Mihailuk,the brash MP from Bankstown,reminded everyone that the ghosts of Labor’s past are far from gone. Rather,corrupt former minister Eddie Obeid,among others,will haunt her party forever.
Canterbury-Bankstown mayor Khal Asfour and Bankstown MP Tania Mihailuk.James Brickwood for The Sydney Morning Herald and taniamihailuk.com.au
“It is exceptionally difficult for me to have to raise this matter in the house and,effectively,to have to rebuke the Labor Party,” Mihailuk began,before sensationally taking aim at Canterbury-Bankstown mayor Khal Asfour,a councillor since 2004,who has also been deputy mayor and has had two stints as mayor.
“Tonight I raise my legitimate and longstanding concerns regarding Asfour’s character and his unprincipled actions in furthering the interests of developers and identities,in particular Eddie Obeid,who went to his wedding,adorning him with a generous gift,as Asfour boasted at the time.”
It was as extraordinary as it was damaging for a party that has been languishing in opposition since it was comprehensively booted from government in 2011,amid a stench of corruption and rot. NSW Labor has spent almost 12 years trying to shake its dark past. Now Mihailuk breathed new life into it.
Mihailuk and Asfour have been locked in a blood war for at least a decade,although it was not always like that. Asfour,her former campaign director,was the first person Mihailuk thanked in her maiden speech when she was elected to parliament in 2011. But a bitter feud between the pair,which is infamous within Labor,has since hit a new low amid the party’s recent preselections.
Bankstown Labor MP Tania Mihailuk.AAP
Two sitting MPs – Adam Searle and Shaoquett Moselmane – to make way for new blood,including Asfour who is one of five right-wing Labor members selected for the party’s upper house ticket ahead of the March election.,who is already a rising star in parliament,will head the ALP ticket once endorsed by the party’s state conference.
There had been talk that Mihailuk,who was a supporter of Chris Minns in the leadership battle with former leader Jodi McKay,would be parachuted into the upper house after it looked like she would not have a lower house seat to contest.
A turf war had broken out in south-western Sydney after boundary redistributions meant the safe Labor seat of Lakemba,held by the popular school principal-turned-MP Jihad Dib,would be abolished. Dib needed a new seat,but that meant his neighbouring colleagues,Mihailuk and Fairfield MP Guy Zangari,needed to be shifted.
Ultimately,Mihailuk’s spot in the lower house has been saved,and she will run for the safe seat of Fairfield,while Zangari will move to Cabramatta,being vacated by retiring MP Nick Lalich. However,that did not stop Mihailuk throwing a grenade,using parliamentary privilege,to slam the party for allowing her arch-nemesis Asfour to run for the upper house.
NSW Labor frontbencher Tania Mihailuk speaking in parliament on Tuesday night. Vision:NSW parliament
Mihailuk,who was recently at the centre of,told parliament there were “significant discrepancies in planning controls” in Canterbury-Bankstown council’s 2021 Bankstown City Centre master plan which had left “valuable land” as “virtually worthless” for ratepayers. “This must be investigated,” she said.
The opposition spokeswoman for natural resources said she had done her bit to raise the alarm. “I remember raising my concerns early on with[former ALP general secretary] Jamie Clements,who was,unsurprisingly,uninterested. But I thought[current general secretary] Bob Nanva,tasked with the challenge of cleaning up Labor post ICAC,would be different,” Mihailuk said. Clearly not,she said.
Asfour immediately slammed Mihailuk’s allegations,claiming they “reek of sour grapes at being overlooked on Labor’s upper house ticket.” Nonetheless,Minns said he would meet Mihailuk,and indicated Asfour would refer himself to the corruption watchdog.
Asfour is likely not to be the only contentious candidate on the ticket,with some within Labor nervous about other links to Labor’s skeletons. Dubbo barrister and former mayor Stephen Lawrence represented disgraced former party boss Clements in the high-profile.
The – stashed in a plastic Aldi shopping bag – directly to Clements and described the relationship between the pair as “inappropriate”. While Lawrence was in no way implicated in the saga himself,the Coalition between now and the election will exploit all ties to Clements,which includes Minns,who was best man at Clements’ wedding and still counts him as a friend.
The timing of Mihailuk’s stoush with Asfour could not have been worse for a party finally in a position to be competitive at the next election. It overshadowed Minns’ most significant pre-election policy announcement on Wednesday,which was a to guarantee safe staffing levels in hospitals.
Ill-discipline,internal warfare and settling scores is clearly still rife within Labor. But worse than that,if Mihailuk’s allegations turn out to be as damaging as she suggests they are,Labor will continue to be dogged by its sordid past.
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