By GREG ANSLEY
CANBERRA - Australia's Labor Party has been rocked by scandals that threaten to destroy the Queensland Government, haul down a federal frontbencher and eat their way into the Victorian Administration.
The revelations of election-stacking and allegations of bribery pouring out daily are also cutting the ground from under federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, until now building a viable road to power on Government misdemeanours and its GST and oil price policies.
Branch-stacking involves the use of phantom or illegally enrolled voters by Labor factions in internal party elections to win pre-selection for their candidates to stand in state or federal polls.
Beazley has announced tough new action against election rorters and branch stacking but, with possible prosecution hanging over the head of frontbencher Wayne Swan and fears that more dirt is yet to be swept into the light, the damage may have been done.
Already, the Sydney Morning Herald has reported that a slush fund to finance fraudulent Labor Party membership was operated out of the office of shadow immigration minister Con Sciacca by a staff member, although apparently without Sciacca's knowledge.
Swan has been forced to step down from the shadow family and community services portfolio pending an Australian Federal Police investigation of a cash payment of $A1400 he made in a brown paper bag to an official of the Australian Democrats in the Queensland seat of Lilley during the 1996 election.
Swan has denied allegations that the money was given as a bribe to obtain the Democrats' preferences to help him to retain a seat he had held since 1993 and which was under serious threat from a predicted heavy swing against Labor.
He claims instead it was a normal and above-board act, although the Democrats now say they have no record of the transaction and place all responsibility on an electorate official.
In Queensland, meanwhile, Labor Premier Peter Beattie is clinging precariously to power after the resignation from the party of his former deputy, Jim Elder, and MP Grant Musgrove, following their implication in a widening scandal over electoral fraud.
Technically, this has eliminated Beattie's one-seat majority, but the Premier believes he can still count on the two votes and has rejected calls for an early election - which at this stage he would almost certainly lose.
The scandal has also forced the resignations of state ministerial adviser John Budd and his wife, Joan, Labor's state returning officer.
Beattie's problems stem from an inquiry by the state's corruption watchdog, the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC), into allegations of widespread fraud through branch-stacking in Labor internal elections.
The CJC moved in after after a failed Labor candidate who was jailed for electoral fraud in August complained she was only a cog in an entrenched culture of Labor rorting that had existed for at least a decade.
Beattie had previously been embroiled in controversy over the awarding of internet gambling licences to Labor friends including MP Bill D'Arcy, recently jailed for 14 years for paedophilia.
Labor's woes have been compounded by the importance of Queensland to its campaign in next year's federal election, now under a heavy cloud.
And electoral scandals have spread to the Labor state of Victoria, with allegations that two party campaign workers had tried to buy preferential votes from David Dawn, an independent candidate in the key Frankston East seat. The claims have been denied.
Widening scandals shake Australia's Labor Party
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