Sting in the tale
IT only takes 60 minutes to rip a party to shreds.
The Channel 9 report on Sunday night was a damning glimpse into the ugliest elements of the Victorian Labor Party.
It profiled old-school bullying, full-frontal bravado and selfserving ambition.
It’s so ugly and petty and old and it’s exactly why people do not trust political parties.
The 60 Minutes investigation was based on secret recordings. They featured derogatory language and personal abuse. The transcripts are indefensible.
The images that accompanied the report led to allegations of industrial-scale branch stacking.
Whether this is true, we are yet to find out, but what we do know for sure is that by mid-morning on Monday Adem Somyurek was gone.
Sacked from Cabinet and resigned from the party. Matters are being investigated and by the end of Tuesday, two more Victorian Labor ministers had joined him.
This is not the 1950s. So who is going to break it to the ALP?
If you want to hold the conservatives to account, you need to clean your room before you start slinging mud.
This is the rubbish that was supposed to be expunged by Bob Hawke and then by Kevin Rudd and then Daniel Andrews. But clearly the cockroaches are still hanging in there, despite all the reviews and all the shiny brochures.
For years and years, the ALP has assured Victorian voters the party is on the up and up.
But it only took an hour of television to undo this myth.
Politics attracts people who are attracted to power. It does have a few good apples, but the bad apples are the ones who seem to keep bobbing.
The most interesting thing about the report was the complete absence of any Victorian witnesses.
Rudd and disgraced former senator Sam Dastyari were the only voices from the ALP to discuss this Victorian problem.
So one bloke from NSW and one from Queensland — both victims of the factional wars — were the only people prepared to put their names to the suggestion that there needs to be a new Labor. Not even a disgruntled branch member.
That seemed a little strange when you’re talking about the apparently devastating impact on local branches.
There was also no disclosure about how the secret recordings had been obtained. This was all a neatly packaged and professional account of one man and his alleged lust for power.
It’s one thing to protect your sources, but when you gather evidence by stealth, the question has to be asked: Who stands to gain from this being released into the public domain?
In my estimation, if you follow around any of the major players in Australian politics and place secret taps on their phones and their offices, you’re going to get some colourful language. That’s how they operate.
Who can forget the infamous 1987 Jeff Kennett phone call from the car to Andrew Peacock?
That conversation was recorded by some bloke with a “scanner”. I remember listening to it on a covert cassette in a flat in East Melbourne. Nobody could believe the language. In the call, the then state Opposition Leader says to Peacock: “I said, ‘Howard, you’re a ----. You haven’t got my support, you never will have and I’m not going to rubbish you or the party tomorrow but I feel a lot better having told you you’re a ----’.”
Now I know that Jeff is a Hawthorn man, but I am sure that if he had known he was being taped, he would have rephrased that colourful exchange. But he was in the car after a big by-election victory and he was completely unaware a third party was listening and recording. In 2020, most politicians are aware mobile phones are not secure. But apparently their style of communication has stayed the same.
It’s worth noting that not one of the local ALP pollies had a good word to say for Adem Somyurek. They have welcomed the investigation or were mute in their response.
This is the sad tawdry story of a house divided. The ALP will take a long time to recover. In politics, words still speak louder than actions.
Ross Mueller is a freelance writer and director.