This fortnight’s Seat of the Week is Eden-Monaro, renowned throughout the land as the “bellwether” seat that invariably goes the way of the party that wins the election. It is not immediately obvious why it should have this reputation, as its record in this regard is far exceeded by Macarthur, which has gone with the winning party at every election since its creation in 1949. One reason is that Eden-Monaro’s broad mix of elements make it arguably representative of the state at large, if not the entire country: it includes suburban Queanbeyan, rural centres Cooma and Bega, coastal towns Eden and Narooma, and agricultural areas sprinkled with small towns (as well as the ski resorts at Thredbo and Perisher, which have many visitors but few voters). Furthermore, the area covered by Eden-Monaro has been remarkably little changed over the years, whereas Macarthur’s varying fortunes have largely been determined by redistributions. Eden-Monaro’s boundaries have always been defined by the ocean in the east and the Victorian border in the south, and its relative population decline has roughly cancelled out the effects of the increasing size of parliament.
The most significant aberration was when it acquired a north-western spur that took in Goulburn between 1934 and 1977. The 1998 redistribution left it with boundaries that were almost identical to those it had before 1913; the current redistribution, which saw New South Wales lose a seat, has for the first time expanded it westwards to include Tumut and Tumbarumba, formerly in the safe conservative seat of Farrer. These areas produced a two-party Liberal vote well into the 60s at the last federal election, and their addition has seen the Liberal margin increase from 2.2 per cent to 3.3 per cent, despite the loss of the Liberal-leaning Batemans Bay area to Gilmore. Labor’s strongest area remains the Canberra satellite town of Queanbeyan, not counting its outer suburb of Jerrabomberra where the 60/40 split in Labor’s favour is reversed. The coastal area can be divided into a finely balanced northern half, including Narooma and Moruya, and a strongly Liberal south, including Eden and Bega. Cooma and other inland towns are also solidly conservative. The 2004 election produced little change in voting patterns throughout the electorate, with the Liberals recording an overall swing of 0.4 per cent.
Eden-Monaro was held by conservatives of various stripes for all but one term until 1943, the exception being Labor’s 40-vote win when Jim Scullin’s government came to power in 1929. Allan Fraser won the seat for Labor with the 1943 landslide and held it against the tide in 1949 and 1951. He was defeated in 1966 but was back in 1969, finally retiring in 1972. The loss of his personal vote almost saw the seat go against the trend of the 1972 election, with the Country Party overtaking their conservative rivals for the first time to come within 503 votes of victory. The Country Party again finished second in 1974, this time coming within 146 votes of defeating Labor member Bob Whan (whose son Steve unsuccessfully contested the seat in 1998 and 2001, and is now the state member for Monaro). However, 1975 saw the Liberals gain strongly at the expense of the Country Party as well as Labor, and their candidate Murray Sainsbury won the seat with a two-party margin of 5.6 per cent. Sainsbury held the seat until the defeat of the Fraser government in 1983; the same fate befell his Labor successor, Jim Snow, who was swept out by a 9.2 per cent swing when Labor lost office in 1996.
The seat has since been held for the Liberals by Gary Nairn (left), who cut his political teeth in the Northern Territory as president of the Country Liberal Party in the early 1990s. Nairn moved to Queanbeyan and joined the Liberal Party in 1995, moving swiftly to secure preselection at the following year’s election. Within a year of entering parliament he landed a significant role as chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, but he then had to wait until October 2004 before being made a parliamentary secretary. Nairn was further promoted to the outer ministry position of Special Minister of State in January 2006, in which capacity he has expanded his authority in relation to electoral matters. He has also had to deal during the current term with the loss of his wife Kerrie to cancer, at the age of 53.
Labor made national headlines in April when it announced its candidate would be Lieutenant-Colonel Mike Kelly (right), a military lawyer who had been credited with efforts to warn the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade about the AWB kickbacks scandal, and the Australian military about possible abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. Kelly was installed as candidate a week after the party’s national conference empowered the state executive to appoint candidates in 25 key seats over the heads of the local party branches. The preselection process had already been considerably delayed because the party did not wish for it to coincide with the March state election. The front-runners to that point had been Kel Watt, a former political staffer linked to the Right faction who had been the candidate in 2004, and Andrew Beaumont, a Treasury official who had won backing from former member Jim Snow and Fraser MP Bob McMullan. The high-profile independent mayor of Queanbeyan, Frank Pangallo, said in April that “senior party figures” had encouraged him to throw his hat into the ring, due to what Andrew Fraser of the Canberra Times described as a “growing feeling” that Beaumont and Watt “might not have what it takes to win”. Less fancied candidates were Graham Shannon and Toni McLennan, both public servants.
Paul Keating is the prime minister who’s ideas are closest to my own.
Black Jack, you’re forgetting that the Treasury was opposed to floating the dollar, which Keating supported. When Keating became Prime Minister he felt the treasury had influenced him too much, so he opposed a lot of their recommendations then. But I agree when he first became treasurer he was still influenced by what they suggested, but only to a point.
Evan: You can read the transcript here:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s1945485.htm
Or watch it here for broadband
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200706/r149390_530052.asx
Or here for dial up
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200706/r149390_530053.asx
Both links are Windows Media Player.
Keating was not an initial supporter of the dollar float and abolition of exchange controls. It was driven by Hawke’s office, Keating at first adopted the John Stone/ Treasury line that it was a rather dangerous move.
Andrew are you seriously arguing that reconcilliation and the republic cost Keating the election.
My memory is that more than 50% of Australians favored a republic and reconcilliation was broadly accepted and divorced from the mining company extreme right wing scare campaign about native title issues.
If you are right that a majority of Australians lacked a desire for independence and lacked compassion before Howard walked us down the racist hate filled path in the footsteps of Pauline over the last 11 years I would be very concerned. That lack of campasion and subservience has flowered under such poor leadership is not surprising, but to suggest it actually bloomed and flowered under progressive leadership is very interesting.
My 2c on some comments made above:
– If Labor brought back Keating they’d never win an election again. The guy is almost universally despised.
– The reason Keating lost was unemployment and recession.
– Yes, Keating makes amusing and witty negative comments.
– Keating’s economic theories were largely correct and he was right to pursue them. He can claim responsibility for much/some of the current economic sunshine, however the voters will never see it that way.
Morgan has Labor’s primary support up 2 per cent to 51 and the Coalition up 0.5 to 38 per cent. Two-party preferred, Labor is up 0.5 to 58 per cent.
As expected, the SA Labor machine last night dumped Linda Kirk from its Senate ticket, rather unwisely installing SDA chief Don Farrell in top place ahead of shadow minister Penny Wong. Sure, Wong is from the Left and Farrell from the dominant Right faction. But Farrell is normally a canny operator and must know that the government is making some mileage out of Labor’s links to the union movement. Little known journalist Cath Perry, 30, is in the winnable third spot. Kirk, 40, a legal academic, will now serve out only one term.
Don, the DLP man!
Not just a “union hack”, but all the lefties will hate him too–he’s firmly seated in the right part of the party.
Keating lost because his preoccupation with worthy issues such as reconciliation and the republic just looked out of touch to traditional blue collar Labor voters. Their loyalty had been stretched to breaking point by a decade of economic reform including the accord, industry deregulation, tariff reductions and enterprise bargaining – not to mention the words recession and interest rates. Just look at Pauline Hansen in Oxley. It was the only Qld seat to stay with Whitlam in 1975 and she would have sunk without trace as a Liberal. After they disendorsed her it gave a whole lot of people an excuse to vote him down.
Paul, god bless ‘im, has never really accepted that he, and not Howard, created her. So he will never accept that electorate has now gone full circle.
I largely accept your point Mark, but submit that on the whole ‘worthy issues’ whether we agree with them or not do frighten our wallets all that much.
And yes a strong progressive government with ‘worthy ideas’ created the conditions for a uninformed ‘unworthy’ minority backlash. Still even given the conditions created by the Labor party it was inside the Liberal Party she refined and spread her message, they who endorsed it with her initial candidate endorsement, and the Howard through 11 years of endorsement fostered and encouraged the views that are at best ‘unworthy’.
Like the PM’s quite ‘unworthy’, uninformed homophobic comments this morning.
In 95/96 I was living in Menai a suburb of Sutherland (HUghes) and the absolute contempt that people held for reconcilliation and the republic ideal was quite venomous.
As i recall most of the people at the time felt that reconcilliation wasnt about reconcile but about theguilt factory. And here was the Prime Minister telling the nation they should be ashamed of themselves.
Maybe people havent noticed but most people in this country prefer there own people. thats not racist thats just a preference.
Australia has not gone down a racist path its always been like this.
Absolutely agree with both of you Yasmin and Andrew. Keating as usual was absolutely right in principle but in these instances he failed to take people with him. But Hansonism is now a joke and people may be ready to take a more progressive approach to nation-building. Howard’s comments this morning and the reaction to them simply reaffirm the view that he is now the one who is out of touch.
Menai is close-ish to Cronulla. Enough said. “We grew here, youse flew here.” Oi oi oil
Their was one thing that Keating said last night that should resonate and that being the pathetic and useless advisors the Labor Party has these days- nothing like the Bob Hoggs’ of the eighties and nineties. Latham in his diaries explains beatuifully some of the half wits that Labor has within its ranks and the people who help win( or never win) it elections..
Additionally, Keating talked about how pathetic the unions have become.. and i could not agree more.. full of careerists, self-serving factional hacks who spend more time on union elections, smear campaigns and very little time on gaining union members and helping members.. I have always wondered why unions are so powerful in Europe and so willing to help working people whilst here they tend to operate as little cliches, fighting for factional supremacy and numbers on conference floors so their members can grab a seat or two… a good example is the stacking occurring in the seat of Scullin currently.. supposedly done by a unionist and his mates just so he can enter parliament.. of which then he can introduce economic rationalist policies which in the long run does little for working people….
and so much for this boom can someone please tell me how much is funded by credit.. if we took this away the economy would be in terrible shape.. can’t wait when overseas banks stop lending or want to be repaid… and what of this glorious economy governments no longer spend on anything and no longer own anything so we have infrastructure all around this country in terrible shape.. profit and shareholders now come first and what of the social and physical capital does this matter? look at communications is anyone spending anything on broadband capital or energy sector so dependant on terrible coal and unwilling to spend on measures which would be environmentally helpful and then their is airlines and banking.. look how Qantas is treating its’ workforce and willing to massively go into debt just for mega bucks for its’ board members.. and then their is our banks so great at making us pay to keep money in them… Didn’t Governments own airlines and banks once oh but privatisation creates more jobs and more money but for whom may i ask?
“We grew here, youse flew here.†Oi oi oil””
Thats exactly how I remember the place.
Unions are declining everywhere around the world.
Latham’s book is not a credible source for anything except his own delusional vanity. He thought everyone was an idiot except him.
Gary Gray was a waste of space, that is true, and it is a shame that he’s getting into parliament. (I thought he left Canberra to go back to the farm and be with the wife and tend the chooks and all that stuff. Why is he returning?)
Further to Andew: If “there[sic[ own people” means people like Andrew, then I prefer the average aborigine or migrant over Andrew any day.
But Keating puts Hogg in the same category as Gray.
Your obviously been hoodwinked by the media when it comes to Latham… and this view about everyone have you actually read his book? he at least questions this pathetic rumor gluten society we live full of people talking about one another, spreading lies and unable to get above such trivalities as to focus on caring and helping one another, delusional no he was someone who in my mind could actually see through the fog of crap that politics has no become in this country.. with politicians now very busy spending their time on how much they can make and in a very short time and not what really matters and that being doing what is actually in this countries interests.
Sorry Andrew but I think the view you express pre Howard represented an extreme wing of the Liberal Party and those further to the right.
I don’t think people would have done the ‘grew / flew thing’ remember back then even the Libs had the moral courage and compass to disendorse Hanson, if only Howard had the courage to lead in a different direction I am almost certain the Cronulla thing would never have happened. But with 9/11 Howard could resist using encouraging ignorant racism to try and lever a few extra votes, and Cronulla was, IMHO the dividend of that investment.
And while I don’t think Keating took the people with him, I think he was leading in the right direction and as a whole we as a country were following. Howard has double backed and blended in with the racist tail and of course some have followed him.
Yasmine this is fundamentally a racist country.. it is ignorant, uneducated and selfish.. and whist I agree with most of what you said regarding politicians leading and nurturing debate i however believe that within many in this country is a mistrust of people whom are different.. The Cronulla riots were partly caused by Howards’ rhetoric but they are also a product of the media with their current affairs shows highlighting minority groups and muslims’ and certain talk back hosts who encourage outrage..
Keating tried but to bring change regarding race is just a mountain to climb in Australia they people here see things through greed and don’t care what minority group must suffer to get it.. one only has to look at how we have treated Aborigines for the past two hundred and nineteen years.
Mark,
Your comments are very true.Keating had the verve, panache and honesty to inspire and to lead.
Now there is just a wasteland of careerists and spivs.
My comments also apply to this rotten Howard Government.
Mark
Agree that Australia is a fundamentally racist country. I am disappointed with the way we have treated the aborigines.
We have the oldest civilisation in the world in our country but it constantly disparaged for political reasons.
The aborigines have been here for between 60,000 to 100,000 years.
Yet we have Ruddock spitting on them saying they were stone age and had even invented the wheel, we have Windshuttle, Howards favourite historian saying the Tasmanian aborigines were not wiped out by the settlers.
I could never understand how Windshuttle could get away with his comments when if I made the same comments about the Holocaust I would face condemnation and leag action. Yet Australia is the only country to successfully practise genocide.
We do not appreciate the aboriginal history, we are destroying their history on the Burrup pensinular and disparage them at every opportunity.
And the reason, land of course, land that holds uranium and can now act as a nuclear dump.
The Cronulla riots were also a result of the behaviour of the youths of ‘mediteranean descent’. the ‘skips’ may have gone to far, but the behaviour of the ‘lebs’ was disgusting, and truly much of what happened to them they deserved.
if you recall the cause of the cronulla riots wasnt howards rhetoric, but a group of ‘lebs’ putting two volunteer lifeguards in hospital.
and howards rhetoric ensured cook and hughes were going to stay in the blue cloumn for quite some time. The worst your could accuse howard of was opportunism, or dare i say, being clever.
I agree with Andrew. Australia is not “fundamentally a racist country.” It is a vastly more tolerant country than Britain, France or Germany, where I have been travelling. Look at the almost universal acceptance now of large-scale immigration of Chinese and other East Asians, who were the original targets of White Australia. The problem with Australian Muslims has nothing to with race – what race is David Hicks? It’s a problem of ideology. A minority of Muslim clerics, almost exclusively in Sydney, have been egging on a minority of Muslim youth to reject the culture they live in and become a self-created extremist ghetto. This lies behind both the Lebanese gang culture that sparked Cronulla and the recruitment of people to violent jihadism.
Here we go again blame a few muslims for the problems, this does not mean you should retaliate.
Also adam what of the 2001 election? Was this election not one due to the race card? Yes we have accepted asians and the Chinese but how long has it taken? I think we are tolerant within limits of our thinking. And yes there is perhaps an element of people within the Muslim race who are somewhat extremist but don’t all races have such groups- what of the Jewish race for example. To single out extremist elements within the muslim faith fails to look also at extremist elements within our own race.
ONE=WON
Their are dickheads amongst all races. What we need to do is discriminate against dickheads, rather than against people based on race. This should occur irrespective of their place of birth, or religious beliefs. I don’t care if it is Sheik Al-Hilaly, or George Pell. If someone spews hatred against someone because of their race, gender, class, sexuality etc then they should be condemned.
Not often I agree with Mark but the Hanson issue was created under the Ketaing government. I will say straight out that I loathe the man – for being an overbearing undereducated false intellectual – and for the policies of the Hawke government making the early 1990’s recession much worse than it had to be. And folks it was no fun not knowing how long your job was going to last – oh good I can come in on Monday – and eventually being unemployed myself – as were most of my friends and lots of others I knew – and this was in Sydney where things weren’t meant to be that bad! I eventually went overseas to work because it wastoo grim here.
But, when I came back between 93 and 96 the amount of political correctness and the righteousness of the rainbow coalition that had been put together and believed it had a divine right to rule was sickening. And obviously a lot of other people thought the same thing, it was apot on the boil and in 1996 the lid finally blew off.
I agree with other threaders that these things are cyclical and that there is a change of tone out there now.
I vote for Adam as the Rudd Labor Governments first correctness commisioner. Perhaps Yasmin can be the Registrar?
Notes from Deakin – Victoria’s most marginal seat. The ALP candidate Mike Symon (now part time ETU official) is quoted in this weeks Whitehorse Leader as disagreeing with Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard on IR!! in particular the maintenance of the Building and Construction Commission until 2010. The Whitehorse Leader is usually pretty straight down the line – IMHO not enough political debate in its pages -but the article went on to provide Mike’s thoughts on Dean Mighell. This could be interesting to watch how this all unfolds….
I said at the time that Symon was a poor choice for a marginal seat, and as usual I was right (Edward take note). Harkins and Symon should both be disendorsed and the ETU disaffiliated.
Adam,
Dont forget the secretary of the HSU in New South Wales is the candidate in Dobell.
Howzat for picking winners? The 2 must win seats in NSW and VIC both have union hacks!! Same in QLD I think in Petrie is it?
I don’t recognise a category of “union hacks.” There are good union officials and bad union officials. Some union officials are good candidates, some are lousy. As a rule, however, they are more suited to working-class seats than to middle-class ones. Combet is a good fit for Charlton. Symon (even if he were not a left-wing dill) would be a poor fit for Deakin. That said, in a suburban seat it won’t matter much if there is a big swing. Harkins in Franklin is another matter. Anyway Deakin is not a “must win seat,” though of course Labor wants to win it. I don’t know anything about the guy in Dobell. I’m told that Yvette D’Ath in Petrie is an excellent candidate.
And of course we see once again the hypocrisy of this line of attack. If Labor runs candidates from within the labour movement, they are “union hacks.” If we run candidates from outside the labour movement, they are “celebrity candidates.” I ask again, where would these critics have Labor find its candidates? Meanwhile the Coalition runs an endless succession of lawyers, farmers and small-businesspersons, without attracting comment.
Hmmm,
The “use” of celebrity candidates is a bit like stomach stapling surgery for seriously obese people – ideally they should lose weight through diet and exercise but stapling is resorted to as an emergency measure.
Similarly the Labor party should reform but because that takes time and serious effort the quick fix is “celebrity”. I have no doubt any of the past 5 Labor leaders would have bemoaned the inability of the machines to throw up decent candidates.
Answer the question: where would you have Labor find its candidates?
Labor just needs a better process.. instead of the factional stack stack and the lack of voting by local people.. it has recognise that its members exist… and we need to understand that some people just don’t deserve seats examples- Hoare and the Hutchins..
Mind you Adam have a look at the hacks the Liberals have been providing in State politics..
Blacksburnpseph- the Keating Government never resorted to the race card… this government encouraged fairness between the races.. it has been Howard who has played the Race card and whom would have caused the Recession in 1991 to last for many years as Howard does not believe in Pump Priming…..
Where wuld you find better candidates?
Pharmacists
Genuine tradespeople – plumbers,electricians etc – who are largely now independent contractors
Scientists
Managers/Professional people
engineers
independent retailers
Howzat for a start?
its not about the occupation in my opinion its about having ideas and vision and the guts to follow through with them and sadly this is lacking in this country at present.. People have become influenced by pressure groups and the media..
Latham and Keating had ideas and I thought Whitlam also did and a belief in something, and sadly although i think he is turning this country into another America, Howard actually believes in something a deluded conservatism and economic rationalist bulldust and frighteningly a one nation state..
ie: (a one party state)
So Edward thinks Labor should recruit more *pharmacists* (among other equally arbitary categories) as candidates. Of course, they can’t be pharmacists who are members of the Labor Party, because then they’d be hacks, and they can’t be well-known pharmacists, because then they’d be celebrities. They have to be anonymous pharmacists with no political experience. And such persons would make better and more useful Labor MPs than, say, Bill Shorten or Mark Dreyfus or Maxine McKew, would they? Please. You’ll have to do better than that.
Mark thinks Labor needs to trust more to rank-and-file preselections. That’s fine in theory, but unfortunately in practice such preselections tend to produce the worst candidates. As I have argued here before, for sociological reasons beyond the control of political parties, the days of mass party membership and a genuine “rank-and-file” are over. Such preselections are inevitably dominated by a handful of factional activists and the pensioners and drones who have nothing better to do than go to branch meetings. This is as much true in the Liberal Party as it is in the ALP (except that we don’t have a bunch of crazy evangelicals trying to take us over).
That’s why I favour primary elections on the US model, which would put the choice in the hands of *voters* rather than *members*. But given that that is not likely soon, we are left with a choice between rank-and-file preselections and selections by panels elected by state conferences, or directly by state or federal executives. There’s no doubt that the latter two methods produce better candidates and are less open to manipulation. Don’t forget that Kelly Hoare “had the numbers” in her local branches. It was only outside intervention that got Combet installed there. I would much rather that than corrupt rank-and-file preselections such as the one in which Malcolm Turnbull bought himself a seat in Parliament.
I note just in passing that Graham McBride, Labor candidate for Dunkley, has a background in both science and small business.
http://alp.org.au/people/vic/mcbride_graham.php
Andrew is fantasising about Cronulla. No lifeguards went to hospital, although one off duty one got a smack on the gob.
It’s a strange thing to say people who had nothing to do with that or any or incident “deserved” to be bashed up. But I know what he means, they deserved it because they were Lebs.
Cook and Hughes are the whitest electorates in Sydney. That’s why they vote for the Rodent and did for One Nation in its time. No mystery, no big deal, need to call it something it isn’t: they’ve got lots of Andrews there.
“We don’t want to end up like Bondi”, a few of the drongos said – Bondi being appalling multi-coloured and multi-cultural. I’d prefer a dip in Bondi to the stultifying white breadedness of Cronulla any day.
The more migrants we bring in, the fewer Andrews we have per head of the population. Let’s double the intake!
Combet has a degree in engineering.
As for ‘union hacks’, Mark Butler, next member for Port Adelaide, is not only a union secretary but also an honours graduate in law. Oh yes, and he’s the grandson and great grandson of two Sir Richard Butlers who were Liberal premiers of South Australia.Edward StJohn suggests we need engineers in parliament. Well, Greg
That should have read:
Edward St John suggests we need engineers in parliament. Well, Greg Combet has a degree in engineering.
As for ‘union hacks’, Mark Butler, next Labor member for Port Adelaide, not only is a union secretary but also is an honours graduate in law. Oh yes, and he’s the great grandson and great great grandson of two Sir Richard Butlers who were Liberal premiers of South Australia.
The problem for the ALP that has become extremely manifest during their years in opposition is that a huge majority of their MPs have come up though the unions, party apparatus, or staffer routes.
The gene pool has become extremely limited. It is good that the ALP has been recruiting from a broader pool, but how deep are these people’s roots in the party? Have they been actively involved (without taking the careerist route?) .. probably not. In Nicole Cornes case, definitely not.
And with the deeply tribal nature of the ALP, will these newcomers elected or not, be taken seriously into the senior or decision making echelons? Or will the same self serving cabal use and discard as required?
Please people, enough of the “the reason the ALP has crap candidates…” stuff. I’ve watched good and bad candidates come up in the ALP and Greens. The ALP has to cover more winnable seats, so the competition is tougher thatn in the Greens, but you get doubtful candidates in all parties. I’ve often lamented the lack of plumbers, electricians etc on the ALP front (or back!) bench, but lets be clear that they can often earn more and have a nicer life NOT in parliament – and they don’t think they are ‘working class’. As well, the complexity of legislation now does require someone who can see their way through it – someone trained in law (or potentially engineering etc) does have an advantage here. Personally I’d like to see a few more ‘people skills’ people in there (youth workers, community workers, nurses etc) but then I’m still talking semi-professionals.
As to my local member (Peter Garrett), well he does an okay job for a ‘celebrity’ candidate – and you could say being a ‘rock star’ was being self-employed. My state member (Paul Pearce), while having a law degree was also self employed prior to being a local Mayor and then MP. Michael Daley in Maroubra was a solicitor and local Councillor. I might not always agree with their politics but certainly both state MP’s are community based. My experience of the Illawarra was less positive (lets not forget Sharon Bird losing presleection in Throsby because Jenny George was N40’d in and then Sharon herself was N40’d into Cunningham over Chris Christodoulou who probably would have won the byelection instead of losing to Michael Organ), but then you take the good with the bad…
I didn’t say they deserved it because they were lebs.
Youre putting words in my mouth.
Greg Combet is an engineer.
Doesnt he claim to have worked as a miner? I wonder how much time he spent underground gettin ‘dirty’?
blackburnpseph is on the money. We are talking about people who spend years manouevring for position and advantage, which is fine its just that the people who get there then tend to be pretty useless.
The point of nominating a couple of occupations is that being a politician is a job in which you should be fearless. Ideally a politician should be someone who is not afraid to lose and can contemplate a life outside politics. If you have had a life outside it you are more likely to accept going back.
What we have now is a professional class of politicians who have sacrificed a lot to get in and could not imagine life outside it. Those type of people are not going to take any risks or do anything remotely controversial. Which is exactly why Labor is so scared of cutting the ACTU loose.
I think it was PJK who said all you have to fear is losing your job to his cabinet. Who is going to resonate better PJK who left behind issues which will still be debated in 20 years or Howard?
I’ve just checked Adam’s list of 13 marginal Liberal seats.
There is a Labor hack factor of 8. Truly shocking!! all union officials or staffers or recycled MP’s.
I can accept some hacks but 8 out of 13?
Adam reform is urgently needed. Primaries wont do it – you’ll just have unions spending 100K+ on mail outs if you go that way.
did you check out the brace of CCI, AMA, NFF goons on the other side as well ?