LABOR candidates standing at next month’s Hobsons Bay Council election may not preference fellow ALP members as bitter rivalry threatens to split the party.
Cr Bill Tehan, who is running in The Strand ward, warned that ALP members could be sacked if they did not preference Labor.
Cr Tehan, a member of the Hoppers Crossing ALP branch, said he understood Labor Party members who were not Labor-supported candidates could not even run. “If you are a financial member of the ALP and you don’t get preselection, you can’t run.”
Labor members pledge that: “I will forfeit my membership of the ALP if I nominate against any candidate selected by the ALP for public office.”
Asked if that applied to Wetlands ward candidate and Central ALP branch member, Cr John Hogg, Cr Tehan replied: “He’ll face the sack from the party.”
Cr Tehan said Olly Tripodi, a member of the Altona ALP branch and candidate for The Strand ward, could be sacked if he didn’t preference Labor. “We’re led to believe he’s an ALP member and as such he should be preferencing myself and [running mate] Paul Morgan.”
Mr Tripodi disagreed he risked disciplinary action. “That’s absolutely ridiculous because I’m running as an independent . . . politics is a meritocracy and I will preference whoever I think is the best candidate.”
Cr Luba Grigorovitch, one of two ALP-supported candidates in Wetlands ward, said she was unsure whether to preference Cr Hogg.
Asked who he would preference, Cr Hogg said he had not “made that decision yet”. He said Cr Grigorovitch was encouraging women to run for council, yet she was preferencing male running mate Carl Marsich. “I don’t agree with the choice,” Cr Hogg said.
Mr Marsich said he hadn’t decided who to preference after Cr Grigorovitch.
