‘That’s politics’: Inside the Liberal Party’s branch-stacking machine

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Exclusive: A plot to remove MPs and take over the party goes all the way up to a member of the Prime Minister’s front bench | Ageinvestigates jttozer paulsakkal

into branch stacking. A review of party membership for the 2019-2020 financial year had "found a small number of possible breaches of the party's rules around payment of other members' fees", he said in a statement. It's unclear what exactly his investigation is targeting. In the days leading up to the publication of this investigation, News Corporation mastheads have run stories attacking factional opponents of Mr Bastiaan and Mr Sukkar.

While the law requires electorate officers to "work under the sole direction of the employing senator or member", the memo suggests Mr Andrews' electorate officers reported at least partly to Mr Bastiaan. "I feel I have the capacity to manage them," Mr Bastiaan wrote. Labor's Adem Somyurek was accused of using taxpayer-funded staff for his factional work while the "red shirts" affair exposed the Victorian Labor government over a similar misuse of money. But Mr Sukkar's response to Mr Bastiaan's memo is to describe it as a "good summary"And in a secret recording, when questioned on using electorate officers in the manner exposed during the "red shirts" affair, Mr Bastiaan was scathing of the rules.

"I very much doubt that Sukkar can or should remain a minister of the Crown. A minister is a position of real power and thus real trust and you cannot have it in the hands of people who abuse it," Mr Watson said. He said "it can be hard" to control the work that party people do in your electorate office but added: "If recruitment was going on, you're going to have to show that that recruitment was going on during those hours, and if it was, that's wrong. Absolutely wrong."

 

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