uproar. Northcote had always been a seat held by the left, but head office wanted Labor's latest celebrity sign on, Mary Delahunty, to win. The battle was fierce. Many of the locals resented the former television journalist's intrusion into their patch. She was neither a resident, nor tested as a party member. On both sides emotions ran high. The locals knew the right wing controlled head office was always going to have its way because of a stack engineered by this man, Nazih El Asmar, president of the high street Arabic branch and his factional colleague Theo Theophanus. TUNKS: People were being brought in by cars, they didn't even know what it was about or anything, were taken in and told how to vote and who to vote for. REPORTER: El Asmar enjoys the personal support of over 140 Arabic members, more than 20 percent of the membership list. Many are active, but it's claimed a significant number have joined the party and vote out of loyalty to him. They're not coerced, but neither, it's argued, do they exercise an informed choice. TUNKS: These people don't take any part in the party at all. They don't give out how to vote cards, they don't do anything but roll out on the day to vote for the person to get into office. This is a denial of justice to the people who have been members for many years. NAZIH EL ASMAR – HIGH STREET (ARABIC) BRANCH: People when they lose, they find any excuse and I feel sorry for these people, they've never been loyal to the party and now because they get other people to the party, they get nothing of the party, they say whatever they want. REPORTER: Subsequent inquiries by us in the Northcote area support claims of branch stacking, that some members of the High Street branch are in it purely for the marks they can get on the ballot paper. We spoke with a number of members who told us they seldom if ever attended meetings and generally voted where directed, one man said he wasn't interested in politics but had joined up as a favour to someone else. Another family said they voted Liberal at the last state and federal elections but were also members of the ALP and a third man said he'd been in the party for 2 years, had not once attended a meeting but always voted where directed. Irregularities in the membership list were also uncovered by Delahunty's opponents though they're not suggesting she knew them, doorknockers found 10 members of the High Street branch lived in another electorate and claimed it was only after head office was notified that the branch withdrew the members' names from the roll. Theophanous and Nazih El Asmar refused to answer specific allegations on camera or on the record though on the day of the poll they did deny the claims of branch stacking. REPORTER: So has there been any stacking to ensure that she gets in do you think or to stop her? THEOPHANOUS: I know that people like to run these lines. The fact is the party changed its rules 3 years ago. EL ASMAR: There's no branch-stacking, nothing in the area. We have been all doing our jobs for the renewal. REPORTER: El Asmar has been rewarded for his services to his faction. Last year he secured a $85,000 a year position as mayor of the Labor dominated council of Darebin. It came about after a secret agreement between his Labor renewal alliance and labour unity. A copy of the agreement was tabled in state parliament. The deal came unstuck after bickering with other factions crippled the council and the Kennett government sacked it. EL ASMAR (in press conference): This is not fair to the residents of the city of Darebin. It's not fair to the staff and it's not fair for us. We are elected councillors. REPORTER: El Asmar has been working closely with Theo Theophanous since, and we understand that when new council elections are called, El Asmar will stand and if successful has been promised, two further terms as mayor. If the Northcote ballot was controversial, the one just a few suburbs away was a shocker. It was for the Lower House seat of Sunshine and the upper house seat of Doutta Galla. BARRIGOS: I think they were antagonised to such an extent that they didn't know for starters what they were doing there and then they were told well you've got to vote for this particular candidate because that's the way it is. REPORTER: The story of the ballot and some of the characters involved illustrates just how dark the stain of branch stacking has become in the Labor party. Labor Unity's chosen candidate for the upper house seat was Tayfun Eren. His running mate in the Lower House was Telmo Languiller, a member of the renewal alliance. They and their supporters formed a formidable team. JOHN PATZIKATHEODOROU – ALP CANDIDATE: In the polling booth many people did not exercise a free vote. There were many instances when I saw where people, supporters of Tayfun Erin and Telmo Linguiller, who actually were filling in the ballot papers. TARCSON: I actually saw cards ripped out of their hands and replaced with cards of a different candidate and actually being followed to pick up their voting tickets and further, move in with them to make sure that they voted correctly. REPORTER: So people were actually standing over voters? TARCSON: Certainly. REPORTER: Tayfun Eren, of Turk descent, is the sitting member for Doutta Galla. Before entering parliament he was embroiled in a major row over branch stacking in the Turkish community and forced to leave his job with opposition leader, John Brumby. Eren was elected to parliament in 1966 partly due to a strong Turkish vote. His supporters have been accused of stacking the electorate. Les Tarkson doesn't doubt it. TARCSON : Look, I belong to a Turkish branch, have done for two years. It's never met. It's never met. And yet those people were called on, those branch members were called on to vote. REPORTER: So what does that tell you? TARCSON: That's a stack and I don't care what anyone says. REPORTER: Mehmet and Nurhan Boylu are both members of the exclusively Turkish, Avalon branch which has nearly 80 members. They say they joined because they thought they were helping the Turkish community but now feel used. Did they take any money from you? BOYLU: No, they didn't want any money. REPORTER: So you got you're membership card but you paid no membership fee? BOYLU: No. REPORTER: Did you ever attend any meetings? NURHAN BOYLU – ALP MEMBER: No. REPORTER: The couple say all that was required of them was to vote where directed. BOLYU: They come and tell us they want some specific person they have chosen and they say, you have to give your vote to these people that's what we do. According to what they say. REPORTER: Do you know many people like you, paid no money but were enrolled? BOLYU: Everyone I know that they don't pay. REPORTER: In the recent ballot, the pair were expected to vote for Eren in the upper house seat and Languiller, in the lower house seat of but when they told branch bosses that they wouldn't be voting for Languiller...no one came to pick them up. What really mares this poll, though, are accusations that head office, played an ugly race card in an effort to maximise the votes for Eren and Languiller. PATZIKATHEODOROU: There are a lot of council halls, community halls but they chose to decide on the Turkish Cypriot centre. I think the strategy was to alienate voters. RANSLEY: John Patzikatheodorou, a left winged candidate says the decision to hold the ballot stirred bitter enmity between Greek Cypriot members and their Turk counterparts. PATZIKATHEODOROU: The issue was raised repeatedly two weeks before the ballots and many people said they weren't going to turn up to vote and many, in that sense in the end didn't. REPORTER: That and the hall's out of the way location meant only 800 out of a potential 1300 voters turned up. For those who did come to vote, the atmosphere was poisonous. BARRIGOS: I was threatened I was told that if I continued on along those lines that something would happen to me. I was sworn at. REPORTER: Luis Barrigos was a scrutineer for his wife, a candidate in the poll. BARRIGOS: After the arguments that took place, as I was going through the area that the Turkish social club was congregating, I was told that I was being spat on and when I did check my back I actually felt the spit on my back, on my jacket. Then I was told outside that numerous other people had been spat on. REPORTER: Les Tarcson says some of these people deliberately tried to provoke a candidate by burning his wife's coat with cigarettes. TARCSON: It was an attack to try and upset that candidate to come out and actually start a blue of some description. BARRIGOS: I have never seen it so intimidating and so threatening by people. I think people just were simply scared of being there. REPORTER: Three weeks before the ballot a new variation on the stack occurred that improved the chances of both Eren and Languiller. Head office was notified that 16 members of the Vietnamese community had moved from a neighbouring electorate seat held by Labor Unity Ally, Sang Nguyen, and were now living In Sunshine and eligible to vote. But we contacted most of these people and found the information given to head office wasn't true. Most were in fact long term residents of Sunshine, but their presence had been concealed by registering them as members of branches in other electorates. It's called warehousing and is designed to prevent political opponents from doorknocking or counter stacking voters. More disturbingly, some of these people told us they have voted in electorates they hadn't lived in at the behest of Sang Nguyen who how expected them to vote in Sunshine. REPORTER: Intervention by the federal member for Callwell, Andrew Theophanous, also muddied the waters. Andrew, who employs Telmo Languiller as an electorate officer, is the older brother of Labor renewal leader, Theo. Andrew contributed to Languiller's campaign by announcing in the Greek press that Bob Mammarella, was a Turk supported by a soccer club with links to a Turk terrorist organisation. Mamarella is in fact of Italian descent. Is it a direct quote, is it in quotation marks, do they source it directly to Mr Theophanous? PATZIKATHEODOROU: It is in quotation marks. REPORTER: It was an inflammatory accusation given the row over the location of the ballet. PATZIKATHEODOROU: A lot of the Greeks who would of read it just before election day would certainly have said enough is enough. There's too much mucking around on this. We don't know who to believe. REPORTER: Andrew Theophanous was not only active in the Sunshine campaign, but also in Northcote. Writing to members there on behalf of Labor renewal candidates. The letters went out under his federal parliamentary letter head and were carried in envelopes franked by a machine Sunday has established was supplied by the federal parliament. In other words the member for Calwell used taxpayer's money to wage an internal party war. And in Sunshine it was a war he and his allies finally won. Telmo Languillar scrapped home by six votes. But the win remains controversial even amongst the factions that supported him. TARCSON: Why a lot of them didn't also come to vote was that the right faction that I belong to has supported an ex communist. REPORTER: Until 1984, Languiller was an Australian based organiser for the communist party of Uruguay. He is a controversial character in Victoria's Latin American community. Many Labor insiders believe the Sunshine seat was his reward for recruiting hundreds of Latin Americans into the Labor fold. SALVADORE NUNEZ – ALP MEMBER: We were planning to have branches in every single suburb of Melbourne. REPORTER: One of his first recruits was Salvadore Nunez who was offered a job in an MP's office if he helped build a power base amongst the state's Spanish speaking community. Nunez says he declined the job, but nevertheless launched a recruitment campaign believing it would help his people. Membership fees were not to be a problem. NUNEZ: He said no problems. We'll pay for those people. We ask just to sign the form. REPORTER: Salvadore estimates that in a few months they recruited a thousand Latin Americans who were all expected to vote where directed by Languiller and another prominent Labor figure, Carlos Baldevino. REPORTER: And what if someone doesn't want to vote the way they suggest? NUNEZ: Oh, the get a little bit annoyed and you know, I know that there have been some incidents but it's a very difficult area but they get very upset with people who don't vote for them. REPORTER: Salvadore became president of the state's first Latin American branch. Languiller was the secretary treasurer. But the partnership soured after an argument over the branch's financial accounts. NUNEZ: I said to him we have got to be honest. I am not prepared to continue on this committee if you are not prepared to present a financial report. REPORTER: What did he say? NUNEZ: He went off his mind and really abused me. Pretty badly. Pretty badly. REPORTER: Salvadore says he wound up the because of it. But by that time Languiller and Baldevino had established other power bases. These people were early supporters. They represent eleven adults in two families who have been members of the Labor party for five years or more. They've never been active, nor have they paid membership fees. WOMAN 2: I am really concerned about who is paying for me to be in this Labor Party, who is paying for me and why they are paying. REPORTER: They say they were enrolled to support the political ambitions of Languiller and Baldevino believing promises of benefits for the Latin American community including housing for the elderly. WOMAN 2: Once they need your vote they are your greatest friends but when they are out the door and you don't know where they are or whether you can count on them. REPORTER: This man says that despite throwing away his membership renewal forms someone keeps paying his annual fees. Do people ring you up and tell you who to vote for? WOMAN 2: They always do. They don't know who wins because they call you and say go and vote here for this person, but never call afterwards to say whether the result was good or bad. REPORTER: These families were too frightened to appear on camera. Daniel Alvarez probably knows the reason for that. ALVAREZ: They came about 8 o'clock at night. There was a knock on the door. REPORTER: You weren't expecting that? ALVAREZ: I wasn't expecting that, no not at all. REPORTER: Alvarez, a party activist, was campaigning against Languiller and Baldevino for an internal party position. So they paid him a visit. Baldevino did the talking. ALVAREZ: He was very serious. He accentuated the words that if he had to use a shotgun, I will use a bazooka, and if I have to use a bazooka, I will use missiles. And he counted them off on his fingers as he was saying that. REPORTER: And the purpose of using these weapons was to… ALVAREZ: To stop me from talking to anybody within the Latin American community that were so-called “his people”. REPORTER: So you took it as a threat? ALVAREZ: I certainly took it as threat. REPORTER: There was no doubt in your mind it was a threat? ALVAREZ: There was no doubt. REPORTER: While refusing to be interviewed, Languiller and Baldevino both deny the claims by Alvarez. The allegations of branch stacking and the squalid preselection fights of recent weeks seriously damage the Labor Party's credibility. And it's not as if senior Labor figures aren't aware of it. They are but chose to turn a blind eye out of self interest. MIGHELL: It really makes it hard for an ordinary member of the ALP who wants to see good government want to stay in the ALP. How can people want to stay if their vote means nothing because they are not part of a stack. HUDSON: The major factions have all been involved. In fact that's part of the problem. They've all got skeletons in the closets and therefore all find it rather difficult to take some decisive action to clean up the situation. REPORTER: Dean Mighell says his union, the ETU, has had enough. MIGHELL: We will consider very carefully our position with the ALP in the future, because if branch stacking puts people into parliament that don't represent the interests of working people then should we really be associated with that party. It's not just our union; there's a number of unions looking at it too. BARRIGOS: Enough's enough, I have witnessed too many of these things that have gone on in the party and it's about time someone stands up and buckets the people that are actually doing it because they are bringing the party down. They are bringing the party into disrepute. That's one of the reasons why I believe we lost the last election and I think that if we don't pull our socks up we'll lose the next election. We're going to have Kennett in for another four years. ENDS. If you have information related to this story, feel free to e-mail pransley@ninenet.com.au Click here for a printer-friendly version. |
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