So, yesterday I reported on the emerging scandals in the Australian Wikileaks Party amid Assange's "Tea Party" style political statements about abortion and taxation, and most disastrously, the party's preferencing with right-wing parties (including a neo-nazi) over leftists.
But it appears I reported too soon. Because if the fallout outside the party was bad, it appears to be even worse within the party. More below the fold.
So let's start at the top. The Wikileaks Party has only three candidates total, and one of them is Assange himself. So when one of them resigns in a blaze of glory, you know something's up.
This statement reflects my own reasons for resigning. Because we have different roles in the organization we all have slightly different reasons why we cannot stay. However, the core of our concerns are essentially the same
"We"? "Our concerns"? This can't be good. Cannold continues:
To keep being a candidate feels like I'm breaking faith with the Australian people, and those in the media who assist me to communicate with the public, many of whom I've had a long and respectful professional relationship with. This is because by being in this role I am implicitly making a statement that The Wikileaks Party is what it claims to be: a democratically run party that both
believes in transparency and accountability, and operates in this way.
...
Ouch.
Since June when I joined the campaign, I have been concerned that where disagreement exists with decisions Council makes, these have been white-anted and resisted, forcing Council to re-affirm these decisions and assert their right to make them. At one point, there was a direct challenge to the Council's democratic right to decide and implement decisions about preference and instead proposed that it become a rubber stamp.
Hmm, gee, anyone want to wager a guess as to which person in the Wikileaks Party would feel that they have a right to turn the party commission ino just a rubber stamp on their views? Perhaps someone who once said of Wikileaks,
"I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier, and all the rest. If you have a problem with me, piss off"?
Despite this resistance, and after days of battle, we prevailed. This morning a review and a commitment to make the results transparent was announced.
This victory came at a cost. Those who fought for the review felt tired and disillusioned. We met this morning and after hours of soul-searching decided that we would battle on. How else could we ensure the review had proper terms of reference and that the results were produced expeditiously and released to the public? But then, the bombshell. A member of the party rang two key volunteers in succession and requested that they join with him in going outside the party's formal structures ... In direct contrast to the public statement The Wikileaks Party put out this morning in which we promised the public that we would have an immediate independent review of the preference outcomes, this person said that the review would be delayed until after the election and that it wouldn’t be done independently. The caller would run it.
Um... ack?
This is the final straw. As long as I believed there was a chance that democracy, transparency and accountability could prevail in the party I was willing to stay on and fight for it. But where a party member makes a bid to subvert the party's own processes, asking others to join in a secret, alternative power centre that subverts the properly constituted one, nothing makes sense anymore. This is an unacceptable mode of operation for any organization but even more so for an organization explicitly committed to democracy, transparency and accountability. Even if I stop campaigning this minute, remaining in my role implicitly invites voters to trust The Wikileaks Party. By staying in this role I am implicitly vouching for the worthiness of this party to receive the votes of the Australian people. I can no longer do this because I no longer believe it is true, and so I must resign.
Oy.... but, sadly for the party, the resignations
don't stop there. From Dan Matthews, a member of the council and founding member of Wikileaks:
Today I am resigning my position on the National Council of the Wikileaks Party.
There are several reasons for this resignation, detailed below, but they have been simmering for some time. The Wikileaks Party has arguably suffered serious problems from the outset, being pulled in radically different directions from its base and membership, on the one hand, and the figurehead and associates on the other.
Hmm, the "figurehead" and his associates pulling in a different direction from "the base and membership"? Anyone still have any doubt who the "individual" who was circumventing the national council is?
National Council meetings have been held at least weekly for several months. Until last Friday, Julian had attended precisely one meeting. He is extremely busy, of course, and has many important things to do. Helping Ed Snowden is surely more important than attending a council meeting. But still, attending 1 out of the first 13 National Council meetings of the party (all of which he could call in to) is a fairly low participation rate in one’s own party, for a man confined to an embassy equipped with a telephone.
Wow, I'm actually surprised about that one. Anyway, remember my link about them bringing a dealmaker to negotiate with them among rightwing parties? Here's how it went down:
On 6 August, at a National Council meeting, Greg Barns proposed a deal with a group of small parties, organised by Glenn Druery. It is of course his job to talk to other parties and I have no doubt he has worked hard and honestly to do his job throughout. This group, including several far right parties, proposed to deliver 7%-9% of the vote to us if we preferenced them all highly. The National Council rejected it.
At all meetings on preferences, Greg Barns spoke repeatedly of his conversations with Julian, but it seemed to me that much less communication apparently occurred between Julian and the National Council. As such, in my view, a divide started to appear between an insider group, including Julian, John and Greg, and the rest of the National Council.
Although Julian had not attended the meeting, after receiving the council’s resolution by email he quickly wrote a long email entitled “NC micromanagement of preferences”, in which he expressed his displeasure with the council in making such requests, and proposed an alternative structure for preference decisions. Negotiations would be done by lead candidates, with no restraints on them, and Julian having a right of veto. He proposed giving the National Council a role in rubber-stamping the results of this process.
Thus, one member of the national council was proposing to grant themselves a right of veto and to reduce it to a rubber stamp.
Gee, what a shock.
Concerning whether to preference with far-rightwingers, the council vote went:
The vote went 3 yes, 3 abstain, 5 no. John and Julian (via John as proxy) voted yes.
That is, only one person apart from Julian and his proxy voted to do it. Five voted no. Three stayed out. So what happened?
Nothing further was heard until Sunday, when I woke up to find that the WLP ticket in NSW had the Shooters & Fishers — and the Nazi Australia First party! — above the Greens. In WA, the Nationals were above the Greens.
I was dumbstruck.
Uh oh.
Over the next few hours, social media exploded with outrage — in my view, much of it justified. Supporters melted away. Our base evaporated. The view within the party that preferencing the far Right would not lead to any mass outrage, but that average punters couldn’t care less about preferences, was comprehensively demolished by the course of events.
Members resigned en masse. Volunteers and Volunteer coordinators were heartbroken and could not bring themselves to work for the cause to which they had previously devoted themselves selflessly.
A statement was put out about an “administrative error” in NSW.
An "administrative error" that Assange - in typical form - implied
was done by the electoral commission, even though he damned well knew that it was
his plan that was enacted against the will of the council.
At first, Matthews thought it had to be a mistake. I mean, preferencing with the Nazis? But then...
But subsequent evidence has come to light that it may not have been entirely a mistake. What combination of factors, however, I cannot say — and an independent review was called for precisely to establish what did happen.
Well, at least there will be an independent review, right?
The National Council this morning put out a statement calling for an immediate review. Immediately it was undermined from within the party
... or not.
The final straw for me was Julian’s explanation of the fiasco on Triple J hack on Tuesday night — after a full day of frantic communication within the party, including to his inbox.
He said the following, in flagrant contradiction of everything that had been happening within the party, going to him and his inbox.
"There was a decision that preferences would be done by the states, by the candidates in the states."
This is wrong. Preferences decisions were made by the National Council and were binding on the party. It was only in Julian’s proposal that candidates were given free rein over preferencing — and that proposal also gave Julian veto power and reduced the National Council to a sham, and was rejected.
Wow, Julian says the party consented to something that he wanted that they never consented to . Where have I heard that before?
"In WA there’s no decision to preference the nationals ahead of Scott Ludlam. There was a decision to preference a new entrant into the WA political field, an Australian Aboriginal, who happens to be a member of the National Party, and to symbolically, I suppose, display him in the preference list… Where possible, where we see shining stars in individual parties, like Scott, or this guy from the Nats, we should individually preference them higher. "
This might be interpreted as a poor excuse, but it is also wrong. It was not just the Aboriginal Nationals candidate referred to, David Wirrpanda, who is above Ludlam. Both Nationals candidates are preferenced, as are the candidates of several other parties.
The Nationals being part of a center-right coalition with the Liberals. Normally the Greens are significantly stronger than the Nationals, but the Nationals are expected to have good odds in Western Australia of beating them. Assange and his associates not only placed the top WA Nationals candidate above the Greens, but both of their candidates, contrary to the ruling of the council.
Without that internal democracy I would never have agreed to join the Council, and as it is reduced to a sham I must leave it.
Well... clearly this is some guy who doesn't really know Assange but just irrationally hates him, right?
As for Julian, I am afraid that my experiences with this party are not all positive. It pains me, as we have been friends since university days, we used to make maths puzzles together, and I helped him in the founding of Wikileaks — from 2006 until 2008, when I was outrageously sued by a Swiss bank over some Wikileaks publications
Et tu, brute?
Well, at least the high-profile resignations are limited to those two.... oh, wait a minute,this just in...
In respect to the recent submission of Group Voting Tickets by The WikiLeaks Party in NSW and WA, this has created much sorrow and heartbreak for members of WACA as it has for other supporters. The co-founders of WACA (Sam Castro and Kaz Cochrane) as National Council members have fought hard to get an independent review into NSW and WA’s failure to follow the National Council’s directives.
As National Council members we have fought long and hard to hold the democratic process within The WikiLeaks Party and on the National Council. However after clear attempts today to subvert this democratic process we no longer believes it is possible to hold the internal democratic process and this makes our involvement in The WikiLeaks Party untenable. Our commitment to the movement and our core values cannot be shaken and we will not compromise ourselves any further.
One of WACA’s staunchest supporters and allies in this work has been Senator Scott Ludlum who has an uncompromised record of defending the citizenry against nefarious powers and corruption within government. We urge supporters in WA to vote for Scott Ludlam and keep this fine Senator in the Australian parliament.
...
So it is with heavy hearts and a deep commitment to the ongoing work of WACA that we must resign from The WikiLeaks Party Campaign team and The WikiLeaks Party National Council as does David Haidon (Victorian volunteer coordinator) and Sean Bedlam (WikiLeaks Party social media team)
Solidarity to all in our global network who continue to fight for truth and justice.
Sam Castro
Kaz Cochrane
David Haidon
Sean Bedlam
Four more national council members down (out of 11). And what kind of dissenter website posted that statement? Why, that was posted
on the official Wikileaks Party Website. Including the call to vote for one of their opponents.
But wait, it doesn't stop there:
Collective Statement
We the undersigned, several volunteers and national council members announce their resignation, effective immediately, from the Wikileaks Party. Victorian Senate candidate Leslie Cannold announced her resignation earlier this afternoon, and several further people now announce their resignations:
Sam Castro, National Council member
Kaz Cochrane, National Council member
Luke Pearson, National Council member
Dr Daniel Mathews, National Council member
Sean Bedlam, social media captain
David Haidon, Victorian volunteer Coordinator
...
Note the additional names. It continues on with a long rant about what's happened akin to the above.
And then continues on with a statement from Cannold, too.
It's typical to end a diary with something summing up the general points made before. So, here we go:
KABOOM!