Behind the scenes of Assange's WikiLeaks Party disaster

Assange during a talk at 26C3 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Assange's Wikileaks Party got less than 1% in Australia's election at the weekend.

This followed damning revelations about party operations and preferences given to the far-right in the Senate. Formerly loyal insider Gary Lord here unloads on Assange and his Australian praetorian guard.

I first met John Shipton [Assange's father] when he was contacting National Council members prior to the formal registration of the WikiLeaks Party. As a long-time vocal supporter of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, I was honoured to have been invited to join the Council. But given that the party would soon be under huge public scrutiny, there was something I needed to explain: I had gone bankrupt a few years earlier (after the failure of Kevin Rudd's Green Loans scheme, ironically) and I was still not formally discharged, so I was not sure if I was legally allowed to be on the Council.

John made a quick phone call to lawyer Kellie Tranter, later the party's NSW candidate, and then told me I would not be able to join the Council. After years of dedicated support for WikiLeaks, I felt gutted. But I accepted the decision in the best interests of the party.

"Never mind," smiled John with a sly wink, "we all have a few skeletons in our closets, don't we?"

John did not seem too unhappy at all about my situation, and I couldn't help wondering if that had something to do with my friendship with Julian's mum Christine. It was never going to be easy for the two of them to work together. [removed at request of Christine Assange - Gary]. My original understanding was that John would help set up the WikiLeaks Party and then step away from the day to day running of it. It's a pity this did not happen.

Months later, as the divisions within the party became more obvious, I contacted the Australian Electoral Commission myself, and learned that bankruptcy did NOT in fact prohibit me from being on the National Council (it only made me ineligible to run as a Candidate in the election, an option which was also discussed).

In retrospect, sharing my financial situation with John Shipton may have been one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I do not regret it because I did what I thought was right for the party and the values WikiLeaks represents. But given the WikiLeaks Party's own subsequent lack of honesty and transparency, my voluntary personal disclosure seems bitterly ironic.

.....

In New South Wales, the White Nationalists from Australia First and the militant Shooters and Fishers party were preferenced above the Greens. In Western Australia, Julian Assange's staunchest parliamentary supporter, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, was preferenced below his strongest rival, the National Party. Even in Victoria, the Greens were well down the list behind minor parties. By contrast, the Greens had preferenced the WikiLeaks Party (WLP) extremely highly in every state. 

I had just spent a week on Twitter trying to suppress rumours that the Greens would be preferenced well down the WLP list, and now it turned out the rumours were true. Worse yet, the source of those rumours was a WLP National Council member, Cassie Findlay, who helped submit the NSW preferences. And after helping me and others look like fools, Cassie conveniently disappeared off Twitter and ignored my DMs (thanks for that, Cassie). 

The WikiLeaks Party issued a statement blaming an "admin error" for the preferencing debacle and promising a review AFTER the election. That was never going to be good enough. Social media was going off. The mainstream media was all over it. Our biggest detractors were rubbing our noses in it and there was nothing we could say in reply.  

We clearly needed a proper public response from the party ASAP. But all the WikiLeaks Party insiders were suddenly - and very strangely - silent. This was not OK.  

I spoke with the only National Council members I knew personally, Sam Castro and Kaz Cochrane. They were both in tears on the phone. I urged them to be patient and give things time to work out, but they explained that others were already walking out the door. When Leslie Cannold's resignation prompted a wave of departures the next day, I started publicly demanding answers from @WikiLeaksParty on Twitter.

.....

The WikiLeaks Party had promised a full inquiry AFTER the election. But Julian's August 30th appearance on ABC The Drum suggested that no inquiry would be necessary. Mistakes were made but nobody would be held accountable, the people who resigned over these errors were somehow out of order, even if Julian accepted responsibility, and in any case he agreed pretty much with everything that was done anyway.  

Was her serious? Or just trying to bluff his way through? 

.....

I am deeply concerned that the WikiLeaks Party was unnecessarily politicised, not by Greens supporters, but by people with a hidden right-wing agenda, including John Shipton, Greg Barns (campaign manager, former Liberal Party candidate and advisor to former PM John Howard) and Julian Assange himself.  

Gary joins a long, long line of former supporters burned by arrogant prat Julian Assange.

More >> Jaraparilla: Where's That WikiLeaks Party Inquiry?

Assange getting kicked in the nuts in Australia's election

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Since it does not involve crocodiles or stranded backpackers, the news that Julian Assange is set for humiliation in Australia's election is unlikely to get much traction, but it should.

There was never more than a faint chance that he would be elected to Australia's Senate from the state of Victoria in the first place, according to Australia's version of Nate Silver, Anthony Green. It was always smelling of stunt politics because Australia has rules which near certainly bar Senators who cannot actually sit in the Senate, who attempt to do their job from foreign embassies in foreign cities.

But the past few days there's been a trio of hits showing the party for what it always was: an extension of Julian's massive ego.

First came Assange's love fest with Ron and Rand Paul, thanks to a question from an Australian student activist at an election forum about their version of libertarianism. Assange said:

“So non-violence – don’t go and invade a foreign country. Non-violence – don’t force people at the barrel of a gun to serve in the US Army. Non-violence – don’t extort taxes from people to the Federal Government with a policeman. Similarly, there are other aspects of non-violence in relation to abortion that they hold.”

The guns statement hasn't got much traction, even though Australia is famously anti-gun, but the abortion one certainly has (the Paul's are anti-abortion and push for such measures as 'personhood' which would outlaw abortion and some forms of birth control). I guess Assange has to somehow twist to support the Paul's on that murky area of their politics, much as Paul supporters generally do. He avoided commenting on the Paul's racism.

Abortion is an issue in the election because Abbott, the opposition leader and likely next PM, is a Catholic like Mel Gibson is a Catholic. Former PM Julia Gillard made some noise about fears for what Abbott would do on abortion if elected. For women voters this isn't some minor issue.

Some of his other comments would no doubt rankle with most Australians, given that libertarianism holds little sway and Australians not only support free abortion access and gun laws but also their national health service. On taxes, he couldn't be more out of touch with voters concerns in an election being held in an economy going gangbusters where the potential PM's are outbidding each other on what programs voters' taxes should be spent on.

Then we had the Wikileaks Party preferencing the Greens last.

In the Senate you vote above or below the line, meaning that you either tick one box or write numbers in dozens of boxes. Above the line and that vote is allocated according to the party's ticket. This is how minor party candidates and independents get elected to the Senate, based on the preferences of people who voted 1 for someone else.

The Senate elections are actually descending into farce with some metre long ballot papers with candidates' names written in 8pt type and election officials buying up magnifying glasses. The host of minor parties now includes the Coke in the Bubblers’ party. Reforms are needed because these tiny parties actually wield some power when negotiating preference swaps with the big parties. So even though Assange must have known his election was unlikely, just setting up a party has had bought him a measure of influence.

Wikileaks claimed it was all a big typo and Assange put it down to teething pains and 'we're all volunteers'. It means they are preferencing last some of Assange's biggest supporters in Australian politics and putting ahead of the Greens far-right Australian parties including one which is allied to Greece's fascist Golden Dawn.

Now it has come out that the preferencing wasn't a mistake as there's been a spate of resignations, including Assange's #2 on the Victorian Senate ticket, the women who would have actually sat in the Senate if Assange had got up.

In a blistering statement, Ms Cannold said she could not remain as a candidate because to do so would be implicitly making a statement that the WikiLeaks Party was what it claimed to be - "a democratically run party that both believes in transparency and accountability, and operates in this way".

Oh, the humanity.

Anyone who has seen a documentary on Wikileaks or read Guardian journalist James Ball or followed the saga of Julian's flight from Swedish sexual assault charges will know that the organisation is now little more than a front for his ego. How anyone knowing that would think his party could be 'transparent' or 'accountable' must have been asleep the past two years.

Among the flood of resignations, Party National Council member Daniel Matthews said this:

The final straw for me was Julian’s explanation of the fiasco on Triple J [national public service youth radio station] 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.

I can picture the scene in a cupboard in the Ecuadorian embassy, Assange ranting and raving as he contemplates the utter humiliation due to him in a fortnight's time.

If you'd like to continue having a laff at Assange's expense you can watch him 'dancing' after the jump.

Update: When in a hole ... Assange has now bitchslapped resigned Senate candidate Leslie Cannold and called her second rate.