alp 57 coal 43

again seems to be oscillating 57 – 60

The one after the budget will be of more interest

I was, however, the first person to call Nick Xenophon’s victory – it was the 1997 SA State Election. Didn’t call that till the next morning, but I did beat Antony Green to the punch on that one.

It’s true about the old Mac’n'all, but it was just for HEMP purposes.

In my experience, rank and file members are usually OK with such decisions if the candidate is likeable and looks set to win the seat for them – they can even want it, if the only candidates are poorly functioning councillors. Remember, in there is no harsher critic of a poorly functioning MP than the local branches – in Fowler it is said that the local member required head office support for every single election she has faced, even though she supposedly dominates the numbers there.

I understand that the central party needs to have a say in pre-selections. The good of the party is served by getting people like Maxine McKew into the Party.

However, I will not support them having complete control. I am a *prospective* grass roots ALP member, but the events of the past 24 hours give me no reason to want to join up. The ALP has done well to get McKew, Parke, Gray, Tinley, Kelly, Dreyfus and Daniels from outside the usual Labor recruiting grounds. Cornes, however, looks like a serious misstep.

I would like to see the executives of each state branch get 25% of the votes in any preselection. They can give those votes to the national executive if they wish. 25% would give them a strong say in each ballot, but strongly supported local contenders would still be able to win the day with 67% of the local vote. That to me is a fair balance of the party hierarchy’s input and the membership’s input.

Impression thus far: lacks any confidence to express opinions, diction and articulation of a teenager, absolute confusion as to her future party’s policies. Pales in comparison with new female candidates in other seats, who demonstrate the ability to express themselves and the fortitude to withstand criticism.

There have been two high profile female Labor candidates in the immediate past in Boothby – their ‘looks’ and celebrity couldn’t save them from the steamroller.

Mrs Cornes will be roasted over the forthcoming several months until the election – it will be interesting to see if she can stand the heat.

She is obviously a conviction politician NOT.
She is not a member of the Labor party.
She has to date voted Liberal!
She is about as articulate as Pauline Hansen.
She is drop dead gorgeous.
She is blonde by every sense of the word.

What an insult to the people of Boothby, and what a missed opportunity for the ALP. Surely there was somebody from within the party ranks that could have taken the game up to Southcott and argued the Labor cause with conviction.

Politics is not about glamour stakes. Howard would not even have made it to parliament if that were the case.

“What ever it takes”! Give me a break, and execute a pre-selection process that has some integrity. This sort of shallow posturing can only work to the detriment of the party, and not just in Boothby.

If Mr Rudd got his way, the likely candidate in Blaxland would be the University of NSW constitutional lawyer George Williams. But speculation is that the contest will be between Tania Mihailuk, the Mayor of Bankstown, and Bernie Riordan, the Electrical Trades Union boss.

The favourite in Fowler, Warren Mundine, the former ALP president, may be overlooked because of demands to strengthen the number of women candidates.

..

Foreshadowing rank and file resentment, Mr Rudd said of the deferral to the party’s premier body: “It’s probably pretty effective; I don’t know how democratic it is.”

But he made no apology and said “the buck stops with me”. He is understood to have been angry at what he saw as lacklustre candidates emerging in NSW.