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18 Oct, 14 tweets, 5 min read
So just to give everybody a summary of the #OpWatts evidence form this morning's hearings -

#Dodgy, #Dodgy, #Dodgy

Garotti isn't a good witness. He was clearly wanting to be a big player, whether he actually was or not, and is trying to downplay himself to the commission.
But they are having none of it, and keep referring him to previous statements, and evidence they had locked and loaded that Garotti wasn't aware of.

One thing shines through yet again. Labor's internal party culture is/was rotten AF, and they don't learn from their mistakes.
Much of these activities can't be recalled in any detail, because they were so run of the mill they weren't remarkable enough to be memorable. And the commissioner once again brings up #RedShirts to clarify that the witness of the day was aware of it, and nothing changed after it
Afternoon update from #OpWatts
The practise of "warehousing" was further investigated and CA & CR pushed the witness hard about his failure to notice key patterns in this practice. In particular they noted many members with an address of "PO Box 82" which came up again later.
This is the mailing address of the SACOV, who Garotti helped to prepare funding grant applications for, and it seems far fetched that he didn't notice their mailing address appearing on ALP membership forms. SACOV came back in frame again later when text messages were discussed..
Involving a request from Haraco asking about a multicultural fund grant for SACOV that hadn't been approved, and was chased up with Somyurek by Garotti, Somyurek intending to chase it up with Robin Scott. Seems Labor availed themselves of public money to reward folks a lot....
Ballot reissuing came up again, as part of a discussion about ballot harvesting. There seemed to be a lot of this going on, and today specifically covered a take over attempt of the Yan Yean branch by Somyurek and the mechanics of how it was done.
There was also considerable focus on attempts made to secure employment for Haraco, and his daughter, and how either would be seen as a reward for effort. They clearly used these tax payer funded jobs as factional currency. Right at the end of the day Pakula's name got dropped in
Via a text exchange, Garotti asked that Somyurek follow up with Pakula to secure Haraco a paid job on the coronial council. No doubt this will be further explored, but could be very bad news for Pakula if he was running favours for Somyurek.
And finally, something I did not expect, the Commissioner appeared to have a go at Labor over the limited scope of the Bracks/Macklin report. He stated that it seemed to be limited to investigating mid level factional players breaking Labor party rules.
He lamented that MPs and their electoral officers didn't seem to have been investigated, and specifically that public money misappropriation wasn't seemingly focused on by the investigation. Did not sound impressed at all by the lack of substance in the report.
Overall a bad day for Labor. Garotti was a terrible witness, tried to be dumb and clever at the same time which never works well. IBAC had all the receipts for their tricky questions, and it took Garotti half a day to work this out.
Kairouz mentioned a lot, Nazih Elasmar too.
Labor might be looking for a new MLC president soon. And another MLC member's name keeps coming up as a factional heavy in Kaushaliya Vaghela. She's gunna have questions thrown her way soon. Robin Scott(already resigned) also mentioned again many times.

See you tomorrow!
And just for fun, here's a few of the exhibits I managed to screen cap containing text message exchanges. I'd like to always do this and put them in the thread, but it's hard to keep up, and at times, the screen resolution drops and makes them unreadable.

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More from @PoliBard

19 Oct
So let's do an #IBAC summary of today's hearings. Appearing again was Rick Garotti, Mayor of Banyule, Somyurek stooge. Boy, did he get a flogging.

After getting thrashed yesterday by Carr, he was careful to not deny anything he couldn't remember, in case receipts were inbound.
And LOTS of receipts were provided by IBAC, including financial documents, emails, phone intercepts with audio, and text messages. The actual focus of the hearings today was largely around SACOV, or the Somali Australian Council of Victoria, and grants awarded to them.
Garotti was heavily involved in facilitating these grants, but officially Hussein Haraco was running the show there. Garotti moved behind the scenes via Somyurek to the executive to gain info about grants and progress, Hussein actually filed the grants.
Read 17 tweets
18 Oct
So it's #IBACday! Again.... Time for another serve of #OpWatts. Returning to the stand for another round is Rick Garotti.

I'm going to be using more abbreviations to try and get more content in each tweet, as it will work better with drawn out sections of questioning. See below.
CR - Comm. Redlich
CA - Counsel Assisting
W - Witness
AS - Adem Somyurek
MK - Marlene Kairouz
RS - Robin Scott
NE - Nazih Elasmar
KV - Kaushaliya Vaghela
HH - Hussein Haraco
SACOV - Somali Australian Council of Victoria
BMR - Bracks/Macklin Report
CCB - Corrupt, Cheating Bastards
And we're up!!! Good morning Mr Garotti!
CR reminds him he's still under oath, asks if there is anything he wants to challenge or correct from yesterday, that's a no, and it's straight over to CA for the first question of the day.
#OpWatts
Read 96 tweets
17 Oct
Almost time for the #IBAC hearings to start again. This will be the live tweeting threat for #OpWatts. Will be using the following abbreviations:
CR - Commissioner Redlich
CA - Council assisting
W - Witness (Rick Garotti)
WC - Witness council

Waiting for the stream.....
And we're off and racing! The commissioner now going through the formalities with the Witness and his council.

Today's witness is the former mayor of Banyule council, and I think we're going to hear more about ethnic branch stacking today via the Somali association
#OpWatts
And it's question time! And some boring questions to the witness about the summons. Number 2021187. So presumably that's summons 187 issued in 2021. Interesting. I presume that's all IBAC matters, not just #OpWatts
Read 154 tweets
17 Oct
Looks like someone's been raiding the top shelf again 😬 Image
Oh dear, he's still going.....😬 Image
Quit while you're ahead, Dan...... Image
Read 6 tweets
17 Oct
The #DailyDickheadDiatribe is underway, and the Dictator himself has graced us with his presence.

I'll keep you posted.
So far we're speeding past the very bad numbers to focus on the naughty unvaccinated people in ICU and on ventilators. Except we're describing them as "not fully vaccinated" read into that what you will.
So we're getting reduced restrictions as of 11.59pm this Thursday - "full roadmap, plus extras" so it seems that the roadmap isn't really a roadmap, just guidelines.

No travel limits, was going to be the 25km limit for that step, but no travel to regional Victoria allowed.
Read 63 tweets
12 Oct
I'll start the #OpWatts thread here, although still waiting for the stream to start. I'll be using abbreviations today to make things easier and cram more in.
W - Witness
CR - Commissioner Redlich
CA - Council Assisting
SC - Somyurek's Council

And with that, stream's up!
Today's witness (W) is Adam Sullivan, a former staffer of Adem Somyurek. CR is now running through the formalities of the day.
Witness to be asked about employment, duties, party political work, factional activity, processes/manipulations, ALP membership
#OpWatts
(cont) falsification of documents, ballot papers, public funds used for party activities.
Very much the same stuff Byrne was questioned about, and quite a thorough list.
Witness now being sworn/affirmed, then we're away!
#OpWatts
Read 154 tweets

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