Labor Senator for Victoria Stephen Conroy and federal Labor leader Bill Shorten, pictured during the ALP national conference in Melbourne in July. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
The Victorian ALP's branch-stacking scandal has escalated into a bitter legal row, with party headquarters taking Supreme Court action against a veteran whistleblower who has pursued factional chieftains over widespread membership rorting.
In an unprecedented move, the party through lawyers Slater and Gordon is seeking an injunction against pensioner and Labor volunteer Eric Dearricott, in relation to membership information he has used to pursue his concerns about branch stacking.
Fairfax Media understands the matter is to be heard in the Supreme Court on Friday afternoon.
The party's dramatic legal move against a member long known for his preparedness to stand up to factional warlords comes as the Labor Party prepares for a gruelling preselection battle for the heartland seat of Wills. Senior insiders and preselection candidates estimate as many as half the party members in Wills belong to factional "stacks".
The branch-stacking scandal was set to be discussed on Thursday night at what was likely to be a tense meeting of the party's powerful administrative committee.
After the revelation of the gift card scam, the party in November launched an inquiry co-headed by Shorten ally, Garth Head, which failed to address the gift card scam that triggered it.
The inquiry's findings relied on a narrow interpretation of Labor's rules to effectively "whitewash" the gift card branch stacking. It was also limited to the last two years. Under party rules, not paying for your own membership should lead to suspension or expulsion from Labor.
The inquiry ignored hundreds of cases of questionable membership payments by gift cards including where as many as 100 Labor memberships were paid for from the one computer.