Labor
SURRENDER MONKEYS: How Labor’s Left plans to surrender their heartland to the far-left Greens political party
The Age ran an unusually balanced feature on their favourite subject today, the rise in the far-left Greens political party vote in the inner-city that they are desperate to cheer on. They uncovered some curious views from Socialist Left MPs like Albert Park’s Martin Foley and the retiring back-bench warmer Carlo Carli.
VICTORY THROUGH SURRENDER
Simplified, this view is that the best way of suppressing the growth in the Greens party vote is to promote policies that are as similar to theirs as possible and never offer a word of criticism of the Greens that might cause offence among Greens party supporters in the hope that by being nice one might cause some to reflect that Labor isn’t quite so villainous after all.
Of course, strategically this is folly. In seats like Brunswick, the Greens vote is high and rising. But it’s still around 28%. So the only way they can win is with Liberal preferences.
So in fact the only way for Labor to prevent the far-left party winning is to campaign hard for Liberal preferences.
Now that is not what they want to hear.
And it’s not what the ALP machine has even contemplated. They’ve instead run a professional mainstream approach to their campaigns. Promoting their candidate and attacking the Greens party on extremist elements of their platform or acts of political intrigue that might cause them embarrassment, like secret deals with the conservatives.
The next step is clearly for Labor to pitch directly to Liberal voters about why they need to put the Greens last. Of course, they won’t go there. They’d rather lose than offend their Greens party comrades. And the Liberal hierarchy is perfectly happy directing preferences to the Greens party as long as it distracts Labor from the main event of holding seats in outer suburbia. It’s a recipe for promoting extremist interests.
THEY CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH
But it’s interesting that even the ALP head office’s reasonably cautious approach offends the sensibility of senior ministers like Environment minister Gavin Jennings, backbencher in perpetuity Martin Foley and the retiring Carlo Carli. They want the Brumby government to veer to the far-left and to avoid criticising the Greens in any shape or form.
Foley told David Rood – normally a passionate advocate for the Greens party – that “We need a much more sophisticated strategy … than one that seeks to dirty up any political party.”
Carr sub-faction member Carlo Carli agrees that criticising the Greens is a no-go zone. “I don’t mind having battles, but let them be battles about policy and ideas not battles on negative campaigning.”
So they don’t want criticism of the Greens. It makes them feel uncomfortable at inner-city dinner-parties. Even when it’s criticism about the far-left party voting with or preferencing the conservatives, shutting selective schools or promoting the availability of hard drugs. Even if it’s effective, many in the Left find it embarrassing. They don’t like saying these things about the Greens party, even if they’re true, especially if they’re true.
They are views – that if politically implemented – would almost certainly see the far-left Greens political party gain lower house seats in Victoria, potentially making them the balance of power in deciding which parties would form government and what kind of policies that government would have.
Just as they did in Fremantle where Labor refused to hold the Greens party to account in its recent by-election. It lost the Labor heartland seat and many say they deserved to lose it by declining to contest and compete vigorously on the issues.
The Greens party’s negative campaigning is very strong and potent vote-switching stuff usually: Labor and Liberals are evil sell-outs whose policies will lead to the destruction of the world. Fantastic, crazy stuff and they get away with it, every time. Tell a big lie often enough and it will be believed. But any criticism of Greens party mantra is somehow immoral.
THE GREENS SHOULD BE ABOVE CRITICISM
Naturally the Greens party master-strategist and de facto leader Greg Barber – Labor’s enemy – couldn’t agree more. He doesn’t want to be criticised. He knows it costs him votes. And he doesn’t want to be accountable for the extreme positions in the party platform that he wasn’t yet been able to water down. He’s pushed out the controversial positions on decriminalising drugs but the policy to close selective schools like Melbourne High and Macrob remains. He actually tells journalists that they should ignore those policies because as a minority party they’re in no position to implement them.
Barber is smart. A formidable foe of the kind that used to join – and run – the Socialist Left. Or the Labor Right for that matter.
“It’s a fair rule of thumb that whatever advice Greg Barber generously offers Labor about campaign tactics should be followed in reverse,” a Labor adviser worried about the growth in the Greens vote told VEXNEWS this morning.
Barber insists:
“Every time they (run a negative campaign) our vote goes up.”
And yet the evidence shows otherwise as even The Age concedes:
In early 2007, Labor state secretary Stephen Newnham briefed cabinet and caucus members that it was Labor’s vocal claim that the Greens had done a secret preference deal with the Liberals that saw Greens support drop away in the hectic final days of the 2006 election campaign. The party’s daily polling had Greens support as high as 13 per cent. But their election day vote was 10 per cent. The Greens primary vote in Richmond — held by state minister Richard Wynne — was 14 per cent below Labor polling. Melbourne was 12.5 per cent lower. The Greens and Liberals said the preference deal claim was a lie, but it quickly set the mould for Labor campaigning.
Of course, it wasn’t a lie. The Greens received crucial Liberal preferences in those four inner-city seats, in return the Greens preferenced the Liberals in nine Labor-held marginal seats across Victoria in the form of split-ticket HTV cards. It was a deal. The Liberal party director Julian Sheezel wasn’t shy about telling people it was a deal, privately. He chuckled about it. And why not? He was causing Labor mischief and getting his own party preferences it wouldn’t otherwise get.
Liberal and Greens insiders have both told VEXNEWS there were extensive negotiations about preferences and a deal that swapped one for another. The fact that they are still denying it publicly shows how sensitive a subject it is for both parties.
Sheezel noted at the time: “We don’t expect that the Greens will win those seats, but it is important that the ALP is placed under pressure.” A statement that reveals just how contentious preferencing the extreme-left Greens can be with principled people within the Liberal party.
So the issue within Labor’s ranks is whether to draw attention to matters like that.
LABOR’S LOSERS
The fact that some within the Labor caucus are still struggling with campaigning against the Greens party is startling for people who’d fancy themselves as political professionals.
Foley fancies himself more than most. He appears to have an ideological bias in favour of being nice to his political foes on the left, the Greens party that did its level best to prevent him from getting the highest paid job he’s ever had or is – on merit – likely to have.
Foley, as a ministerial chief of staff was said to be “brown” on many issues, reflecting his department’s agenda. Many thought that meant he’d be that way when bumped into Parliament. It hasn’t turned out that way at all. Once a passionate defender of genetically enhanced crops as a boon to agriculture and a solution to famine, he now publicly opposes them. It’s not so much flip-flop as just totally empty and barren. Like a certain state Liberal leader we know, he stands for nothing. As a politician, this value-free inner-city MP is disturbed that in order to get elected in a by-election, his party needed to pursue the Greens party on their far-left policies.
LIVING OFF THE FAT OF THE LAND
Most people would be grateful for the help from his party machine. Not back-bencher Foley. From his green leather seat, the world owes him a living and he’s perfectly comfortable now in a seat that he will probably only lose with a huge swing on to the Liberals.
So confident is he that he even employs a bloke in his electorate office whose principal source of income at Uni was the proceeds of drug trafficking. He even had a hydroponic marijuana mini-plantation going, at the time. Foley’s passion for agri-business presumably didn’t include similar exploits.
One of Foley’s parliamentary colleagues put it best when they told VEXNEWS “If he was twenty years younger, he’d be in the Greens.” And that’s probably true. Foley was a white collar unionist who worked in a union that kept shrinking on his watch. His aspiration was always political and perhaps his members could smell the opportunist aftershave from across the lunch-room.
Nothing wrong with ambitious union officials, often times they’re the best possible MPs, expert at negotiation, confident public presenters, compassionate, solutions-focused, practical people. That isn’t always the case though. As Martin Foley demonstrates.
TOSSER
When pitted against an old school unionist from the rough and tough CFMEU in the form of bovver boy Brian Boyd as Trades Hall Secretary. he was beaten into submission. Not literally, but we’re sure it could have been arranged. It wasn’t a close contest, reflecting the widespread view in the labour movement that – as one experienced unionist told VEXNEWS – he is a “tosser”.
Indeed, his time as a ministerial adviser has also come under scrutiny. Former senior Police assistant commissioner and Labor mate Noel Ashby who is currently facing perjury charges was very tight with Martin Foley. Ashby went to great lengths to cultivate him and Foley used Ashby as an asset within the Police too. When the then Premier’s son was caught drink driving, Foley went to Ashby in an attempt to get their stories “straight”. Some have suspected this might have meant misrepresenting the truth of the situation to benefit the government.
So for all his faux piety, Foley is just another sleazy politician. And if his stated views on defeating the Greens party are any guide, he’s not even a very good one.
Discussion
38 comments for “SURRENDER MONKEYS: How Labor’s Left plans to surrender their heartland to the far-left Greens political party”
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Carlo Carli is indeed confused, sexually.
The ALP has all but lost the next state election, you should have heard Brumby on 3AW with Mitchell today – he was hopeless and pathetic.
The Greens are Post Cold War Communists reinvented.
Foley represents that element of the ALP that secretly wishes it was Green.
Today’s Age was a disgusting example of elitist propaganda:
Foley et al peddling their “don’t scare the ferals” approach to losing votes on the front; and on the back was Michael Lallo’s attempt at humour – attacking “bogans” who dare try to express non-orthodox-left opinions online.
When did this paper decide that the only time less educated, less articulate people get a run in its pages is a) as victims (e.g. of crime, of ALP machinations); b) as human punchlines ?
The Socialist Left wish to vacate the inner suburbs to their ideological comrades, so they will try to move into the middle suburbs.
As Disraeli said, “History is made by those who show up”. If Foley thinks he has better ideas (no matter how retarded in actuality) on how to combat the Greens, then he has a responsibility to his comrades to engage in the discussion with the ALP, rather than taking pot shots from the sidelines.
Having this argument with The Age instead of State Office achieves little and will win him few friends.
Sounds like Martin and Ted should get together. He and Ted both believe they can win the same seats if they dog whistle to the Greens and both are dead wrong.
I have a far better plan to kill off the Greens. Actively campaign to get them as many local Government positions as possible. As a person who lives in an area with far too many Green Councillors, I can tell you people quickly get sick of the Greens once they have had the experience of the self righteous arse holes fucking up there day to day lives to pursue their self indulgent meaningless objectives. Case in point, the succession of Green fuckwits that the good people of the City of Yarra have to endure will keep Dick Wynne safe for a long time.
If the Socialist Left wish to retire, we will replace them.
Why are business leaders and the Liberal Party so silly? Why don’t they realise that success is “product” plus “profit” plus “sale”. To make the “sale”, the “product plus profit” has to be competitive with others in the same market.
Why don’t they just LISTEN to me. Menzies would have.
To not listen to me is to betray the Menzies Legacy.
Competition means using every means available to increase profits, and if that means seducing gullible politicians into weak decisions on carbon policy — thereby artificially keeping down costs and maximising profits — well, that’s the private entrepreneur’s job.
See – economics is really simple. Why don’t they LISTEN to me? They are all betraying the Menzies Legacy.
The actions of a politician who becomes seduced into over-protecting industry is a bit like being seduced into thinking that the best way to look after a tiger is to present it with slabs of steak on a regular basis rather than take it into the jungle and say “go find food”. The tiger would much prefer its meat on demand, but it is bad for the tiger and bad for the jungle.
To not include jungle metaphors in every op-ed you write is to betray the Menzies Legacy.
What is so sad is that those who believe themselves to be the champions of private enterprise are in fact crippling the future of this country.
What is even sadder is that they also believe in the Law of the Jungle and have betrayed the Menzies Legacy.
Dr Robert Dean was shadow treasurer in the Victorian Parliament. He left politics in 2002.
The Victorian Liberal Party crisis deepened last night following allegations that the sacked shadow treasurer, Robert Dean, misled senior party figures over where he lived.
In shock developments yesterday that have derailed the Liberal campaign, Mr Doyle said he had been forced to terminate Dr Dean’s political career after discovering he had failed to enrol as a person eligible to vote at the election.
Dr Dean had nominated to stand in the seat of Gembrook and listed his enrolment address as Gardiner Street, Berwick, located in the electorate. Dr Dean had rented the property before contesting preselection for the seat in May.
But the Victorian Electoral Commission ruled him ineligible to stand, stating yesterday that he had been struck off the electoral roll when it was discovered he was not living at his nominated address in the seat.
Dr Dean has lived with his wife in Hawthorn for about a decade.
Former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett said yesterday Dr Dean had deliberately sought to deceive Gembrook voters by claiming to live in the electorate. In fact, Mr Kennett said, Dr Dean had lived in Hawthorn for a decade.
“Robert Dean has lived in Hawthorn for 10 years. The question is, did he ever move out to Gembrook and what proof is there that he did,” he said on his 3AK radio program.
“Now Robert Dean has been found out. Robert Dean has brought disgrace upon himself but, worse, he has brought disgrace upon or embarrassment upon his political party… and particularly his leader, Robert Doyle.”
Carlo Carli is fast becoming the Petro Georgiou of the ALP … landing more punches on his own party than he ever did on the opponents.
RDR and Dr Dean have a lot in common.
They are both disgraces to the Liberal Party.
Who am I?
I came 3rd in a preselection against Marie Luckins.
I set up a failed business called International Careers Pty Ltd in a tax haven.
The peak of my political career was as an adviser for the Bronwyn for PM campaign.
My only experience as a campaign manager before becoming State Director was campaign director and strategist for the losing Monash Province campaign in 2002.
My closest political associate is Santo Santoro.
I lost a state election.
I deliberately sabotaged the Prahran campaign, removing central funding for factional reasons.
I was part of the losing team for the last Federal election.
I gave the IT contract for 104 to a company Dan Feldman’s was a director of, without going to tender. Dan Feldman subsequently had to leave his law firm.
I leased part of 104 Exhibition Street – a direct legacy of Robert Menzies – to Tolarno Galleries, who displayed Bill Henson’s child porn in the Liberal Party’s own building.
I corruptly breached the Electoral Act, using the threat of pulling the party polling contract to get two people fired.
I asked staff to blog against the State Leader, then when it came out, I knifed them as publically as I could to try and rat out of it.
When the blog affair came out, I denied even knowing about the blog – lying to Ted Baillieu, Tony Nutt, David Kemp, the media and the party. In actuality, I had been bragging about the blog I had tacitly authorised for months – including in December to Don Nardella MP, who has since put the facts on the record in parliament. http://www.theage.com.au/national/liberal-chief-under-pressure-over-blog-20080528-2j3u.html
I undertook a secret deal with DPA Document Printing Australia Pty Ltd to re-employ Chandler for the Liberal Party, in a cruel hoax on the Party and the Jewish community.
I left 104 Exhibition Street in a burning wreck, having lost both the State and Federal Campaign managers in a fortnight of the worst media coverage in the Party’s history.
I tarnished the reputation of the Higgins 200 Club by associating it with donations from the aged care industry extracted by Santo Santoro.
Both my first and second wives are better at politics than me.
I have been unemployed for over a year.
I tell people I am an “accountant/ corporate accountant” despite no longer holding proper professional registrations to do such work.
I am not very popular amongst the branch members in Higgins.
Mr NARDELLA (Melton) — Today I grieve for the Liberal Party. On 11 May this year the Leader of the Opposition identified a cancerous cell within his own party, which has been actively working to undermine the party leader and a handful of Liberal moderates around him. Today I want to detail to the Parliament how that cancerous cell within the party has not been dealt with but has just shifted and continues to actively work to undermine its leader in this place.
On 12 May this year the Herald Sun reported the Leader of the Opposition as having said:
‘Their activities are a disgrace’ …
‘They’re at odds with everything that the Liberal Party stands for, but I don’t believe they acted alone’.
‘(They are) a narrow, but deep-seated cell of people who are destroying this party’ …
‘It is time to clean house. We have some cancerous elements … and they are destroying the Liberal Party’.
Apparently Tony Nutt and Dr Kemp were brought in to excise this cancerous cell from the Liberal Party’s Victorian division. Victorians were told that the problem had been fixed and that the disastrous blog affair that we saw in Julian Sheezel’s period as state director was a one-off incident with no broader cultural problems in the Liberal Party. Sadly, however, it is my duty to report to the house that this is not the case.
Worse still, it is now clear that these problems are spreading from 104 Exhibition Street to the heart of the Victorian division, the federal electoral division of Higgins.
Cultural problems within organisations such as this grow from just a few bad apples but spread aggressively. That is the case here. Ground zero is immediate past state director, Julian Sheezel. Mr Sheezel inherited his propensities from his long-time mentor and ally, disgraced former Queensland senator Santo Santoro. Mr Sheezel’s political mentor is Santo Santoro, and that is how this endemic cultural problem was released into the Victorian division of the Liberal Party. Mr Sheezel and Mr Santoro — the Brian Burke of the Liberal Party — were often sighted having long lunches in a certain club on Collins Street during Mr Sheezel’s tenure as state director.
Mr Santoro had to resign from the Howard federal ministry and the Senate in disgrace after it was discovered that he had made a series of investments in aged-care companies which he was in charge of regulating in the aged-care portfolio. You would think that this sanction would have been enough for Mr Santoro to realise that these links were now toxic and that he had done enough to damage the good reputations of these companies. However, in his bid to take over Higgins, Julian Sheezel invited Santo Santoro to be his special guest at the latest Higgins 200 Club budget breakfast on 16 May 2008, and the disgraced former aged-care minister bullied a series of managers from the aged-care profession into purchasing seats at this breakfast — companies from the very same industry he was caught red-handed improperly investing in. That the once-powerful Higgins 200 Club, chaired by Peter Bartels, should be brought to such lows is very sad.
While it was useful and amusing for those of us on this side of the chamber to be constantly in receipt of leaked documents and other information from Mr Sheezel over the years, his antics reached extraordinary lows. Many Liberal Party members have surely been wondering what Mr Sheezel achieved as state director other than banking a $1 million plus contract package, losing a few elections, wimping out on a few by-elections and racking up lunch bills on the party’s tab, as I said, in a nice club at the end of Collins Street. The one bright spot in the lacklustre Liberal campaign at the last state election was Clem Newton-Brown and his innovative, groundbreaking campaign methods. Why Mr Sheezel pulled resources from that outstanding campaign in Prahran is a mystery to Labor. It was almost as though somebody at 104 Exhibition Street was attempting to ensure that the Leader of the Opposition did not do too well.
Then there was the blogging scandal which occurred under Mr Sheezel’s watch.
During the blogging scandal a shameful, anti-Semitic email from Susan Chandler emerged. Julian Sheezel advised the media that Ms Chandler had resigned and that had she not resigned, she would have been fired. Sadly I am forced to reveal that this was a blatant and cynical lie. A major Liberal Party supplier under Mr Sheezel was DPA Document Printing Australia Pty Ltd. It received the lucrative contract to print how-to-vote cards in the last federal election and the Kororoit by-election of a couple of months ago.
Immediately on leaving the Liberal Party, Ms Chandler was employed by the company. How it happened and on what basis has now become a matter of open gossip within the Liberal Party. It has been alleged by certain Liberals that Ms Chandler was immediately re-employed by Mr Sheezel through an artificial mechanism. It is alleged that Mr Sheezel organised for DPA Document Printing Australia to place
Ms Chandler on its books and to covertly invoice the Liberal Party for the cost of her wages while continuing to work at the day-to-day direction of the Liberal Party, including right through the recently held Gippsland by-election to this very day. Should this allegation be true, it is a gross insult to Liberal Party members, Victorians and, most importantly, members of Australia’s Jewish community, all of whom have been lied to.
Today it is also my sad duty to inform the chamber of a new anonymous blogging scandal apparently linked to Mr Sheezel. I raise the anonymous blog http://www.fightfirewithfire.blogspot.com. This blog contains a number of fresh attacks on the Leader of the Opposition. An entry on 4 February says it is ‘Time for Ted to show some real leadership’ and goes on to accuse the opposition leader of not supporting Andrea Coote as Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council.
On 15 November 2006, in the middle of the last election campaign, a blog entry accuses the Leader of the Opposition of not having a clear message, while on 3 November, during the campaign, the blog made it clear that it was thought that the government’s advertisements regarding the Leader of the Opposition’s financial dealings with the Kennett government were accurate.
Honourable members would know that I do not purport to be Sherlock Holmes, but there are key facts pointing to the identity behind this blog. Let me dive into the murky world of the Collingwood Football Club. Fans of the ‘pies who regularly attend games often go by nicknames. There is one particularly mad keen fan who goes under the name ‘Driver’. Driver is responsible for a set of Blogger.com blogs on Collingwood, including ‘Magpies arise — 2005′ and ‘Pleasure and Pain 2006′. A key Sheezel factional ally is a former member for Monash Province, Peter Katsambanis.
Indeed Mr Katsambanis’ inaugural speech on 14 May 1996, which I had the pleasure of sitting through in the Council, gave special mention to his friend Mr Sheezel, while Mr Sheezel was campaign manager and strategist for Mr Katsambanis’s losing campaign in 2002. Mr Katsambanis is also a Collingwood tragic. The fact that he spent most of his tenure as a member of the Legislative Council expressing his love for Nathan Buckley on the Buckley Surfers website is no secret. I can now reveal that Driver is also revealed by Blogger.com as the author of ‘Bracks Watch’ and ‘Fight Fire with Fire’. In an amazing turn of events, it seems that certain Collingwood fan club members know Mr Katsambanis only by the nickname ‘Driver’. Who really is the driver behind ‘Fight Fire with Fire’? Like Fox news, all I can present is the facts: you decide.
Further, it has become apparent that the young Turks, the group that nearly unseated the shadow Treasurer, the honourable member for Scoresby, from his Liberal party seat in the lead-up to the last election, have now moved to Higgins. The leader of the young Turks, Dan Feldman, is intimately involved with Mr Sheezel at many levels. Immediately upon Mr Sheezel becoming state director, Dan Feldman was appointed on a commercial basis to replace the previous party solicitor who donated his time. Simultaneously Visits Pty Ltd, of which Mr Dan Feldman has been a company director since 6 September 2001 and which is headed by Mr Feldman’s brother, was appointed without tender to run the Liberal headquarters’ information technology systems. Mr Feldman and his branch stacks have returned the favour by moving their memberships to Higgins, in an obvious payback for favours granted. They are there as stacked branches in favour of Mr Sheezel’s candidacy for Higgins. Has the new state director, Tony Nutt, investigated these contracts? Have they been renewed? If not, is this an admission that they were uncommercial in nature?
Has the party held an investigation into the enrolment of the young Turk branch stacks into Higgins?
It is a truism of democracy that strong governments require strong oppositions. It is clear that the cancerous cells that the Leader of the Opposition spoke of have not been removed.They are growing faster than ever. It is time that the opposition got its house in order. The so-called investigation into the cancerous cells attacking the Leader of the Opposition was clearly a whitewash. The Victorian division of the Liberal Party has its own Santo Santoro. His name is Julian Sheezel. The Liberal Party must acknowledge the cancerous elements led by Mr Sheezel and deal with them or forever remain unelectable.
I now turn to the preselection deal to be confirmed at the special Liberal Party conference that will be held on Sunday. The deal is about saving the neck of one person and one person only — that is, the Leader of the Opposition.
It is about protecting his support base in Parliament. It is about protecting his sitting members of Parliament. The 64-page Liberal renewal document confirms that factionalism is rife within the Liberal Party, which has had its membership reduce from a high of 45 000 under Menzies — the glory days — to 14 000 as at the end of last year. To fix this factionalism the report recommends plebiscites for all preselections in the future.
But this sleazy deal, which has just been agreed to and which was reported today, is to protect the Leader of the Opposition and will aid present members of Parliament in their efforts to retain preselection — and those problems have been detailed in this 64-page report. It is okay for those stacking and underhand factionalism methods to remain, because doing so supports the Leader of the Opposition, but all the new candidates will need to undertake this new process.
The Leader of the Opposition has form on this. We just have to look at the coalition deal with The Nationals — and haven’t they been in trouble with that? One moment The Nationals are on Stateline saying one thing and then it is retracted by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. It shows he is prepared to do anything. How can you trust a party when it is — –
The DEPUTY SPEAKER — Order! The member’s time has expired
Blog betrayal: Libs sack rats
Josh Gordon
Sunday Age, May 11, 2008
A WEBSITE devoted to attacking Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu has been traced to Victorian Liberal headquarters, triggering the dismissal of two staff members, including state director Julian Sheezel’s most senior adviser.
A secret inquiry launched last month linked the website — hewhostandsfornothing.blogspot .com — to two computers at 104 Exhibition Street, the location of the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party, just a few blocks from Mr Baillieu’s Spring Street office.
The news confirms what Mr Baillieu has almost certainly long suspected: that he was being white-anted by officials from within his own campaign office.
The website, which is no longer publicly accessible, has been the source of speculation for months. Its broad theme was that the Liberal Party had no chance of winning government in Victoria as long as Mr Baillieu remained leader, depicting him as “Red Ted”, with social ideas left of the Liberal norm.
The investigation, launched at the behest of Mr Baillieu, led Liberal Party technicians to the computer of Simon Morgan, effectively Mr Sheezel’s right-hand man. He was sacked on April 15, just a day later.
Mr Morgan was previously employed by federal Liberal director Brian Loughnane. He worked at a senior level with Mr Sheezel for 18 months, and was the federal Liberal campaign manager for Victoria during the 2007 election.
John Osborn, a junior campaign officer in Mr Sheezel’s office, was also dismissed after admitting to his involvement in the website.
The revelations will prove damaging for both Mr Baillieu, who has been struggling to contain dissent within his own ranks, and Mr Sheezel, who is widely tipped to run as the Liberal candidate for former treasurer Peter Costello’s seat of Higgins, should he retire from politics.
In a joint statement issued yesterday afternoon, Mr Sheezel and Liberal state president Dr David Kemp confirmed that the staff members had been sacked. It followed inquiries by The Sunday Age. Dr Kemp said their actions had been “gravely detrimental to the interests of the party”.
“The use of blog sites by party members or staff with the specific intention of publicly undermining the party’s leader, members of Parliament and other party members is conduct which is gravely detrimental to the best interests of the party and will not be tolerated under any circumstance,” he said.
Mr Sheezel denied having any knowledge before April 14 that the staff members had been involved in the site. He said he had been “astonished beyond belief” to discover that two paid employees “had been attempting to destabilise other members of the party through blog sites”.
“It was completely intolerable and they had to go immediately,” Mr Sheezel told The Sunday Age.
Mr Baillieu’s spokesman, Simon Troeth, declined to comment.
Mr Sheezel announced his retirement in February. He will be replaced by John Howard’s former chief of staff, Tony Nutt, later this month.
A senior party official told The Sunday Age that the party hoped Mr Nutt would “put a clean broom through the mess that Julian Sheezel has left behind at the secretariat”. “Simon Morgan was effectively Julian’s right-hand man,” the source said. “This was going on right under his nose and it’s a giant mess for both Julian and Ted.”
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The age old anti-ALP tactic of red anting has been replaced with green anting. Any true Labor man or woman should look to mercilessly smash the green party wherever it raises its ugly head, not accomodate them like these fools. By the sounds of it i think they (Foley and co) deserve to lose their seats to their wrongly assumed to be ‘principled’ partners in eco-terrorism at the next election. What will they say then? Who will be laughing then? They’ll look like fools when Barber and his mates are laughing at the ALP left from the green leather of state parl
One word: DOPES
This is my first post to this site although I have been peeking for months. But I am really worried about anyone trusting the Greens. There is no more dangerous political party (Family First being just a total joke).
But let’s look at a few facts and let’s begin with the greatest tragedy in Victorian history – the bush fires. We have all read reports in the emdia about people who sought to clear scrub, bushland etc near their homes only to be threatened by Greens controlled councils
we all heard of that one gentleman who lost his home in a bush fire years ago so when he moved to Nillumbik he cleared his land immediately around his house and was hot with a $60,000 fine by the Greens Controlled council. His was the only house in his area to ’survive’
The Greens have much to answer on the bush fires and yet, surprisingly, the commission, and both major parties have fallen silent on these criminals in political garb.
Then we have a raft of policies from the Greens as read on their web site which strongly suggest that to join them you must first be declared mentally incompetent by a psychiatrist. If they had their way, the coal industry would be dead, recycling would be legally mandatory, and jobs would be killed off in a raft of industries costing most Victorians their jobs.
If they had their way we would be paying triple for water, double for petrol and would have to go to bed when the sun sets to conserve energy
If any politicians of any political party read this I beg you, STOP THE FRIGGIN GREENS BEFORE THEY KILL ALL OF US.
Um, there are no Greens Party members on the Nillumbik Council.
Yo Ilio,
Lets just have a look at bushfire affected councils.
Green Councillors in Nillumbik = 0
Green Councillors in Hume = 0
Green Councillors in Mitchell = 0
Green Councillors in Yarra Ranges = 1
If you find it absolutely necessary to blame someone for those ferocious bushfires maybe do some research to see who controls those councils you seek to blame.
Where coming for you and you know it. That article looks like it was written by a 14 year old Landeryou. Even you are normally better than that.
You clearly are not capable of a sophisticated critique of the Green machine, instead you rely on peddling the same shit Steve Newnham drags out before every state election. Inner city types are starting to realise that it is better to have a Green representing them than a principled Labor candidate sitting on the back bench while blokes with an ideology closer to Jeff Kennett than Doc Evatt make cabinet decisions.
ALP members in the west cant vote but all have been invited for drinks at the pub with Bill & Hulls, mmm
By the way we’re coming for you not where coming for you. I must have been half asleep when I wrote that.
…no, just stoned.
Dear ‘Third Force in Australian Politics’,
The Greens are the hunted, not the hunter.
A campaining threat to Labor patriots from the amateur hour party is like a eunich slave threatening to violate and impregnate Zeus.
Bring it on! It’s hunting time and we coming for your carcass, we’re coming for your green blood, we’re coming for your soul.
Time is your enemy.
an old fashioned drink with wild billy and the hack hullsy i hear there is going to be a turn out to express some concerns from the mighty people of the west
Third Force in Australian politics? You don’t have the numbers.
Andy, you can’t just blame the left for shifting traditional ALP support to the Greens.
It’s also silly, no-gain conservative policies (as opposed to sensible/moderate policies) pushed by the ALP’s bible-bashing Right that are helping the Green tide rise.
Conroy’s Iranian internet censorship dreams are likely to push this little wabbit away from a lifetime of ALP dedication, to vote – and it sickens me to even type this – for those Green bastards.
Judging by the opinions expressed in nerdland forums, I ain’t the only ALP loyalist heading this way.
At least the Vic ALP Left are doing something…in NSW the Left, run by that intellectual powerhouse Luke Foley, spend all their time whinging and whining about crap meanwhile they are sneaking about trying hard to make deals.
They would cut something with the NSW Greens except the tree-huggers wont lower themselves to talk turkey with the bunch of morons that call themselves the “Hard Left”
All quiet Andrew – only the left gets a spray? A SENIOR Labor powerbroker and union leader has agreed to pay back $15,000 to his union after he was accused in April of dishonestly claiming the money as back pay
Martin Foley deserves to find out what it is like to be done. He has spent a lot of his life showing how much he hates people. Not so good being on the receiving end, is it?
Yes all quite union offical gets away no media no TV no ABC no Age no spraying by at Parliament no questions still a delegate still a a senior ALP powerbroker, what have you got to say Brumby and your rat advisors!!