A current elected official in Australia has revealed he spent thousands of dollars on banned fraudulent activities while running a branch office for the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Rick Garotti, the current mayor of Banyule in Melbourne, told the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) on Oct. 18 had spent an estimated $15,000 on branch-stacking activities. The revelations come as part of IBAC’s wide-ranging investigation into “serious corrupt conduct” and the misuse of public money for “party-political work or other improper purposes.” Currently, it is focusing on branch-stacking and whether public money had been used to fund such activities—which includes the hiring of staff for such work. Branch stacking—or the practice of recruiting members to a political party (sometimes by paying them)—is designed to influence the outcome of preselecting candidates. One of the main motivations for doing so is the competition for influence between rival factions—namely the Moderate and Socialist Left factions. Australian …