Branch stacking

In Australian politics, branch stacking is the act of enrolling persons to a party by offering inducement, or enrolling persons for the principal purpose of influencing the outcome of internal pre-selections of candidates for public office.

Branch stacking is not illegal unless it involves the use of false identities or false electoral enrolments, but it is contrary to the rules of both major parties. Following a scandal in Queensland (see Shepherdson Inquiry), the Labor Party has carried out a series of reforms designed to stamp out branch stacking, with limited success. The Liberal Party is investigating tightening its own anti-branch stacking measures.

Activities commonly described as branch stacking

Activities commonly considered to be branch stacking include:

• To pay a person's party membership fee as an inducement for that person to join the party
• To pay the membership fee of a person who is unwilling to pay their own membership
• To pay for membership for any person unaware that membership has been taken on their behalf
• To pay membership for a person on the precondition that the member is then obliged to vote in a particular way
• To encourage a person to join a party for the express purpose of influencing the outcome of a ballot within the party
• To enrol, encourage or assist a member to enrol on the electoral roll at an address that is not their principal address.
• To organise or pay for concessional rate fees for a person who is ineligible for that rate
• To recruit members who do not live at the claimed address of enrolment

Instances of alleged branch stacking

During 2005 there has been an internal dispute in the Victorian branch of the Labor Party over allegations of branch stacking, related to pre-selections for the 2007 federal election. A number of sitting Labor members of the House of Representatives faced challenges from candidates enjoying the support of the Labor Unity faction, which in 2004 regained control of the Victorian branch from the rival Socialist Left faction. The Socialist Left accused Labor Unity of branch stacking in several seats. Labor Unity countered with allegations that the Socialist Left also engaged in branch stacking over a long period.

In the Labor Party branch stacking tends to take the form of mass recruitment of members of particular ethnic groups to form branches which are easily directed by leaders of one faction or another. In Victoria both factions have laid charges of branch stacking against each other's office-bearers before internal party tribunals. The Socialist Left initiated court proceedings against Labor Unity over proposed changes to party rules in the lead up to the pre-selections, but the matter was resolved out of court in August.

There were also allegations of branch stacking in the Liberal Party in Victoria during 2005, in the run up to the Victorian state election of 2006. The Liberal Party branch in Scoresby in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne was suspended as a result of these allegations. Member recruitment drives by some Liberal federal Members of Parliament (MPs) have been described as branch stacking, but these members deny this; George Seitz was alleged by The Age to have run an extensive branch stacking operation in his electorate.

In 2006 the ABC current affairs program Four Corners aired allegations by members of the Liberal Party that senior figures in the unofficial hard-right faction led by State Upper House MP David Clarke were recruiting members of the Maronite Lebanese community and stacking branches in seats held by moderate Liberal MPs who form a faction known as "The Group." Clarke and his supporters were accused of taking ballot papers from people and voting for them. His supporters include Alex Hawke and Nicholas Campbell and extends deep into the NSW Young Liberals, led by Noel McCoy.

John Hyde-Page claimed that branch stacking efforts for candidates in the 2004 Wentworth preselection led to a situtation where over 20% of the total membership (on paper) of the NSW Liberal Party were enrolled in branches in the seat.

The prevalence of branch stacking in both major political parties comes at a time when memberships of political parties in Australia is at a historic low. Some have suggested that branch stacking, and rules put in place to counter branch stacking, are a cause of this. But smaller party memberships also make branch stacking easier to carry out.