More Membership Claims Rock Towke

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday July 26, 2007

Andrew Clennell State Political Editor

THREE more Liberal Party members have admitted that Michael Towke paid for their memberships - claims that could be a killer blow to Mr Towke's chances of being endorsed as the Liberal candidate for Cook by the party's state executive next week.

Brian Chapman, a pensioner from Sylvania, told the Herald yesterday that he and his wife, Gwen, had their memberships "reimbursed" by Mr Towke - who they met through the Our Lady of the Way Church - after they originally paid cash to join the party.

Yvette Whittaker, of Taren Point, said she too had been reimbursed by the candidate.

"I did pay for my membership, but he did reimburse me at a later stage," Ms Whittaker said. "Is that a problem? I probably shouldn't have said that. That doesn't ruin his chances?"

To pay for someone's membership is a breach of party rules, punishable by suspension. The party's state director, Graham Jaeschke, last Friday put Mr Towke's endorsement on hold.

The revelations comes on top of claims by Vincent Whitefield to the party in June that he and his wife had their membership paid by Mr Towke.

Senior right-wing party sources have tried to dismiss Mr Whitefield's claims as "one man's word against another" and say the state director found before the preselection that the allegation could not be proved. But they will find it harder to discount after other statements by branch members to the Herald.

They follow claims that Mr Towke misled the party - about his business, education and his time in the Labor Party - on his preselection nomination form.

A statutory declaration from the Cronulla conference president, Matthew Daniels, has alleged that Mr Towke suggested to him that they seek $30,000 from a candidate to pay for memberships that Mr Towke had stacked into the party.

Mr Chapman told the Herald yesterday: "We paid for it [the memberships] initially and he then refunded that to us." Mr Chapman said he had wanted to support Mr Towke, who he liked. "He said he could do good things for the shire," Mr Chapman said.

"We did meet with him through other members of the church so we agreed to help him on that basis, not because we got paid."

Ms Whittaker said that Mr Towke had approached her through his girlfriend.

Ms Whittaker said she was given two options: either pay for party membership to support Mr Towke and not be reimbursed, or he could reimburse her.

One senior right source said yesterday that if Mr Towke was found after a party investigation to have committed clear breaches then he should go, but not for "penny-and-dime stuff". The source claimed that up until yesterday no indiscretion by Mr Towke had been proved. "If they get away with hounding out a guy without stuff being proved against him they'll say we'll run a media campaign through the newspapers," the source said.

Mr Towke, who could not be contacted yesterday, was understood to be preparing a statement in his defence to be submitted to Mr Jaeschke and then sent to the media. A source close to Mr Towke said last night he denied allegations that he had reimbursed party membership money.