Embattled Wollongong MP Noreen Hay has stepped down as opposition Whip after being caught up in yet another political drama.
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Ms Hay's office was raided by the Australian Federal Police this week as part of an investigation into "enrolment fraud" allegations.
The Mercury can reveal the MP was not at her Crown Street headquarters when the search, understood to involve two AFP officers, was conducted about midday on Wednesday.
Ms Hay - who has represented the seat of Wollongong since 2003 and is no stranger to controversy - broke her silence on Friday afternoon, confirming she would vacate her Whip role "pending the outcome of an investigation into my office".
"I will continue to assist the AFP with this investigation," Ms Hay said.
"As the matter is subject to a police investigation, I cannot comment further."
Ms Hay has not been suspended from the ALP.
Party bosses at Labor's Sussex Street headquarters discussed Ms Hay's future on Friday but decided not to act while it was still unclear whether the Wollongong MP was personally implicated.
The Mercury understands the investigation involves a staff member.
It is understood Ms Hay has sought the advice of the parliamentary ethics adviser who has indicated, because charges are yet to be laid, that no staff should be stood down.
NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley discussed the AFP investigation with Ms Hay on Friday.
"During our discussion, Ms Hay offered to stand aside as opposition Whip, pending the outcome of the investigation. I agreed that is the most appropriate course of action," Mr Foley said.
"I maintain that Ms Hay is entitled to due process. I understand Ms Hay has offered the AFP every assistance with the investigation, and continues to do so."
On Thursday night, the AFP confirmed that a search warrant was executed at Ms Hay's office on Wednesday. Documents, believed to relate to a number of residential address changes before a Wollongong Labor preselection, were taken. The raid was sparked by an Australian Electoral Commission referral, which the AFP received on December 8.
The referral was lodged just two days after Ms Hay was re-endorsed at the controversial preselection ballot, which was plagued by allegations of branch stacking, doctored minutes and dodgy attendance books.
Days earlier, Fairfax Media revealed evidence of the branch-stacking and apparent inaccuracies in the electoral roll details of some of Ms Hay's supporters in Wollongong.
An investigation uncovered electoral records which showed three of Ms Hay's supporters had all changed their listed residential address with the AEC to the home of Judita Matic, secretary of the ALP Wollongong branch.
Danica Vangelovski, Cveta Davidovic and Aleksander Retkovic all updated their residential details on the same day, November 6, declaring they had left addresses in the neighbouring seat of Keira.
Fairfax Media visited their former listed addresses and found Ms Vangelovski still living in the house she claimed to have moved out of three weeks earlier.
Ms Davidovic's neighbour also confirmed she was still living at her former address in West Wollongong, also outside the electorate.
On the books, the minutes of the Labor Party's Mount Keira branch meeting on April 7 recorded a discussion about the resignation of then NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell. That was eight days before Mr O'Farrell quit on April 15.
An independent internal party investigation found "manifest and repeated inconsistencies" in the attendance books and minutes of the Mount Keira branch and it was later declared "defunct" as a result.
The AFP and AEC have declined to comment.
By Kate McIlwain
1993 Union official and Labor left faction member Noreen Hay steps onto the political scene, contesting preselection for the seat of Illawarra against Terry Rumble, a right-wing member.
1997 Ms Hay stands for preselection for the federal seat of Throsby but is defeated by left faction member Colin Hollis.
2001 She puts her hand up for Throsby again when Mr Hollis retires, but steps aside for former ACTU president Jennie George who had been promised the seat.
2002 Ms Hay upsets the apple cart by running for preselection in the seat of Wollongong against incumbent Colin Markham. She takes advantage of a rare rank-and-file preselection vote and wins 97-81 in December 2002.
2003 Ms Hay is elected with 49per cent of the primary vote and 78per cent after preferences, after one of the region’s dirtiest smear campaigns which involves a lack of support from her then left faction colleagues and sordid sex claims over an alleged incident several years earlier. A few months later she defects to the right faction.
2005 A rising star, she becomes the first woman in the NSW Parliament’s history to chair the joint parliamentary public accounts committee.
2007 Ms Hay is re-elected with 61per cent of the primary vote in the March election. A few weeks later she is named as parliamentary secretary for health.
February 2008 As the infamous Wollongong Independent Commission Against Corruption hearings begin, Ms Hay’s links to developers are placed in the spotlight. She is named in a wire tap, apparently offering to lobby Labor councillors on behalf of developer Frank Vellar, and stood down briefly from her position as parliamentary secretary for health. She is reinstated after the ICAC said she was not a person of interest and would not be called as a witness. It also emerges that Ms Hay failed to declare donations totalling $63,000, as well as rent-free office space provided by Mr Vellar, which was put down to an ‘‘administrative error’’.
May 2008 Ms Hay comes under fire over political donations, with NSW Election Funding Authority referring her to the Crown Solicitor’s Office for failing to declare donations totalling $120,000. She blamed ALP head office for mixing up the numbers.
September 2008 Ms Hay tops the list of political fund-raisers in NSW, raking in more than $90,000 in 13 months.
September 2008 Then Kiama MP and newly appointed NSW Police Minister Matt Brown is accused of cavorting with Ms Hay in a sexually suggestive manner after the government’s post-budget party, held in June. He is stood down. A few weeks later, she is appointed convener of the NSW Right Caucus in Parliament.
2010 Ms Hay is preselected unopposed as Labor’s Wollongong candidate after two potential challengers bowed out in the lead-up to nominations.
January 2011 Popular Uniting Church minister Gordon Bradbery confirms he will contest the March election as an independent in a bid to break Labor’s 20-year stranglehold and a desire to turn around Wollongong’s ‘‘tarnished reputation’’.
March 2011 In the lead-up to the Bradbery-Hay showdown, the Mercury’s polls show Ms Hay is on track for a shock election defeat in Labor’s heartland. The paper backs Mr Bradbery, saying the city has too long ‘‘suffered from the stench of corruption that has tainted our reputation’’. Despite a massive swing against Labor and a crushing loss of seats statewide, voters deliver no clear winner in Wollongong on election night.
April 2011 Five days after the ballot, and with a margin of just 1 per cent, Ms Hay finally scrapes through to beat Mr Bradbery by 682 votes. Meanwhile, the Liberals accuse Ms Hay’s campaign team of orchestrating fraud – a claim strenuously denied by Ms Hay – after 800 doctored how-to-vote cards were allegedly hidden among Labor’s campaign material at one booth on polling day. The cards falsely directed Liberal voters to give their second preferences to incumbent Labor MP Noreen Hay, when the Liberal Party was in fact advocating a ‘‘Vote 1 only’’ strategy. The NSW Electoral Commission eventually confirms it will take no further action over the complaint.
September 2013 Ms Hay leads a three-person delegation to visit the Shinyway Education Group in Beijing. A month later, she is guest of honour at the launch of Shinyway Education in Sydney. This trip will later be brought up in Parliament, in May 2015, by NSW government Whip Peter Phelps, following an episode of Four Corners that described Shinyway as an unregulated agency recruiting overseas students.
November 2014 Ms Hay’s Wollongong preselection is dogged by allegations of branch stacking, doctored meeting minutes and dodgy attendance books, with Sussex Street reportedly ‘‘pulling out all stops’’ to protect Ms Hay.
December 2014 At the preselection ballot, on December 6, Illawarra’s union boss Arthur Rorris and several other members were reportedly denied a vote and escorted off the premises. The ALP’s NSW head office has backed the decision to deny the votes and Mr Rorris ‘‘did not satisfy the rules to qualify for a preselection vote on this occasion’’.
February 2015 Mr Rorris announces he will stand as an independent against Ms Hay at the March election.
March 2015 Ms Hay is elected by the people of Wollongong once again, garnering 58.9 per cent against Mr Rorris’ 41 per cent of the vote following the distribution of preferences.
April 2015 Ms Hay is appointed Labor Party Whip in the NSW lower house.
July 1, 2015 AFP raids Ms Hay’s Wollongong office as part of an ‘‘enrolment fraud’’ investigation.
July 3, 2015 Ms Hay steps aside as opposition Whip, pending the outcome of the AFP investigation.