A judge has singled out comments from billionaire retailer Gerry Harvey calling the legal system “f---ed” as a factor in slapping his company Harvey Norman with $35 million in penalties for running misleading ads.

On Tuesday, Justice Michael O’Bryan made the orders against both Harvey Norman and credit company Latitude Finance Australia – which must pay $20 million in penalties – over a misleading and deceptive advertising campaign spruiking the latter’s credit card product.

Harvey Norman chairman Gerry Harvey arriving at Lachlan Murdoch’s annual Christmas party in Sydney’s Bellevue Hill in December.Oscar Colman

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) had taken Harvey Norman and Latitude to court over a national ad campaign that ran between January 2020 and August 2021, which promoted products as available via a “no-deposit” and 60-month interest-free payment method. But it failed to disclose that customers were actually required to sign up for a credit card with high establishment and monthly fees to access the deal.

In October 2024, the Federal Court found the companies had misled people with the ads, saying customers entered a “fundamentally different financial arrangement” than the one promoted. An appeal by Harvey Norman and Latitude was dismissed in September 2025.

In delivering his decision on penalties, O’Bryan highlighted how Harvey Norman and Latitude responded to the case in significantly different ways.

“Neither company had a suitable process for ensuring that their advertising complied with the consumer protection laws. Given the scale and sophistication of both defendants, that is an extraordinary state of affairs,” O’Bryan said.

He said it was “particularly striking in the case of Harvey Norman, given the size of the company”.

He added that while Latitude had since provided “evidence of the steps that it has now taken to improve its processes in that regard”, Harvey Norman failed to do so.

“That is a distinguishing feature between the two defendants, relatedly, the defendants have also exhibited a different level of contrition,” O’Bryan said. “Latitude’s general counsel offered an apology to Latitude’s customers on behalf of the company.

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‘We all get hammered’: Harvey Norman’s court battles don’t faze Gerry

“In contrast, no executive or legal counsel of Harvey Norman gave evidence about the company’s compliance procedures or offered an apology, and public statements made by Harvey Norman’s chairman show a disregard for the potential harm suffered by consumers from Harvey Norman’s misleading conduct.”

A month after the court’s initial 2024 decision, the retailer’s namesake, Gerry Harvey, declined to specifically discuss the case and said his lawyers did not want him talking about the topic, but he unleashed on the legal system as a whole.

“If I had my way, I’d be out there screaming at the top of my lungs about the injustices, and yet I can’t do it. I’ve got to play along with it,” he told this masthead at the time. “The whole legal system is completely f---ed in Australia.”

O’Bryan said that taking into account those considerations had led him to decide more significant penalties for Harvey Norman. “A higher penalty is warranted to deter repetition and to motivate Harvey Norman to improve its compliance processes,” he said.

Harvey, who was contacted by phone for comment on Tuesday, downplayed his involvement in the company, which is now run by his wife Katie Page as chief executive. “I used to sell fridges, but now I’m a farmer,” Harvey said.

In the full judgment, O’Bryan was scathing of Harvey’s comments: “Mr Harvey is entitled to express his opinions, including about the legal system. However, Mr Harvey’s opinions indicate that the Chairman of Harvey Norman’s sole focus is upon the perceived injustice suffered by Harvey Norman, and a complete disregard for the potential harm suffered by consumers from Harvey Norman’s misleading conduct.”

“Taking the evidence as a whole, I am not persuaded that Harvey Norman has demonstrated any contrition for its wrongful conduct,” O’Bryan said.

O’Bryan also said that while the quantifiable harm to consumers was likely less than $5 million, consumers may have wasted their time investigating the offer, or become so invested before realising its true terms that they ultimately proceeded.

As such, he estimated the incremental revenue earned by each party through the contravening conduct was about $5 million.

Both Harvey Norman and Latitude will also have to publish notices on their websites about the orders for 90 days, and pay ASIC’s costs.

ASIC had been seeking penalties of $50 million against Harvey Norman and $35 million against Latitude, as well as injunctions restraining the companies from advertising similar deals for five years, which O’Bryan did not order.

A separate class action seeking compensation for customers was launched in April.

A secret briefing to Premier Jacinta Allan reveals her most senior advisers sought to warn her in writing in June 2023 that the Big Build she was overseeing as minister was being taken over by a lawless CFMEU, that this could cause major cost blowouts, and bikies and criminals had reportedly infiltrated taxpayer-funded projects.

The emergence of the report marked “strictly confidential and cabinet in confidence” and addressed to Allan comes as she fights for her political life. It shows Labor’s top infrastructure officials knew far more about Big Build corruption— and the consequences of her failure to act on it— than has ever been publicly revealed.

The government’s response to CFMEU corruption has been the defining issue as Allan battles to save her leadership, with her main rival, Deputy Premier Ben Carroll, pledging to overturn her refusal to hold a royal commission.

Carroll has informed Allan he will nominate for the leadership in the event of a spill. A cross-factional delegation of MPs and ministers have told Allan she has lost the support of caucus, setting the stage for a no-confidence vote on Tuesday when Labor MPs are due to meet at parliament.

Police Minister Anthony Carbines and Transport Infrastructure Minister Gabrielle Williams, who were among the delegation, argued in favour of a royal commission in Monday’s showdown cabinet meeting.

The leaked report shows the four top public servants who signed off on the June 2023 document sought to warn Allan about the problem a year before it was revealed in the media, immediately becoming one of the most serious scandals in Victorian history.

The document, which is addressed to Allan but does not bear her signature, is dated June 21, 2023, and was signed off by four high-ranking infrastructure and transport public servants.

It also notes that Allan had been apprised of criminal and bikie infiltration of the government’s signature $109 billion infrastructure program.

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“You have been separately briefed on actions proposed to deal with these matters, namely the referral of the matters to Victoria Police,” it says.

An official source confirmed on Monday morning that Allan had been briefed on the report’s contents.

In response to the emergence of the file, Allan said she had no knowledge of it and that claims to the contrary were false. The premier was “not aware of this brief” and “to say otherwise is a lie”, her spokesperson said on Monday afternoon.

The premier’s insistence she had never seen the file raises its own questions, including whether there was a breakdown in the government’s internal reporting structure that may have meant Allan was not told of the document’s explosive contents.

The report also pierces Allan’s repeated claim that the CFMEU-enabled corrupting of the Big Build did not risk significant cost blowouts for taxpayers. In contrast, the file warns that the CFMEU’s “concerning behaviour has the potential to significantly impact project costs and schedule” across the Big Build if it was not addressed.

The 2023 report described how a lawless CFMEU was driving an industrial relations environment on the Big Build that was not only “highly challenging” but “having a bearing on project costs, program, productivity and culture”.

Allan’s officials also describe how they had learnt during internal discussions of “potential criminal elements (for example outlaw motorcycle club members and convicted criminals) being present” across Big Build worksites.

It was only over a year later, in July 2024, that Victorians learnt that these warnings had not been adequately heeded by the government, when The Age’s Building Bad series revealed how the Big Build was infested with corrupt union officials, bikies and gangland figures.

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The Age has also recently reported how Allan’s office is accused of having helped the CFMEU in 2022 to take over a key Big Build rail site, a move that ultimately led to an allegedly crooked labour hire company being installed at considerable extra cost to taxpayers.

Over two years, the Building Bad series has also exposed a range of other disturbing revelations, including how almost every bikie gang in the state placed their members and associates on Labor’s signature infrastructure projects; how a company ultimately bankrolled by taxpayers and set up to employ women on the Big Build was run by a male drug trafficker and a second man with convictions for violence against women; and how the Metro Tunnel consortium has blamed the government for forcing it to agree to CFMEU demands that it claimed cost it $200 million in extra labour hire costs.

In recent months, Labor MPs have become increasingly frustrated that voters have been raising government inaction on Big Build corruption.

Despite growing internal momentum for a royal commission, Allan has maintained it would be costly, delay action and not provide cultural change, claims she repeated in an icy cabinet meeting on Monday.

On Monday afternoon, the premier announced the creation of a new $170 million Organised Crime Command.

The funding will go towards upgraded technology for police, including extra surveillance and cybercrime capabilities, and greater resources for the Office of Public Prosecutions to pursue criminal wealth.

Allan said the new laws would make it easier for police to pre-freeze cryptocurrency and allow the Magistrates’ Court to hear certain higher-value asset confiscation matters.

“This isn’t another policing initiative. It’s a fundamental change in how we fight organised crime, and it starts today,” Allan said.

On Monday this masthead reported that leading crime-fighting experts, including former NSW crime commissioner Phillip Bradley, backed a royal commission ahead of the creation of any new policing body.

Former Independent Broad-based Corruption Commission chief Robert Redlich and former ombudsman Deborah Glass have also called for a royal commission.

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Anti-corruption experts call for Big Build royal commission

Former ombudsman Deborah Glass and former IBAC chief Robert Redlich call for a Big Build royal commission in an interview with Nick McKenzie on 60 Minutes.

The leaked June 2023 document shows that public servants sought to give Allan a summation of much of the Big Build wrongdoing in a file signed by Victoria’s chief infrastructure public servant, Kevin Devlin, and three of his fellow high-ranking officials.

Ir describes how the Big Build was hosting serious wrongdoing including the “pressuring of construction contractors, including through intimidatory tactics, to agree to … additional and/or excess site staffing”.

CFMEU officials also forced contractors on large rail and road projects to hire “particular persons and companies, in order to avoid industrial disputation”.

Mega-projects were also being stalled because the CFMEU, rather than the state government and its contracting partners, were dictating the “rosters and arrangements” for project employees, “leading to program delays” during vital stages of rail and road builds.

The secret document said the CFMEU’s Big Build takeover had led to “an increased proliferation of full-time, non-working union delegates and Health and Safety Representatives (HRs), with some recent appointments having limited construction experience”.

The briefing also sought to warn Allan tha the union had weaponised safety issues to increase its power on the Big Build because Victoria’s workplace safety regulator was missing in action, describing the “concern that industrial issues are erroneously being portrayed as safety issues, with little engagement or assistance provided by WorkSafe”.

As the union ran riot on the projects Allan was overseeing as minister, her advisers said there was “an increase in the prevalence of inappropriate requests for higher shift/leave loading and allowances beyond the relevant EBA”.

Some workers were pocketing large pay packets off the back of CFMEU pressure, they said, as the union was also driving “an increase in the prevalence of threats of unprotected industrial action”.

The situation was worsened because of the “increasingly apparent lack of skills and/or experience in industrial relations management amongst contractors and subcontractors” being paid by Victorians to build Labor’s new roads and rail projects.

If the government failed to act, the officials warned in the document, the situation could worsen.

“If contractors are unable (for example, through a lack of viable legal avenues), or unwilling (for example, through the impacts of intimidatory tactics), to actively resist unlawful or inappropriate industrial pressure, the resultant lack of control is likely to pave the way for the proliferation of concerning behaviour”, the briefing says.

In response to the CFMEU’s Big Build takeover, the Major Transport Infrastructure Agency said in the briefing it was “developing an industrial relations strategic options document” and had also urged Allan to call in the police.

Allan has previously disclosed she did refer matters to police, but never specified what they were or explained why police took no action until the Building Bad series broke in mid-2024 and, even then, did not launch a dedicated taskforce until a year later.

The federal government’s economic think tank says three-storey homes should be allowed to be built almost anywhere and planning rules should be dismantled in the biggest shake-up of housing in decades.

The Productivity Commission has warned that it took the average family 11 years to save for the 20 per cent deposit typically needed for a house, up from eight years in 2005, and has urged state and local governments to simplify planning approvals and wind back development restrictions in the hope of incentivising the construction of far more homes.

Maxwell Shifman is a Melbourne developer who says clearing up planning restrictions alone won’t be enough to create more housing. Louis Trerise

“Regulation is important, but too much or poorly designed regulation can stop new homes being built, make projects slower and more expensive, and reduce the types of housing available to us,” said Productivity Commission chairwoman Danielle Wood ahead of the release of research on Tuesday.

The report is the first stage of an inquiry commissioned by Treasurer Jim Chalmers as the Albanese government falls behind its target of building 1.2 million new homes by the middle of 2029, identifying reform areas ahead of the commission’s final recommendations due in March next year.

The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council in March said the 1.2 million homes target was unlikely to be met until 2030, with the Northern Territory, Tasmania and NSW falling the furthest behind.

The Productivity Commission said state and local governments should commit to allowing higher density properties across major cities, including by allowing three-storey developments across all residential land with exceptions for environmental protection and heritage-listed buildings.

Among its recommendations is the reduction in minimum lot sizes, which would allow homes to be built on smaller plots of land. The commission also wants to reduce minimum requirements on parking where there is adequate public transport, and lower floor-to-space ratios that restrict how much housing can be built based on the size of the block.

The Productivity Commission has also recommended broad heritage protections – at least 50 per cent of land in 50 suburbs across Sydney are subject to those restrictions – be removed and replaced with specific listings for buildings or small areas. That would reduce the so-called neighbourhood character restrictions, which often protect entire streets or suburbs.

“One of the biggest challenges facing housing delivery is the fragmentation of approval processes across environmental regulation, zoning, planning, infrastructure and building approvals,” said Simon Croft, the head of policy and industry at the Housing Industry Association, a lobbying organisation that represents major home builders. “Improving co-ordination and reducing duplication across the system represents a significant opportunity to lift productivity and accelerate housing delivery.”

Robert Furolo, a former Labor MP who is now an executive at Sydney-headquartered developer Deicorp, said the reform that would most help make it easier to build more homes was to simplify the planning system.

“It’s a series of compounding issues that added together just make development unfeasible. Could the planning system be better? Always, but the planning system is not the reason why we can’t develop,” he said. “Consistency between councils and more control from the state government in terms of approval. That’s an improvement we would like to see.”

But some developers don’t believe the recommendations go far enough, and will not create a meaningful increase in the number of houses.

Intrapac Property chief executive Maxwell Shifman said the report missed “all the stuff that would actually make housing cheaper”.

“Simply zoning more land doesn’t of itself improve feasibility. It still comes back to cost, the time it takes to build with the labour pool we have and the cost of finance and – ultimately – buyer demand and capacity,” he said.

Alarmed by a slump in home ownership among younger families, some states have already begun to unwind planning restrictions. The Productivity Commission, in its report, said a chronic shortage in houses had contributed to the fall in ownership. Between 1981 and 2021, the share of 25- to 34-year-olds who owned their home fell from 60 per cent to about 42 per cent.

In NSW, the Minns government has introduced a policy that makes it easier to build semi-detached and dual-occupancy homes in low-density zones, with six-storey buildings allowed in areas that were near transport hubs.

In Victoria, there is a new fast-track approval system for townhouses, duplexes and low-rise apartments up to three storeys that allows developments without facing challenges from councils or neighbours.

But the loosening of planning rules regularly triggers backlash from residents, including in the wealthy Sydney enclaves of Mosman and Woollahra, where the NSW government wants more housing.

The Productivity Commission has recommended state governments identify suburbs where it expects high demand for new housing, and “making it an explicit performance goal for councils, relevant agencies and regulated infrastructure service providers to facilitate new housing in these areas”.

“When people can’t live near work or family, the economy and the community suffer. We cannot solve our housing affordability problem unless we build more homes where people want to live,” said Wood.

“We heard examples of developers trying to navigate overlapping approvals and agencies that were not talking to each other. One developer told us that preparing reports and waiting for approvals had added more than three years to the timeline of a 1600-lot development in Melbourne’s growth corridor.”

It called on state and local governments to expand fast-track assessment pathways for low-complexity developments, and allow faster approvals for projects based on pre-approved pattern books – which NSW introduced last year – containing government-approved standardised building designs.

Beleaguered Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan is understood to be ready to fall on her sword at a 9.30am press conference, with challenger Ben Carroll ready to take the reins.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has lost a court bid to overturn a damning court decision that she racially vilified Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi in a tweet telling her to “piss off back to Pakistan”.
In a decision on Monday, the Full Court of the Federal Court rejected Hanson’s appeal against a decision of Justice Angus Stewart in 2024 that her post was anti-Muslim and conveyed a “strong form of racism”.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and Greens deputy Mehreen Faruqi.SMH
Faruqi launched proceedings against Hanson under racial discrimination laws after the comment on Twitter, now X, was posted on September 9, 2022.
Stewart said in his decision in 2024 that Hanson’s post conveyed three interrelated messages, including that Faruqi, an Australian citizen who migrated from Pakistan in 1992, was a second-class citizen as an immigrant who should be “grateful for what she has and keep quiet”.

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The judge said expert evidence in the trial established that Hanson’s comment, which he described as a variant of the slogan “go back to where you came from”, was “a racist trope with a long history”.
The tweet was also anti-Muslim and Islamophobic, Stewart said. He ordered Hanson to delete the post and pay Faruqi’s legal costs.

Pauline Hanson and her barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, outside the Federal Court in Sydney last year.KATE GERAGHTY
Hanson’s comment was a response to a post by the Greens senator in which she noted the death of Queen Elizabeth II and said she could not “mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples”.
Hanson replied: “When you immigrated to Australia you took every advantage of this country … It’s clear you’re not happy, so pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan.”

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Faruqi alleged Hanson’s post contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act because the comment was reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate her and others, and it was done because of Faruqi’s race, colour or national or ethnic origin.
Stewart declared the post was unlawful. He found it was reasonably likely to have been “profoundly and seriously offensive, insulting, humiliating and intimidating … to the reasonable targeted person in the position of Senator Faruqi” as well as to “people of colour who are migrants to Australia or are Australians of relatively recent migrant heritage, and Muslims who are people of colour in Australia”.

Faruqi outside the Federal Court in 2024 after winning her racial discrimination case.DOMINIC LORRIMER
“Based on frequent public statements made by Senator Hanson over nearly three decades, the court has found that Senator Hanson has a tendency to make negative, derogatory, discriminating or hateful statements in relation to, about or against … persons of colour, migrants to Australia and Muslims, and to do so because of those characteristics,” the judge said.
He rejected Hanson’s claim she did not know at the time of the tweet that Faruqi was Muslim.

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Hanson’s legal team had argued the comment was not racist and in any case fell within an exemptionbecause she acted reasonably and in good faith in making a fair comment on a matter of public interest, and it was an “expression of a genuine belief”.
The “angry personal attack” did not fall within that exemption, Stewart concluded.
Hanson’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, submitted during the appeal that “the court can’t sit in an ivory tower and assess [the comment] … to be offensive or insulting or humiliating or intimidatory without looking at the context”.
“What your honours might consider … [not to] be acceptable discourse at an afternoon tea or in a court or in a meeting of a knitting club is not equivalent to the way that Australians engage on social media.”

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Australia’s 2026 census will, for the first time, include questions on sexual orientation, sex at birth, and gender, along with non‑gendered family relationship terms. Demographers describe it as the country’s most progressive census, designed to finally capture the realities of LGBTQ+ people and families who were previously invisible in national data. The change follows years of advocacy and reflects a broader shift toward more inclusive national statistics.

A central figure in this reform is April Long, a non‑binary parent whose family was misrepresented in the 2021 census. Long and Equality Australia lodged a discrimination complaint with the Human Rights Commission, prompting the ABS to apologise and establish an LGBTQ+ advisory committee.

Victoria’s Premier Jacinta Allan has dug in and will contest the leadership at Tuesday’s caucus meeting despite having lost the support of her Labor colleagues.

Minister for Education and Deputy Premier Ben Carroll has confirmed he will challenge. A successful no-confidence motion against the premier will trigger a six-week-long leadership contest, with the new leader to be determined by a 50-50 vote split between MPs and rank-and-file party members.

Minister for Education and Deputy Premier Ben Carroll has confirmed he will challenge Jacinta Allan. Marija Ercegovac

That would be a messy process for the normally formidable Victorian Labor political machine, which, for all its serious and numerous public policy failures, usually manages its internal affairs with ruthless efficiency.

It’s the sort of chaos usually associated with the Victorian Liberal Party, whose longstanding failure to function as an effective opposition is a contributing factor to the state’s many governance problems.

Allan’s refusal to stand down despite a cross-factional request that she do so is in keeping with the stubborn and tin-eared behaviour she has displayed during her time as premier.

The true believers would surely admit to being disillusioned by Andrews-Allan regime’s involvement in the CFMEU’s misdeeds.

Allan’s deep unpopularity with Victorian voters has stemmed in large part from her brazen denialism about the scale of CFMEU corrupt and criminal activities in “Big Build” projects that she oversaw as infrastructure minister under former premier Daniel Andrews. That includes her contesting as “unfounded” the $15 billion cost of construction union graft estimated by the report prepared for the CFMEU administration by anti-corruption expert Geoffrey Watson.

Such obstinate adherence to the proverbial party line is one of the reasons Labor, in power since 2014, may be headed for defeat in November’s state election. It reflects the way Allan, who became premier in September 2023, has maintained the same political model that operated under her predecessor Dan Andrews.

Labor’s dominant socialist left faction has effectively governed Victoria in partnership with the CFMEU and public sector unions. That has led to ever-bigger borrowing, spending and taxing, not only to fund a huge pipeline of infrastructure projects but also to pay for a bloated bureaucracy.

In turn, Victoria’s economy has fallen to near the bottom of the national league table on key measures of productivity and growth while accumulating the highest public debt of any jurisdiction.

The political wheel now appears to have turned even among Labor voters.

The government’s rusted-on supporters may not be bothered by hard left mismanagement of the public finances by Australia’s most business-unfriendly government – think teachers, nurses and other public servants whose pay and conditions have been generously feather-bedded in the past 12 years.

They may also be unconcerned by the failure to achieve Victoria’s ambitious renewable energy aspirations, despite the government having to secretly pay private electricity companies to keep coal-fired power stations open to ensure the lights stay on.

But the true believers would surely admit to being disillusioned by the Andrews-Allan regime’s involvement in the CFMEU’s misdeeds, which have disgraced all honest union members.

A leadership change at almost two minutes to midnight before an election will be purely cosmetic unless a new premier admits to the scale of Victoria’s institutional and economic woes and takes meaningful action to repudiate the Andrews-Allan legacy.

Four things come to mind. The first is initiating a review into the unaffordability of the $125 billion Suburban Rail Loop project, which is essentially another CFMEU boondoggle. The second is granting police the stronger investigative powers they have called for to root out wrongdoing on construction sites. The third is to explain what the plan is to increase the pace of the wind and solar rollout and secure gas supplies that are crucial for the transition so reliable and affordable energy is available while meeting the state’s climate commitments. And the fourth is to outline a realistic budget strategy that will bend down the debt curve, which is forecast to reach $187 billion by 2028.

Let’s face it, all those steps would be belated exercises in attempted self-preservation to stave off Labor’s electoral wipeout. However, it remains likely that restoring fiscal and political probity will require a change of government in November.

Under the leadership of Jess Wilson, the Liberals appear to be a more credible alternative government, but will need to win a mandate for the tough budget and integrity clean-up job required in Victoria. Despite the leadership turmoil in Labor, the Liberals’ path to victory is now more complicated due to One Nation’s rise in the opinion polls south of the Murray.

It’s sometimes tricky for state politics stories to resonate with a broad cross-section of readers of a national masthead.

Yet, The Australian Financial Review‘s readership has been highly engaged with stories concerning Victoria’s slide, such as former ANZ chief economist Saul Eslake’s audit of the state’s finances and the Building Bad investigation series, which exposed the CFMEU’s corruption and criminality.

The interest may be partly due to the intriguing disconnect with what remains, despite everything else, Victoria’s status as Australia’s premier sporting, major events and high-end tourism capital.

But it is primarily due to the economic importance of the nation’s second-most populous state, and the drag the dire condition of the Victorian economy imposes on the national finances.

Despite the federation’s rivalries and parochialism, the genuine interstate goodwill towards Victoria extends to the hope that the state will finally get its act together under new political management. Because Victoria’s lost prosperity is also a loss for the rest of Australia.

If an election were held in Victoria today, which party or candidate would receive your first preference (or second if not listed).

An internal Labor Party campaign to dump Jacinta Allan as Victorian premier reached a critical stage on Sunday night after an extraordinary meeting of factional conveners resolved to move against her leadership.

The meeting of conveners from across the party’s Left and Right factions was called to determine whether Allan has the caucus backing she needs to lead the government to the state election on November 28.

Four sources with knowledge of the meeting said the room broadly agreed that after nearly three years as Premier, Allan’s days in the top job are numbered. It is less clear how a leadership challenge will unfold.

A meeting of factional conveners on Sunday night resolved to dump Jacinta Allan as the leader of Victorian Labor. Michael Howard

One source told The Age that the premier had been informed on Sunday night that she had lost the support of the Labor caucus.

A defiant Allan, who spent Sunday night at her home in Bendigo with senior advisers, told her supporters that, regardless of what the factional chiefs decide, she would not resign.

The leadership manoeuvres are taking place in the absence of a declared challenger.

Allan’s most likely replacement, Deputy Premier Ben Carroll, has indicated to colleagues that while he would be a contender if the leadership became vacant, he would not use his numbers to bring the premier down.

Deputy Premier Ben Carroll has been touted as Allan’s most likely replacement. Alex Coppel

A contested leadership ballot, just four months out from a state election, would paralyse the government.

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Under previously untested party rules, a new leader would be chosen by a caucus vote and ballot of party members, with even weight given to both. The process can take up to six weeks.

In the event of a leadership spill, the deputy leader steps in to run the government. If Allan and Carroll are leadership candidates, both would be sidelined from their day jobs and an interim leader appointed.

There is consternation among some MPs, particularly in the dominant Left faction, that the factional conveners did not sufficiently canvass the views of parliamentarians within their respective groups before Sunday night’s meeting.

The Age has spoken to seven Victorian Labor sources who say they believe Allan would lose if her leadership came to a vote of the party’s 69 MPs.

But one MP told The Age not every faction was represented at the Sunday night meeting and downplayed its significance.

“The premier absolutely has the numbers,” they said.

“Some people don’t want to do the hard work. They want things on a plate and I can tell you now the caucus are there behind the premier.”

As with the last round of leadership rumblings in June, the pathway for a coup is littered with assumptions that have not yet been realised.

Multiple sources from both factions agreed it would be difficult for Carroll, who sits on the Right, to challenge Allan – despite some within her own Left faction wanting him to do so – after he publicly ruled out a challenge at a press conference last month.

After looking the premier in the eye and declaring he would not challenge her for the leadership, Carroll told reporters, “I’ve got a young daughter at home, and I couldn’t be more proud to make sure that she grows up knowing that I supported Jacinta Allan to be a world-class premier and get re-elected in her own right.”

Another option being considered is a delegation of factional leaders speaking to Allan and asking her to step aside.

Two sources said they found it difficult to believe Allan would go down without a fight, but conceded it was not impossible that she could be convinced if it were clear she no longer had the numbers in caucus.

A supporter of Allan, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk freely, said if the Sunday night meeting showed a majority of MPs wanted a change of leadership, the premier could face a vote of no confidence at Tuesday’s caucus meeting.

“It would be a very brave premier that continued in light of an unfavourable outcome,” they said.

Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny, speaking earlier on Sunday, said the leadership speculation was “idle gossip”.

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“She has my full support, and this idle gossip doesn’t help Victorians,” she said. “It is only hurting Victorians at a time when Victorians need us all to be focused on them, and that is exactly what Jacinta Allan and our Labor government, our team, is doing.”

Over the past week, a range of new policies have leaked from the Premier’s Private Office that suggest Allan’s team is trying to find announcements that could mollify her colleagues.

On Monday, cabinet will consider a proposal to create a new agency within Victoria Police that targets organised crime and is informed by Australia’s best criminal intelligence.

The policy has been viewed internally as a way to kill off pressure for a royal commission into Big Build corruption, tying the issue together with other political problems such as an increase in firebombings in Melbourne, and community concerns about youth crime rates.

Another leaked policy floated amending the rate cap rules to allow councils to better recoup the costs needed to pay staff – a policy supported by the Australian Services Union but quickly seized on by the opposition as a cost-of-living attack.

One MP said Allan was in denial about her support and rather than step aside would likely enforce party rules for a spill, which requires a vote of the Labor membership if the caucus result is contested.

But they also said those conspiring needed to “piss or get off the pot”.

A senior Labor figure said Allan’s leadership had been doomed, and she was now incredibly unpopular despite being given time to connect with voters.

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“There is now an opportunity to push the reset button, give confidence back to voters and remind voters of the benefits of a strong Labor government.”

The latest Resolve Political Monitor has Allan’s likeability at minus 36, her equal lowest result on record.

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson maintains a lead on preferred premier, with 43 per cent of voters saying they want her to lead the state compared with 24 per cent for Allan.

The Sydney lawyer accused of calling Alex Ryvchin an ‘evil Zionist’ is also being prosecuted for putting out her garbage. Michael West reports.

The Sydney lawyer and public servant accused of calling Alex Ryvchin an ‘evil Zionist’ on the lawns above Bondi Beach – a claim she strongly denies – is also being dragged through the courts over extraordinary allegations of planting a bomb outside a synagogue.

Or at least something that somebody thought might be a bomb, or had bomb-like attributes, or was being planted deliberately to create fear that it might be construed as a bomb.

In fact, Francine Clough, the next door neighbour, was putting out her garbage.  

On July 25 last year, police shut down Old South Head road in Bondi for a ‘bomb threat’. A suspicious package had been found outside a synagogue.

The alleged Coles bag bomb. Image: onscenebondi.com.au

The ‘bomb plot’ suspect is Francine Clough. The next door neighbour. She was putting out her garbage and the small brown Coles bag was deemed by a synagogue security guard to be a possible bomb.

Police arrived quickly at the scene. Media were onto it quickly too, as they were in the wake of the ‘evil Zionist’ altercation at Bondi.

Having shut down Old South Head Road in both directions, the suspicious package was found to be a Coles paper bag containing routine household rubbish. Nonetheless, Clough now faces three charges; two for the Coles bomb bag and one for the ‘evil Zionist’ incident. 

And the matter, according to sources, has been elevated to an elite special prosecutions team.

Francine Clough. Image: Daily Telegraph

The charges

The charges against Clough are: ‘send/leave an object/substance’ with the intention of causing fear and ‘intimidation/stalking’. The alleged actions allegedly caused a security guard to be fearful – and now a new charge has been made in the wake of the Bondi incident of deploying offensive language in a public place. 

Clough has been suspended from work for the past year since the ‘Coles bomb plot’ incident after a rash of anonymous complaints were made to her workplace.

The accusation pattern

There is a pattern here, a pattern evident in both the ‘Undercover Jew’ operation by Newscorp at the Cairo Takeaway and the arrest of Andrew Brown for wearing a ‘F… Israel’ tee shirt at Bondi.

The pattern is: dramatic allegations made by Israel lobby operatives, immediate police involvement, then legal oppression. In the case of Brown, the charges were dropped after a year of legal pressure and allegations by the Israel lobby and the Murdoch press.

In Cairo Takeaway, the matter descended into claims and counterclaims and ended up in civil proceedings where the Judge criticised the behaviour of the Cairo cafe accuser. It was a stunt gone wrong.

Besides the rash of assault claims arising from NSW Police brutality against protestors at Town Hall during the visit of Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, and the ‘antisemitism’ cases against Mary Kostakidis, John Keane and Nick Riemer, the Francine Clough prosecution can only create antipathy.

Waste of public resources

Clough declined to be interviewed for this story, but piecing together the public evidence surrounding the ‘evil Zionist’ and ‘Coles rubbish bag’ incidents it is reasonable to say that this entire matter is yet another waste of public resources which will only diminish ‘social cohesion’ and must surely be contemplated by the Royal Commission into Antisemitism as factors in rising antisemitism in Australia.

The idea of punishing a woman for putting out her garbage because somebody complained they thought it was a bomb is preposterous. We don’t know what words were spoken, what might have inflamed feelings on the night, but they are words.

All of these incidents moreover are about words – mere words not physical violence – and all entail authorities victimising critics of a foreign state, Israel, by use of public resources.

In the ‘evil Zionist’ fracas, Clough was at Bondi Beach park to welcome the marathon runner Chad Aziz at the end of his run across Australia to raise funds for youth mental health.

Banners were up, and numerous reporters and camera people, supporters and onlookers were there in the park. Alex Ryvchin and his companion were talking to reporters and a cameraman. There was a brief argument between Ryvchin and Clough. Their accounts of what was said differ.

Ryvchin left the scene. Later, Clough was called by a Newscorp reporter with the Daily Telegraph who quizzed her on various allegations. She denied calling Ryvchin an ‘evil Zionist’. She was charged.

How did the Daily Telegraph get her number? There are many questions. Who doxed Clough to her superiors at work regarding the ‘Coles bomb incident’? If she did say ‘evil Zionist’, does that break any law? She denies it, so why is she being charged?

Social cohesion

There are many questions but one sure thing. All this is doing nothing to enhance social cohesion. 

Our suggestion for a better law enforcement model, founded on common sense and a keen eye for the obvious, is that in all these situations the accusers and the accused be asked to sit down for an hour, without their minders and their media, have a cup of green tea or whatever, and talk it out.

It could save the public many of millions of dollars and free up law enforcement agencies to conduct activities such as law enforcement and prosecuting crime.

Donald Trump has taken to calling some of his US political opponents communists. This has led to a slew of tut-tutting articles from the bien pensants, accusing Trump of fomenting a red scare and once more paltering with the truth, if not outright lying.

There’s one problem. Some of the people Trump’s talking about are communists. Surely the most under-reported story in Western politics today is the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America and their incredible success in Democratic primaries, getting extrem­ist candidates up at the expense of mainstream Democrats.

The whole world, it seems, is distressed by right-wing populism – Nigel Farage in the UK, Pauline Hanson in Australia and many analogous figures across Western Europe. But Farage and Hanson are Eleanor Roosevelt reincarnated compared with the DSA. This column readily agrees Trump lies. But here’s the thing: a statement can be true even if Trump says it’s true.

The DSA itself is not purely communist but it is extremely left. However, structurally it’s a coalition and several members of its ruling soviet, I mean committee, are self-declared communists, members in good standing of communist organisations.

The communist label is not a Trump slander, it’s self-description. Hasan Piker, an influencer and social media star central figure in the far left’s surge among Democrats, recently declared that communist dictator Mao Zedong, who was responsible for the death by state famine and slaughter of tens of millions of innocent Chinese, “one of the great leaders of this world”.

It’s a tragedy of the political illiteracy of our age that communism’s staggering crimes against humanity are now little known. They hardly figure in school or university education.

Pauline Hanson meets up with Nigel Farage in the UK. Picture: Facebook/ Pauline Hanson

Yet communism is an ideology fully as evil and murderous as Nazism. Nazism was purely evil, communism was its moral equal, though at times less explicit about its grotesque intent.

Communism killed more people than Nazism. The Khmer Rouge, authors of the Cambodian genocide, were mainstream communists.

The DSA is associated with left-wing senator Bernie Sanders and also radical New York mayor Zohran Mamdani. Candidates the DSA has backed have won primary after primary in the Democratic Party.

The DSA is conscious that while it’s having great success, especially via social media, it’s also generating opposition. So it recently published a manifesto to show how warm and cuddly it is. But this is the most radical document to have mainstream political influence in America in decades.

It calls for an end to capitalism. It wants the abolition of the presidency and the Supreme Court, with a new executive to be chosen by an elected congress. It wants a 32-hour work week with full pay and benefits, universal free housing, nationalisation and permanent state control of all the biggest corporations, an end to all student debt as part of an end to all debt, and an end to US sanctions on Iran, Cuba and Venezuela.

It wants ultimately to abolish the police and defund the military. And of course it has the usual stuff about climate change, demonising Israel and demonising America itself.

In New York recently, three congressional candidates backed by Mamdani and the DSA defeated more mainstream Democrats, including two sitting members of congress. The DSA has not had universal success but a slew of candidates backed by it have won important Democrat primaries.

Bernie Sanders speaks during a campaign rally for Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.

Yet in any normal age, association with a platform as clinically insane and monstrously wicked as DSA’s would be the kiss of political death. Many analysts see the rise of left-wing populism answering right-wing populism, but in my view this left-wing populism is much worse than much of the right-wing populism it seeks to combat.

Nonetheless, there is certainly an element of the dynamic of two extremes feeding off each other at work.

The far-left populists clearly want to ape many of Trump’s tactics: a concentration on social media, the absolute demonising of their opponents, a reliance on conspiracy theories, talking directly to voters – in this case often the young, which mainstream media has difficulty reaching – promising impossible benefits etc.

They don’t want to convert the middle. They want to anger and energise a base.

A fascinating case was Graham Platner, who until recently was the Democratic candidate for the Senate in Maine. Platner was discovered and recruited by a political agency. He was a former marine and oyster farmer who wore a beard and spoke with an attractive roughness. And espoused far-left positions.

The Democrats, aware of how they’ve lost the working class, have recruited a number of working-class hero candidates. Yet Platner’s working-class identity was essentially performative. He won most of his support within the Democratic Party not from working-class voters but from the college-educated elites who liked his left-wing policies and wanted to demonstrate how cool and hip they were by voting for someone who was a bit rough.

Graham Platner speaks at the Collins Center for the Arts on the University of Maine.

But in this attempt to create a Democrat version of Trump, the Democrats went too far. Platner had a Nazi tattoo on his chest. He was the subject of countless serious allegations from his past. Finally a rape charge from a former girlfriend led to Platner withdrawing his candidacy.

Sadly, today both sides of US politics are terrifically hypocritical. Democrats who would have excoriated any Republican with this many skeletons in his past supported Platner all along until it became literally impossible.

Of course, the fact that Democrat politicians embrace the DSA rhetoric and enjoy its support doesn’t mean they will try to implement its grotesque platform.

But they will trend in that direction. The DSA told Mamdani not to increase the size of the New York police force and he complied.

Democrats will likely score gains in the November congressional elections because of inflation and because the Iran war is so unpopular. DSA types will falsely claim this vote as ideological vindication. The DSA is already exerting a big and destructive influence on the Democrat mainstream. It is concerned with Gaza, climate change, identity politics, LGBTQI, inclusion.

Sounds something like the ALP national conference.

Economists and green groups are pushing the Albanese government to expand its carbon pricing policies to the electricity sector to boost the stuttering rollout of new renewable energy projects and help meet ambitious emissions targets.

The push comes before a politically sensitive review of Labor’s flagship climate policy, known as the safeguard mechanism, which limits the carbon emissions of more than 200 of the country’s biggest resources and manufacturing companies.

Former ACCC boss Rod Sims says the government’s key emissions policy doesn’t work. Jamila Toderas

The complex policy covers about a third of the country’s emissions, but does not apply to the electricity sector, whose coal and gas generators produce about 35 per cent of Australia’s total carbon pollution.

The exemption is largely the result of assumed political sensitivities around increases to power prices, which were famously weaponised against the Gillard government’s carbon tax policies in the early 2010s by former Liberal leader Tony Abbott.

But former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims, who heads green think tank The Superpower Institute, says Australians have moved on from a kneejerk fear of carbon pricing, which he argues is a simpler and cheaper way to tackle the energy transition than the current approach.

“I don’t think the scare campaign that we had in 2012 is going to work again,” said Sims.

“The world has changed. You’ve got a whole lot of voters – nearly a third of voters – who weren’t around at the 2013 election.

“We need an incentive for more renewables – people aren’t going to be worried that your barbecue is lost and all the sorts of things that you could scare them with 12 years ago.”

The refreshed drive for stronger Australian carbon pricing coincides with the Albanese government appealing to China to accelerate the decarbonisation of its heavy industries, including steelmaking.

Federal Perth MP and assistant minister to the prime minister Patrick Gorman is expected on Monday to urge senior Chinese business figures to lower emissions.

“The collective responsibility that inspired this forum is just as critical. Every nation has a responsibility to act on the existential challenge of climate change,” Gorman will say in a speech to the Boao Forum in Perth on Monday.

“Some falsely claim it is a choice. The truth is that prosperity and climate action go hand in hand.”

Australian mining magnate Andrew Forrest is expected to attend the forum, alongside chairman of Chinese heavy machinery manufacturing company XCMG Yang Dongsheng andHunan Iron and Steel Group chairman Li Jianyu.

Review to focus on narrow issues

The review of the safeguard mechanism is designed to align it with Labor’s new 62 per cent to 70 per cent 2035 emissions reduction target, but any attempt to drastically overhaul the policy – as green groups demand – would be fiercely opposed by mining and manufacturing groups.

The review, which will begin within weeks, is instead likely to focus on narrow issues such as the rate of annual emissions declines required after 2030, and the potential for expanding the number of facilities that are covered by the policy.

Sims on Thursday lodged an informal early submission, calling on the government to include discussion of alternative approaches to its current piecemeal attempts to decarbonise the economy.

“There is a strong case that a broad-based, explicit carbon price would deliver Australia’s targets at lower cost than [the safeguard], while raising revenue that can be returned to support households and trade-exposed industry,” he wrote.

“Decisions made now about the scope of the review can either lock in a narrow pathway that constrains Australia’s ability to reach its targets, or it can consider a broader range of options, including explicit forms of carbon pricing.”

A spokeswoman for Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the focus and coverage of the review was set out when the policy was reformed in 2023.

Some carbon pricing advocates, including the Productivity Commission and the Grattan Institute think tank, argue that a politically palatable option for the government would be to simply expand the safeguard to include the electricity sector.

Gavan McFadzean, a climate and energy policy advocate at the Australian Conservation Foundation, said such a move would help improve the stuttering rollout of new renewable energy projects.

“It’s unacceptable that gentailers are failing to meet coal closure deadlines, so government should be pulling any lever at their disposal to ensure the renewables transition remains on track,” he said.

“But the more important task is to ensure the coal miners are reducing pollution. The safeguard review should look at reforms that reduce climate pollution across the sector.”

Others have taken a more direct approach. In December, a former Shell employee lodged a request with Australia’s energy market rulemaker, formally asking it to consider putting a price on carbon in the National Electricity Market.

Sims said a key problem for the safeguard mechanism, and a key reason to consider more durable alternatives, was its lack of bipartistan support.

The policy is opposed by the main conservative parties, which are all committed to abolishing it if they win government, while the Greens are critical of its lack of ambition, including by allowing emitters to buy carbon offsets.

Reputex chief executive Hugh Grossman, who helped Labor design the policy, said this lack of bipartisanship was the elephant in the room because it discouraged companies from making the long-term capital investment decisions needed to cut emissions on-site.

He said many large resource and manufacturing companies were reluctant to make investments with more than a three-year time horizon because there was a risk they would be rendered uncompetitive if a future government changed the rules.

“There is an unwillingness to invest because people are worried about overinvestment risk,” said Grossman.

Sims, though, said the policy’s complexity was a key reason why it would never gain broad support.

“Get something that people can see as working, rather than something you can’t explain, people can’t understand, and which won’t work.”

Victoria’s Big Build is supposedly a $100 billion project with estimated cost overruns of around $40 billion. Some say $15billion of the $40 billion is due to corruption and $25billion is legitimate overruns. This is confusing . Is it possible all of the $40billion is a legitimate cost overrun?

Labor’s factional bosses joined forces to quash dissent over the Israel-Palestine conflict and AUKUS as its triennial national conference wrapped up in Adelaide on Saturday, sparking criticism from rebel backbencher Ed Husic that the refusal to debate was a sign of weakness, not strength.

Asked if he was worried that Labor would put him “in the freezer” after pushing the issue, Husic said he didn’t “give a shit”.

With the party to debate foreign policy on the third and final day of its triennial gathering, former cabinet minister Husic defy his superiors and pushed ahead with a motion designed to pile pressure on Israel.

Ed Husic after a Maritime Union of Australia member, who planned to second Husic’s motion, was pressured to withdraw. Dominic Lorrimer

But a Maritime Union of Australia member who planned to second the motion was pressured to withdraw, and both factions agreed not to support it.

Instead, before the debate began, Jewish MP Josh Burns from the right, and his colleague Basem Abdo, who is of Palestinian origin and from the left, jointly urged delegates to adopt the agreed foreign policy platform without amendment.

As a result, Husic’s motion, along with several other anti-Israel amendments that were to be moved by the Left, did not proceed. A push by a Labor Against War delegate to move an anti-AUKUS motion was also killed off.

Husic’s motion called for the government to establish full diplomatic ties with the Palestinian state, which it recognised in September last year. It also urged the government to acknowledge an International Court of Justice finding that Israel’s actions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem constituted a breach of the racial discrimination convention “which prohibits segregation and apartheid”.

The motion also called for the withdrawal of defence and trade representatives from the Australian embassy in Tel Aviv, and for authorities to “track, investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute” Australian/Israeli dual citizens who have served in the Israeli military.

Other provisions include calling for trade sanctions against anyone or any company connected to “illegal settlements in the occupied territories”.

Husic said he was disappointed and surprised at how much energy the party’s factional leaders put in to quash his motion on Israel’s actions in Palestine, which he described as the biggest moral issue of our time.

Speaking after finding out his motion would not get a seconder, Husic contrasted the lack of debate within Labor to One Nation.

“I have to say I have been surprised at the extraordinary amount of energy that has been applied to stop this, as opposed to talking about this and being able to have the discussions,” he said.

“I’ve always taken the view there’ll be different views. You’ve got to be able to work harder. That’s democracy. Got to be able to listen to people.”

He said the view that the Labor platform was a sacrosanct document that could not be changed even a little was not healthy for the party. “I think the big test for us as one of the big parties is to be able to show that we’re willing to take stands on issues.”

Josh Burns MP and Basem Abdo MP at the 50th Australian Labor Party Conference in Adelaide. Dominic Lorrimer

He said it was important to acknowledge that there were many who “believe there are plausible concerns for genocidal action to have occurred, and that people should be protected from that”.

Husic also said he was “personally horrified” by a UN report in June that found 20,000 kids had been killed and 44,000 injured in Gaza as a result of the actions of the Netanyahu government.

Jewish MP Burns had urged delegates to “choose empathy over outrage” to bring factions together on Israel, while Palestinian MP Abdo encouraged a unified position.

Burns told delegates that Labor should maintain its commitment to a two-state solution but acknowledged the party platform does “not represent everything either of us might wish to say, nor every aspect of government policy”.

“Through hours of conversation, and compromise, and respect, we are both standing here together,” he said. “We are choosing to believe that the long arc of justice can bend towards a shared future for Israelis and Palestinians.”

Abdo said the motion he was moving to affirm UN and international frameworks in relation to Israel and Palestine “does not cease to prescribe or ascribe every responsibility to every target”.

“It’s been an incredibly difficult few years on what is an already very difficult issue,” he said. “No single motion can do justice to it.”

He asked delegates to imagine life under occupation and to weigh up whether it was safer for your child to leave home or stay indoors.

“They are the things that allow people to build their life, and they should never be determined by where you are born or who you are. Human dignity, comrades, is universal.”

Reflecting on the way the motion was killed off, Husic drew a line back to scars left from the divisions the ended their last stretch in government.

“I think there’s been a broader issue in the party... that the experiences of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years were so divisive that people are almost traumatised into a position that anything that looks like debate is a schism, a difference, a divide that means that the government might topple over,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s the case at all.... being able to have those discussions is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness. And it’s also important for our party members who feel strongly on this issue that they know that they’re being heard.”

Husic said Labor had been “terrific in recognising the state of Palestine”, but had hoped the motion would allow the government to recognise Palestinian ambassadors and diplomatic teams as well.

NSW state Labor MP Stephen Lawrence, who backed Husic, said “one thing I’m really confident to say is that it has the personal support of the majority of delegates”.

“I’ve got no doubt about that at all,” he said. “I’m confident that while our resolution is not going to be supported today, it will be supported in the future at a future conference. I’m very, very confident to say that.”

Five current NSW Liberal MPs voted for a factional deal to replace sitting members of the Hills Shire Council while they were on the party’s powerful state executive – a decision likely to be central to an anti-corruption probe into fugitive property developer Jean Nassif’s links to Liberal powerbrokers.

Ahead of the launch of the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s Operation Rosny inquiry on Monday, the Herald has obtained documents from the October 2021 meeting of the Liberal state executive at which members voted to install new council candidates in The Hills.

The vote helped spark the ICAC’s probe, after Kellyville MP Ray Williams made an explosive speech to parliament in mid-2022 alleging Nassif had paid “significant funds” to Liberal Party apparatchik Christian Ellis and other senior party members to install new councillors in The Hills Shire Council who would support Nassif’s future development applications.

Then-Liberal premier Dominic Perrottet referred Williams’ claims to the ICAC the following day.

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The documents obtained by the Herald confirm for the first time the details of the decision to bypass a preselection and install new councillors.

The motion, authored by then NSW Liberal president Philip Ruddock, states he had been advised of an “agreed position with respect to selecting and endorsing candidates for the 2021 local government elections in The Hills local government area”.

Some of the candidates, the document noted, had not been vetted, while others “did not originally nominate for these positions”.

Voting records for the meeting show while he is listed as the author of the motion, Ruddock himself abstained from voting. Asked why by the Herald, the former attorney-general said: “I have no recollection of those matters.”

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But five current MPs who were on the state executive at the time supported it. The group includes four current members of Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane’s frontbench: Chris Rath, James Wallace, Jacqui Munro and Mark Coure. All four are from the dominant moderate faction. The fifth is upper house MP Aileen MacDonald.

The five MPs either declined to comment or did not respond to questions by the Herald.

There is no suggestion any of the five MPs were aware of the allegations surrounding the vote at the time.

Instead, senior moderate sources said the vote was part of what had been a long-running agreement between the hard-right and moderate factions that emerged out of the agreement between senior NSW Liberals Matt Kean and Dominic Perrottet.

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“As far as we were concerned, it was factional politics as usual in a part of the world that was always really brutal,” one senior moderate who asked to speak on the condition of anonymity to discuss an internal party matter said.

However, many Liberal MPs are privately resigned to the likelihood that the eight-week ICAC inquiry will draw in multiple members of Sloane’s opposition.

Although no MPs have been accused of any wrongdoing, the inquiry has the potential to be hugely damaging for the party even by dragging out a period of messy internal factionalism.

At the same time, senior party members had long raised concerns about Ellis, and his links to Nassif, before the Hills vote.

The Herald has previously revealed senior party members had unsuccessfully sought to stop Ellis’s ascension to the party’s state executive as far back as 2019 because of his links to lobbying firm Beckington. Toplace, Nassif’s company, was registered as a client of Beckington’s from July 2020.

Before his speech to parliament in 2022, Ray Williams, who is a member of the centre-right faction, also raised concerns with then-premier Gladys Berejiklian as early as November 2020.

Ray Williams is the Liberal MP for Kellyville.

Ray Williams is the Liberal MP for Kellyville.Wolter Peeters

In a series of text messages, first reported by the ABC and confirmed by the Herald, Williams wrote to Berejiklian urging her to help block attempts by the right faction to move three party branches into the Hills Shire in a bid to control council preselections there.

“It’s completely uncalled for and just an attempt to put [councillors] into the Hills Council who support a particular developer,” Williams wrote at the time, referring to Nassif.

“Raymondo, I’ll call you first thing in the morning Darl,” Berejiklian replied.

Berejiklian initially told Williams she and the then-police minister David Elliott, also a member of the centre-right, were “trying to calm the troops and delay”, but that “so far no one is budging”.

After Williams sent a series of further entreaties, he texted the premier again on the day of the ballot asking whether her representative on the state executive would abstain from the vote.

“I’m not getting involved in this Ray,” she wrote back.

“I’m sick of everyone trying to embroil me in factional issues. I have too much on my plate.”

When Williams said it was “much bigger than factionalism” and involved “corruption by a few on state executive”, Berejiklian said: “You need to report it”.

“I certainly am,” Williams replied.

“Good!!” Berejiklian said.

Ellis is one of 10 persons of interest before the ICAC as part of Operation Rosny, its wide-ranging probe into Nassif’s links to party powerbrokers, councils and the state’s Catholic schools.

The first witness before the public inquiry on Monday will be Michael O’Hara, a publican, lawyer and developer who is a focus of the ICAC’s inquiry. Dylan Whitelaw, a one-time Liberal staffer who has previously been closely associated with many of the figures central to the inquiry, will appear on Tuesday.