IBAC continues Adem Somyurek questioning

Former Victorian government minister Adem Somyurek will again take the stand at an anti-corruption inquiry into branch-stacking after two explosive days of evidence.

Mr Somyurek will be questioned as a witness on Thursday, as the Independent and Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission continues its investigation into corruption within Victorian Labor.

He quit Labor last year before he could be expelled following a Nine Network investigation that allegedly caught him handing over cash and using parliamentary staff to create fake branch members.

Earlier this week, the powerbroker described a factional war within Moderate Labor and said branch-stacking was embedded in the party.

“It was so deeply embedded in the culture that it would be hard for people outside of the system to understand how embedded it is,” Mr Somyurek told IBAC on Tuesday.

He named Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews several times during evidence on Monday, accusing him of dismissing concerns over Labor’s red shirts scandal.

Red shirts was a $388,000 scheme involving the misuse of parliamentary allowances to pay Labor’s political campaign staff ahead of the 2014 election.

Responding to state opposition calls for the red shirts probe to be reopened, Events Minister Martin Pakula said the scandal had been “investigated more often than the Kennedy assassination”.

“I’m not going to engage in hypotheticals about an inquiry that was closed almost three years ago,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

IBAC continues Adem Somyurek questioning
Independent Information