alp corruption ......

[sprintcyclist]

THE Rudd and Brumby governments are embroiled in an election-year branch-stacking scandal after a Victorian Labor Party insider turned whistleblower.

A former staff member of federal and state ministers has told The Age he systematically rorted ALP branch membership numbers in Melbourne over the past decade, to benefit Premier John Brumby's Right faction.

Costas Socratous, who until last year worked in the electorate offices of federal Home Affairs Minister Minister Brendan O'Connor and former state industry minister Theo Theophanous, says he personally paid the membership fees of hundreds of branch members in the Labor heartland of Melbourne's western suburbs, using cash and postal orders.

He says the money, up to $5500 a year, was provided to him for branch stacking through MPs' offices and via shadowy fund-raising events.

In interviews with The Age, Mr Socratous, a former Brimbank councillor, has named Mr Theophanous and state parliamentary secretary Telmo Languiller as architects of the long-running scheme.

He says other senior ALP figures with electorates in the western and northern suburbs also benefited from his internal party activities, including Deputy Prime Minister and member for Lalor Julia Gillard and federal parliamentary secretary and member for Maribyrnong Bill Shorten..............

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/labor ... -v9db.html

[TomB]

As opposed to Lib corruption

Michael Johnson has been accused of trying to claim a $12 million commission for brokering a deal between a Chinese firm and a Queensland coal company.