Inside the south-west Sydney Labor branch threatening to topple a sitting MP

NSW Labor is considering rolling a sitting minister while also blocking the ascension of his main local rival, part of an increasingly messy preselection poisoned by months of bitter infighting and accusations of branch stacking in their south-west Sydney seat.

This masthead revealed on Thursday that NSW Fair Trade Minister Anoulack Chanthivong is facing a revolt from local branches in his electorate of Macquarie Fields. Despite it being widely known that he would lose a rank-and-file ballot, neither Premier Chris Minns nor party head office have intervened.

His main rival is Masood Chowdhury, the deputy mayor of Campbelltown Council and the president of the largest branch in the electorate.

There is a growing unwillingness to save Chanthivong via a referral to the party’s national executive. The MP has endured a torrid term as a minister and has alienated key stakeholders, including the union movement, as both fair trading and corrections minister. Even if he survives preselection, Chanthivong will not be a minister if the Minns government is re-elected in March.

The reluctance to save Chanthivong stands in sharp contrast to a series of “captain’s calls” made by Minns to install candidates in seats such as Winston Hills, Wallsend and Wyong.

However, there is also no appetite to open the door for Chowdhury to enter parliament. The party finds itself in a difficult position in the seat. Installing a third candidate via national executive referral would be a break with the convention of not rolling sitting ministers, and risk angering locals keen to back Chowdhury.

His branch — Ingleburn-Macquarie Fields — has faced multiple complaints of stacking from Chanthivong and branch members amid a surge in discounted membership numbers, a senior party source said. But, the same source said, the minister had failed to provide the party with sufficient evidence to warrant the same kind of intervention head office has made in other areas recently.

A membership list for Chowdhury’s branch obtained by this masthead reveals a surge in new members joining over the past two years, fuelling allegations from branch members he has stacked the group with his own supporters to win preselection for the safe Labor seat.

The list shows the Ingleburn-Macquarie Fields branch of NSW Labor had 152 members in its more than 30 years of operation. But in the past five years, 149 members have signed up, including 86 in the past two years alone. The majority of the new members are listed as “concessional”, meaning they are required to pay a significantly discounted rate to be part of the branch. (There is no evidence to suggest Chowdhury recruited the members.)

Branch stacking – recruiting party members to a specific branch to change an outcome, such as a preselection vote – is not illegal and never clear-cut: one member’s accusation of filling a branch with cronies to support a vote is another member’s active community engagement.

“There’s no stacking,” Chowdhury said on Friday. He said his branch never exceeded the party-mandated cap of five new members per meeting, and that the party had investigated his branch “one and a half years ago”, but “they couldn’t find anything”.

“South Asians love politics,” he said. “It’s not my family connections. They’re different people, different communities, different colours. It’s very tidy.” Earlier in the week, he told this masthead: “I’m definitely interested to run. I’m telling you honestly, I’m going to win the preselection.”

Longtime branch members believed stacking began in the years after NSW emerged from COVID restrictions. The branch had booked a small room at the Ingleburn RSL for a meeting, expecting a few dozen attendees. More than 100 people showed up, identifying themselves as members and voting as a bloc supporting Chowdhury.

Mike Freelander, the federal MP for Macarthur, had attended the branch’s meetings until they got too chaotic. He said the situation at the branch meant it was unlikely Chanthivong, whom he described as “a longtime friend of mine”, would win preselection.

“That is a huge difficulty for him and I hope that the premier will support him, but I’m not sure what is going on,” he said. “Anoulack’s a good representative of our community, and he’d get community and electorate support, but the branch is controlled by a group that I have very little insight into.”

But a senior Labor source speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an internal matter said while Chanthivong, on the verge of the end of his political career, had repeatedly alleged stacking was occurring in the branch, he had failed to provide evidence to warrant an intervention.

The same source, who was familiar with the issue, said that in October 2023 the party’s powerful administration committee directed head office to take possession of the branch’s books. A member of head office had attended several branch meetings, and new members had been audited for several months. Around that time, Chanthivong was provided advice in a meeting with Labor officials about the type of evidence required to prompt an intervention. That evidence never surfaced.

Chowdhury has been a member of Labor for decades and has served on Campbelltown council since 2016. He holds significant influence over south-western Sydney’s Bangladeshi community, and leads several community organisations.

In September, he attended a “Civic Felicitation Ceremony” for himself after being elected deputy mayor, where at least 18 community members and leaders spoke and one presented him with an award on behalf of the “citizens of Campbelltown”.

Chanthivong declined to comment. In a statement, a spokesperson for NSW Labor said: “Over the past five years, NSW Labor has significantly strengthened its anti-branch-stacking rules and has taken decisive action in areas where branch stacking has been established.

“If there are any new allegations or evidence of branch stacking within this branch, they should be referred to the party via the appropriate process.

“The improper disclosure of party membership lists, including personal information, is a breach of the party’s rules and code of conduct. The party officers will consider what further action is required.”