Abuse of Power: Nsw Labor in 1993

Debate resumed from 19 September.

Mr HUMPHERSON (Davidson) [12.12]: If there is one document that this House ought to take note of it is the document entitled Abuse of Power: NSW Labor in 1993. Three years later nothing has changed. This document, which comes from within the Labor Party, details the factional wars, rorts, bribery, and standover tactics within NSW Labor. Every man and woman who sits opposite today knows what goes on, because they have all benefited from it. They have all indulged in the rorts, and so has the honourable member for Hurstville, and that is how they got here in the first place.

Let me refer to parts of the document to give a flavour of its content. Page 8 states that the northern organiser, Laurie Brown, who has been employed by the Government, had to outdo Eric Roozendaal at a Young Labor meeting in Port Macquarie. So he stood over teenagers who were interested in joining Young Labor in order to get them to vote at the local branch meeting. While he was involved in actually prolonging a credentialling process, leading right-wing Young Labor activists, including the president, who goes by the name of Reba Meagher - by coincidence the honourable member for Cabramatta has the same name - went roaming around Port Macquarie for potential supporters.

Where did they find that goldmine? In the car park of the local McDonald's where a number of young people were innocently consuming Big Macs. They were financially induced to join the Labor Party, attend the meeting and vote the right way. So for $20 a head people who had never previously known or cared about the activities of Young Labor were prepared to go along and vote the right way. This is not the first time right-wing Young Labor has resorted to buying votes to defeat its rivals. It happened at Parramatta-Mitchell Young Labor 12 months before. That time they bought their votes and members at Parramatta railway station.

This document is a litany of what goes on. It mentions the honourable member for Cabramatta and the honourable member for Fairfield as being involved in activities which are quite unbelievable to the average citizen of this State - members who did not attend branch meetings signed the attendance sheet months after the event and, therefore, were able to vote - standover tactics and threats. Quite simply, every member of the Labor Party in this House knows what goes on. Fortunately, this document is now on the public record, because it was tabled with the concurrence of the left wing of the Labor Party in the Legislative Council last year.

If anyone would like a copy of this enthralling document, please call my office on 9451 3822 and I will make it available at no cost to any member of the public and any members of the Labor Party who have not had the chance to see their name in lights. Let me read through it and identify some of the other activities. At the Young Labor annual conference in 1992 the Right's push for control was advanced. With some of the rule changes, which were endorsed by the Right, the right wing boosted its organisation of delegates so it was on level-pegging with the left wing. The honourable member for Cabramatta, who happened to be the right-wing candidate for the Young Labor presidency, paid for a record number of challenges to the credentials of delegates. Systematically the Rights displaced, by various technicalities, non-supportive non-right delegates to the conference, particularly those from regional areas.

Mr Tripodi: We're going to do to you what we did to the Left.

Mr HUMPHERSON: I announce the presence now in the House of the honourable member for Fairfield, who just said that he would do to members of this House what he did to the Left. So he has just admitted that everything in this document is the absolute truth. [Time expired.]

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Mr O'FARRELL (Northcott) [12.17]: I support the motion moved by the honourable member for Gosford, that the House take note of the document tabled in the Legislative Council on 9 June 1995 entitled Abuse of Power: NSW Labor in 1993. I do so understanding that you, Mr Speaker, ordered the upper gallery to be cleared so that school students would not have to listen to what was in this document. If ever there was an example of the utter abuse of power and an attempt to corrupt democratic views within a political party, it is contained within this document. I am pleased that the honourable member for Cabramatta and the honourable member for Fairfield have entered the Chamber. I was concerned that they would not come here to answer the charges set out in this document.

These serious charges are not levelled by the Liberal-National parties but by their colleagues in the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party. It strikes me as strange that the name of the honourable member for Hurstville does not appear anywhere in this document. The honourable member for Hurstville was trained at the knee of Graham Richardson - the Cardinal Richelieu of the Labor Party. The reason that his name is not in the document is that Graham Richardson told him how to file off his fingerprints. The honourable member for Cabramatta and the honourable member for Fairfield missed that seminar - they were not in the room! Last week the honourable member for Gosford tried unsuccessfully to get his point across, that the man who set the example in 1980 for these members to follow when he led the defection of the Liquor Trades Union from the centre unity faction at the State Labor Conference for no other reason than personal gain -

Mr Tripodi: You know more about our party than your own.

Mr O'FARRELL: Indeed. I am indebted to the honourable member for Fairfield for acknowledging for the second time in this debate the truth and honesty of this document. This document does not belong to the coalition. The charges levelled against the Labor Party, against the honourable member for Cabramatta and the honourable member for Fairfield, are not partisan charges made by their opponents in politics. The charges have been made by members of the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party, the very people who have had their voices in the Labor Party subverted by the actions of members opposite, and the sorts of actions that resulted last week in the Leader of the House, who now leaves the Chamber, preventing the honourable member for Gosford, the mover of this motion, from speaking substantially to this motion.

It pains me that this document also reflects adversely on someone that I respect in politics. One always respects those who give you a hiding from time to time. Equally implicated in this motion is someone I usually admire, the General Secretary of the New South Wales Labor Party, John Della Bosca. This document serves him no good. Johnno Johnson comes from the same Labor Party school as Graham Richardson. I am sure he is listening to this debate and regrets that this document was tabled in the upper House and is today subject to this sort of debate in this place.

Members of Parliament are provided the privilege to air in open Chamber - open court if you like - allegations like those contained in this document that cannot be aired in Labor Party councils or in newspapers because of threats of defamation from those opposite. It is quite appropriate that this House discuss this document to raise the allegations that were read by the honourable member for Davidson. The document attaches to it parliamentary privilege because there is no other way that this important message about the value those opposite hold for democracy and the attitude they have to others participating in their party processes can come to the attention of New South Wales citizens. As we are about to discover through the Independent Commission Against Corruption - [Time expired.]

Mr IEMMA (Hurstville) [12.22]: I support the amendment. Obviously the honourable member for Northcott still has not recovered from the last State election result. He was the strategist for the marginal seat campaign that saw the coalition lose critical seats - seats that were on his list to win and into which he pumped money. He left it all behind at Liberal Party headquarters and since he came to this place he has tried to live down his reputation following the 1995 election result.

Mr Kerr: On a point of order. The honourable member is not speaking to the motion or to the amendment.

Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Mills): Order! There is no point of order.

Mr IEMMA: The honourable member for Northcott and the honourable member for Davidson have brought to this House a document purporting to outline activities that occurred in Young Labor. The document does not carry anybody's signature. The document was put together in the office of the honourable member for Davidson because he issued the invitation this morning to everybody to get a copy of the document on pretty pink paper from the many boxes containing copies that he has in his office. No doubt in his office he also has fluorescent lime and orange paper in those boxes.

Only the honourable member for Davidson would come into this Chamber and use some document that purports to set out allegations of what did or did not occur in Young Labor as a document of truth that should be given credence. This document has been concocted by the honourable member for Davidson and obvious malcontents in his office and, no doubt, in Young Labor. The honourable member for Davidson told us that this document represents the truth. It is good that the honourable member for Sutherland is not present in
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the Chamber, though the honourable member for Cronulla is. We have all read of activities in the Menai branch of the Liberal Party and the Sutherland electorate that so caused the honourable member for Sutherland such concern that he threatened to cross the floor.

Mr Hazzard: On a point of order. The honourable member is speaking outside the leave of the motion. The motion clearly relates to an abuse of power by the Labor Party and has nothing at all to do with Liberal Party branches.

Mr ACTING-SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. I reiterate my previous ruling, that under the circumstance of this debate and all that has been said from both sides, this contribution is in order.

Mr IEMMA: In talking about documents that have no validity or substance, the Labor Party could distribute a document containing activities in the Menai and other branches of the Liberal Party in the Sutherland electorate. So concerned was the honourable member for Sutherland that he wanted to issue the threat that if it was not fixed by Liberal Party headquarters, he would cross the floor and sit as an Independent member. The honourable member for Davidson has nothing better to do with his time than spend it doing a cut-and-paste job on his pretty pink paper in his office, waving it around as some document of authenticity, as he dreams of a Manly-Warringah defeat on Sunday. The document is nothing better than the garbage of a team that he supports.

Mr TRIPODI (Fairfield) [12.27]: I am happy that there are no young people in the gallery today because if there were they would be surprised and shocked by what the House is debating. I am surprised that the House is not debating a piece of graffiti that an Opposition member came across on the way here this morning, because the document referred to has as much substance as any piece of graffiti on any wall in this city. Opposition members have tried to give credibility to something that has no credibility. The document was put together by a committee called the membership defence committee. If the honourable member for Northcott, who is an expert in the ALP, though probably not in the Liberal Party, had read a copy of the party rules he would know that no such committee exists. No name is on the document. The fact that the document was put together by a committee that does not exist and the fact that Opposition members have raised these allegations only in the Chamber show that the document is bogus. Opposition members do not have the guts, honesty, sincerity or sufficient principles to refer to this document outside the Chamber.

Mr O'Farrell: What have you done with Geoff Irwin? Geoff Irwin is calling for you.

Mr TRIPODI: I would not visit history if I were the honourable member. He had to face four preselections to get here; members on this side faced only one. If Opposition members referred to this document outside the Chamber they would be subject to the proper processes of the law, and members on this side of the House would be the recipients of their wealth. Government members come across documents that reflect events that allegedly occurred in the Liberal Party. Sitting on my office desk is a copy of the minutes of the Menai branch of the Young Liberals, which detail many alleged incidents of racism, fraud, assaults, and no doubt other bogus events. But we do not waste the time of the House or taxpayers' time and money on such silly documents. Nor should Opposition members, who are supposedly responsible members of the House, waste the time of the House or of the taxpayers.

Mr HARTCHER (Gosford) [12.31], in reply: The document entitled Abuse of Power: NSW Labor in 1993, which was tabled in the Legislative Assembly and which this House has been asked to take note of today, details a sad history of intimidation and thuggery in the branches of the Australian Labor Party. Honourable members in this Chamber, including the honourable member for Fairfield and the honourable member for Cabramatta, are named in the document as participants in that intimidation and thuggery. It is interesting that the honourable member for Cabramatta has not availed herself of the opportunity to speak in this debate. The honourable member for Fairfield carefully avoided discussing the issues raised in the document; he simply spoke on a series of irrelevancies, as did the honourable member for Hurstville. The document was supported by the irrelevant contributions of those members and their determination to avoid argument about its substance. The honourable member for Cabramatta stands accused of not defending herself against a single allegation, as does the honourable member for Fairfield.

Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Mills): Order! There is far too much interjection from both sides of the House. The honourable member for Gosford should be accorded the same respect that the honourable member for Fairfield was given.

Mr HARTCHER: The document clearly sets out the details as follows:

Events and incidents reported in this document have been compiled by concerned members of Young Labor from across the factional spectrum; including left wingers, independents, disillusioned former supporters of the right wing. They share a revulsion of the abuse of power displayed by the right wing clique in the NSW ALP . . .

The ALP cannot afford this. It is vital that ALP members and party units speak up now and demand change, before the situation becomes totally out of control.

The document details how the right-wing push under the honourable member for Cabramatta, supported by the honourable member for Fairfield, took over Young Labor in the 1990s. The document further states:

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The Right's push for control of NSW Young Labor was to come at the 1992 Annual Conference . . .

Reba Meagher, right wing candidate for YLC President, paid for a record number of challenges to the credentials of delegates to the Conference.

The document contains allegations about the honourable member for Cabramatta and she has not denied them in the House. The document continues:

After all challenges were dealt with by Head Office, Reba Meagher held 266 votes to the Left's Luke Foley's 256. Joe Tripodi became the Secretary of Young Labor.

Ironically, Meagher and Tripodi promised Young Labor members an approach not based on factionalism, having just been handed YLC by the ruling faction of the New South Wales Labor Party.

The honourable member for Cabramatta and the honourable member for Fairfield promised no factionalism. When elected, the two arch factional warriors in the right wing of the ALP pledged no factionalism. The honourable member for Fairfield even smiles at his deception. The document does not dwell solely on the activities of the honourable member for Cabramatta and the honourable member for Fairfield; it details the activities of Eric Roozendaal, the Acting General Secretary of the Australian Labor Party, and contains an allegation of racism against that gentleman. Once again, that allegation has not been denied by members opposite. The document states that at a meeting in Port Macquarie in June 1993, in an attempt to block many young people from joining the local Young Labor branch, for more than three hours a full-time party functionary stood over teenagers interested in joining Young Labor and the ALP trying to turn them away. Significantly, the document states this about Mr Chris Brown:

Repeatedly Brown harassed Aboriginal youths for `appropriate identification'.

Why has the honourable member for Cabramatta or the honourable member for Fairfield not denied that blatant accusation of racism against prominent figures in the New South Wales ALP? The document further states:

This was not the first time the Young Labor Right had resorted to buying votes to defeat their rivals. At the inaugural meeting at Parramatta/Mitchell YLA a full twelve months before, the same tactic had been used when the right wingers were initially outnumbered. That time Parramatta railway station, rather than the local McDonalds, was the recruiting ground.

This House takes note of a document that details serious allegations against some of its members. Honourable members have not availed themselves of the privilege granted to them to deny the allegations, and they have refused to address a single issue in the document.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Members will listen in silence. Order! The honourable member for Lane Cove will leave the Chamber if she interjects while the Chair is addressing the Chamber.

Question - That the amendment be agreed to - put.

The House divided.

Ms Allan Mr Markham
Mr Anderson Mr Martin
Ms Andrews Ms Meagher
Mr Aquilina Mr Mills
Mrs Beamer Mr Moss
Mr Carr Mr Nagle
Mr Clough Mr Neilly
Mr Crittenden Ms Nori
Mr Debus Mr E. T. Page
Mr Face Mr Price
Mr Gaudry Dr Refshauge
Mr Gibson Mr Rogan
Mrs Grusovin Mr Rumble
Ms Hall Mr Scully
Mr Harrison Mr Stewart
Ms Harrison Mr Sullivan
Mr Hunter Mr Tripodi
Mr Iemma Mr Watkins
Mr Knight Mr Whelan
Mr Knowles Mr Woods
Mr Langton Mr Yeadon
Mr Lynch Tellers,
Dr Macdonald Mr Beckroge
Mr McBride Mr Thompson

Mr Armstrong Mr O'Farrell
Mr Beck Mr D. L. Page
Mr Blackmore Mr Peacocke
Mr Brogden Mr Richardson
Mr Chappell Mr Rixon
Mrs Chikarovski Mr Rozzoli
Mr Cochran Mr Schipp
Mr Collins Mr Schultz
Mr Debnam Ms Seaton
Mr Downy Mrs Skinner
Mr Ellis Mr Slack-Smith
Ms Ficarra Mr Small
Mr Fraser Mr Souris
Mr Glachan Mr Tink
Mr Hartcher Mr J. H. Turner
Mr Hazzard Mr R. W. Turner
Mr Humpherson Mr Windsor
Dr Kernohan
Mr MacCarthy Tellers,
Mr Merton Mr Jeffery
Mr O'Doherty Mr Kerr

Mr Amery Mr Cruickshank
Mrs Lo Po' Mr Kinross
Mr Shedden Mr Phillips

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion as amended agreed to.

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