By Michael Newhouse
LESS than three weeks out from this year’s state election, long-serving Keilor Labor MP George Seitz continues to be dogged by allegations of branch stacking and fraud.
But Premier Steve Bracks has refused to be drawn on whether the controversy will turn into a political liability for Labor come 25 November.
“George Seitz, the Member for Keilor, has vigorously denied those allegations and rejects them totally,” the Premier said when he visited Sunshine Hospital last week.
Earlier this year an investigation by The Age newspaper claimed that Mr Seitz had used money made from bingo to buy party memberships to stack various Labor branches across Melbourne, a practice that has been going on for almost two decades, according to the newspaper.
Mr Seitz is laying low in the lead-up to the election, brushing aside the continuing police investigation into he alleged missing bingo money.
The police investigation is also looking at allegations that Mr Seitz used cash from bingo to buy a Portarlingtonn house in the 1990s.
The member for Keilor told Star, via email, he rejected all “allegations that have been circulating in the media” about him, and dismissed the police investigation as just as “purely political publicity”.
He said the police had not spoken to him.
Police media last week confirmed an initial invest-igation into Mr Seitz was under way but would not comment on its status or its exact nature in the lead-up to the election.
“We’re not going into any details,” Police Media’s Marika Fengler said late last month.
Former Brimbank mayor and Labor Party member Charlie Apap told Star that police had spoken to him last week in regard to the investigation into Mr Seitz.
Mr Apap said the police’s biggest concerns centred around $375,000 of missing bingo money made during the 1990s.
He said police had already interviewed at least five other past and present Labor Party members but believed the investigation was still in its infancy.
State Liberal MP Richard Dalla-Riva, who wrote to Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon earlier this year requesting police investigate what he said was Mr Seitz’s “alleged fraudulent activity”, told Star he had spoken to Detective Sergeant James MacDonald of the fraud squad on a number of occasions in regard to the investigation.
“I have taken this matter very seriously because it goes to the very heart of an honest democracy in this state,” he said.
Liberal candidate for Keilor John Clifford, who will be taking on Mr Seitz at the 25 November election, criticised his opponent’s parliamentary record.
But he was cautious on whether there would be a major voter backlash against the Labor Party in the West.
“If it (a voter backlash) does happen, Labor will have deserved it. An area cannot be neglected and taken for granted forever,” he said.
No charges have been laid and investigations are continuing.
