Wednesday night’s ALP preselection for Geoff Gallop’s seat of Victoria Park did not pan out as predicted in the previous item, with Ben Wyatt taking the prize after a vote of the party’s 14-member Administrative Committee. Wyatt is a Director of Public Prosecutions lawyer and director of Indigenous Business Australia, and his father Cedric Wyatt was a one-time Liberal candidate for the federal seat of Kalgoorlie (at the 1996 election, when Graeme Campbell won as an independent after quitting the ALP). Peter Kennedy reported on ABC radio this morning that the intial ballot gave Wyatt and Helen Creed five votes each, with Simon Ward on four. All four of Ward’s votes went to Wyatt in the next round, giving him a clear-cut win of nine votes to five. This capped off a bad week for the Emily’s List cause in WA, with two cabinet vacancies going to men (Peel MP Norm Marlborough and Mandurah MP David Templeman) and senior female MPs Michelle Roberts and Sheila McHale suffering demotion in the ensuing reshuffle. The date for the by-election has been set for March 11.
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