Federal Labor MP Anthony Byrne (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

Federal Victorian Labor MP Anthony Byrne continued his one-man demolition of branch stacking within the Victorian ALP yesterday, taking out yet another Andrews government minister, Luke Donnellan, who admitted to branch stacking after Byrne outed him in evidence to Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission inquiry into the moderate Labor faction.

Byrne — professing he had long harboured a desire to clean up a party branch increasingly under the control of now-exiled Adem Somyurek — discussed an environment in which former ministers Somyurek and Marlene Kairouz coerced ministerial and electorate staff into undertaking factional work, one in which his lack of factional recruitment after a “demilitarisation” deal with the socialist left faction was criticised; he also discussed the ramp-up of branch stacking in 2019 by Somyurek to remove socialist left parliamentarians, the continuing use of state ministerial staff for branch stacking, the use of federal electorate office staff for branch stacking out of Byrne’s office, and the appointment of staff in Byrne’s office, paid for by taxpayers, who never showed up.

The only reason any detail of the misuse of taxpayer money for Labor factional work has come out is because a state-based integrity commission is investigating the matter, and because Byrne decided he’d had a gutful of the corruption within his party and the activity of Somyurek.

Byrne decided to expose it despite the cost to his own 20-plus-year political career, which is likely now over.

How many other staffers in the appalling Andrews government — best known for its “red shirts” affair and its financial proximity to Crown — have been paid by taxpayers to branch stack, stuff ballots and undermine colleagues?

There’s been more comment on Byrne and his revelations by Labor figures than by the federal government, which of course has its own Victorian branch stacking scandal. But it prompts the question of what integrity processes are in place to prevent federal electorate office and ministerial staff being misused for the apparently incessant activity of branch stacking within the major parties. And in particular, why it takes a state anti-corruption body to expose misuse of federal money.

The answer, of course, lies in the lack of an anti-corruption body at the federal level.

Be assured that the hopelessly weak integrity body proposed by the Morrison government would not be able to publicly inquire into blatant misuse of electorate office or ministerial staff, nor initiate its own secret inquiry. In fact, short of an MP taking the highly unusual route of Byrne and deciding to blow up his career in the quest to expose corruption, such rorting would never be investigated at the federal level.

Even as we speak, federal taxpayer money is doubtless going to electorate offices and ministerial staff to engage in intra-party activities rather than manage electoral affairs, respond to constituents or work on portfolio issues.

And there’s zero chance of any of it being exposed unless an MP or minister has an attack of principles.

Meanwhile we’ll have to make do with the poor option of state integrity bodies doing a little of what the Morrison government refuses to allow at the federal level.