Barton has covered Kogarah and surrounding areas on the north shore of the Georges River since its creation in 1922, currently extending north through Rockdale to Earlwood and Kingsgrove. Past members for Barton include Herbert “Doc” Evatt, who won the seat from the United Australia Party in 1940 and held it until 1958, when he moved to Hunter after close shaves in 1951 (when World War II hero Nancy Wake, running for the Liberals, came within 243 votes of victory) and 1955 (when Evatt prevailed by 226 votes). The seat nonetheless stayed with Labor until the 1966 disaster, subsequently changing hands along with government in 1975 and 1983. Gary Punch held the seat for generally narrow margins in the 1980s, but put enough fat on the margin in 1993 that his successor Robert McClelland survived the 1996 landslide.
A member of the NSW Right, McClelland held a series of senior portfolios after entering the shadow ministry in 1998 and served as Attorney-General since the election of the Rudd government. McClelland emerged as an important part of the Kevin Rudd camp during Julia Gillard’s prime ministership, an association going back to Rudd’s ascendancy over Kim Beazley in December 2006. An oblique reference by McClelland to the AWU affair in June 2012 was invoked as validating the subsequent blizzard of media interest in the matter, and was generally seen as a deliberate effort to undermine her. He had been dropped from the ministry after Rudd’s failed leadership bid the previous February, which followed two months from his demotion to emergency management and housing.
McClelland announced in January 2013 that he would bow out at the election, causing concern to Labor that the NSW government might seek to precipitate a by-election by offering him a position on the state’s Industrial Relations Commission. Reports in mid-2011 suggested McClelland was being advised to step aside to avoid a preselection stoush. It was thought the seat might provide an entry for former Premier Morris Iemma, who told the media he would not be interested if it involved “backstabbing friends”. The Iemma for Barton idea was again raised in October 2012 by Bob Carr, who speculating on the possibility that McClelland might decide to retire. When that duly came to pass in January 2013, Iemma did not emerge as a starter for the seat, encouraging the conclusion that he was not fancying Labor’s electoral prospects.
Labor will instead take the field with Steve McMahon, chief executive of the NSW Trainers Association (as in thoroughbred horses) and former mayor of Hurstville. McMahon won a local preselection ballot with 128 preselection votes against 101 for Shane O’Brien, Rockdale mayor and NSW Public Service Association assistant secretary, a former adviser to Tony Burke. McMahon reportedly had backing from Morris Iemma and state upper house MP Shaoquett Moselmane, key to votes from the Lebanese Muslim community, leading O’Brien to complain that his own support had come instead from “free-thinking individuals”. O’Brien’s opponents accused him of being a sore loser who had himself had courted the Macedonian and Greek vote. Moselmane had himself been a nominee early in the process but he quickly withdrew, amid suggestions he was merely seeking leverage to shore up his position on the upper house ticket.
The Liberal candidate is Nick Varvaris, accountant and mayor of Kogarah.
[It’s very difficult to achieve party when:
a) your party is in govt, and;
b) it is a minority govt.]
rubbish. true leadership is making tough decision in the interests of the longer term. party reform is challenging but should be done now. stare down the factions and the oligarchs.
Diogenes@102
I see it as a case of the singer, not so much the song.
Her father did a good job, but her uncle edward was totally unfit for the role and we can only guess what charles might turn out like.
William might grow into the job if he get a chance, but its all potluck.
Didn’t phil the greek see himself ruling jointly until betty windsor put him back in his place.
briefly@116
briefly, you are a real sucker falling for confessions tactics to start conflict.
[This sort of rhetoric shows the current leadership team believes the ALP primary vote should be below 38%]
She was addressing a union conference. When she addresses womens groups she uses language which talks up women and our achievements. Only the NEws ltd shit stirrers take that to mean Labor is deliberately shunning the male vote.
[true leadership is making tough decision in the interests of the longer term.]
Undertaking party reform when your party is in govt runs the risk of giving voters the impression your party does not know what it stands for. It makes the party look unstable, flaky and undeserving of govt.
I agree that the tough decisions in the interest of the longer term should’ve been taken years ago. Labor had 11 years in opposition to sort this out, but failed.
Barnaby will have to resign his senate seat
[Should he be preselected, Senator Joyce will have to resign from the Senate by the time writs are issued for the September 14 election, and the Queensland Liberal Nationals will have to find a replacement for the Senate vacancy.
Senator Joyce acknowledged running for New England would be a risk for his political career.]
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/barnaby-joyce-confident-of-winning-preselection-for-lower-house-seat-of-new-england/story-fncynjr2-1226619700846#ixzz2QJJ5cmOy
Barnaby wins preselection
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-13/joyce-wins-nationals-preselection/4627248?section=nsw
[Didn’t phil the greek see himself ruling jointly until betty windsor put him back in his place.]
No.
confessions
She was telling lies to please an audience? I don’t think so in that instance because the leadership’s actions are all consistent with what she said to the AWU.
Confessions
So you’re saying Gillard says one thing to one group of people and another thing to another group of people? …
I’m not talking about the boomers. I’m talking about the blue collar, unionised, manufacturing group. That’s what asylum seekers, attacking the Greens, deliberately confusing centralised wage fixing with the Fair Work Act, subsidising the declining local car industry and all that other stuff are about.
lizzie@157
I think he did – around the time he ‘suggested’ they all take his surname.
What is wrong with calling yourself the leader of the Labor Party if in fact you are?
victoria:
I thought he only had to resign from the LNP if he won preselection, not from his Senate seat?
Now there’s even more reason to cheer on Windsor!
Different elements of modern Labor want to go “back” in different ways.
The likes of Kim Il Carr and, to some extent, Mar’n (but i think Mar’n has partly sold out to thr miners) want to go back to the days when Labor was a socialist party. Carr, in particular, is close to the remaining left-wing blue collar unions.
Gillard is no socialist these days. She has come to realise the value of free market economics. For mine she’s still a bit too enamoured with the remaining blue collar unions, which makes her inclined to indulge some of Wayne Swan’s silly Robin Hood nonsense. But she’s generally modern Labor in her thinking. So are an increasing number of the non-Victorian left (but not Dougie, of course).
The NSW Right want to go back to the days when they were all powerful.
Crean wants to jump to a parallel universe in which he is a political winner, idolized by the masses. He is also a bit of a big government, big subsidies for industries guy.
In terms of the Hawke-Keating legacy, it was particularly an anti-socialist, free market, but socially aware and caring legacy. The likes of Kim Il Carr, Mar’n, Crean, etc. never really supported this vision. Nor did Beazley. Gillard is closer. Latham is the closest and we should note that he now strongly supports Gillard.
You Know Who’s vision (to the extent it can turn away from the mirror) is largely a bleeding heart one: closer to that of the Greens or even (in terms of economic policy ) Tony Abbott’s. Free market economics is evil because Dietrich Bonhoeffer wouldn’t have liked it. Not the guy to take Labor’s policy thinking forward, although he is appeallingly (to me) more disengaged from the union movement than Gillard.
So, for me, Gillard is the cup bearer of the Hawke-Keating tradition.
spur212@148
Or even below 18%!
confessions@154
Oh I see.
No need for a consistent message, just different messages for different audiences.
Now who does that remind me of? :monkey:
[So you’re saying Gillard says one thing to one group of people and another thing to another group of people? …]
I’m saying that elected members often tailor their speeches to suit the conference theme and/or its audience.
[I’m talking about the blue collar, unionised, manufacturing group. That’s what asylum seekers, attacking the Greens, deliberately confusing centralised wage fixing with the Fair Work Act, subsidising the declining local car industry and all that other stuff are about.]
“All that other stuff”?
The govt does a lot more on family support, the health system, education and so on which have nothing to do with manufacturing or appealing to such a sector.
Sorry, but I think you are seeing things which simply aren’t there presumably because of your personal dislike of the PM.
[134
spur212
Gillard and Swan are appealing to a constituency that wants to return to a time before the 1980′s.]
This is complete nonsense.
dave
It was his uncle.
[In 1947, Princess Elizabeth (as Queen Elizabeth II was then titled), heir presumptive to King George VI, married Philip Mountbatten. He was a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, a branch of the House of Oldenburg, and had been a prince of Greece and Denmark. However, not wishing to repeat the difficulties of three decades previous, Philip, a few months before his marriage, renounced his princely titles and adopted the surname Mountbatten, which was that of his uncle and mentor, the Viscount Mountbatten of Burma, and itself was adopted by the Viscount’s father (Philip’s maternal grandfather), Prince Louis of Battenberg, in 1917. It is the literal translation of the German Battenberg, which refers to Battenberg, a small town in Hesse.
Soon after Elizabeth became queen of the Commonwealth realms in 1952, the Earl Mountbatten (as Philip’s uncle was then known) advocated that she change the name of her royal house to House of Mountbatten]
Phillip may not have been happy that he couldn’t give his offspring his surname, but his own surname was hardly an “old family name”.
confessions@162
You don’t seem to have understood what victoria wrote at all.
Why would he resign from his party? He would just transfer to the NSW branch of either the Libs or Nats.
Meher Baba
Hawke and Keating got two very important cohorts on side: young people and small and medium sized business’s.
Gillard and Swan have lost a lot of the young cohort to the Greens (or if they see through the Greens, they’re simply disillusioned with everything and tune out of the political debate and support issue based interest groups) and the small and medium sized business cohort to the Liberals.
BB
[He’s had the relevancectomy – a non-reversible surgical procedure.]
So ask yourself why all the marginal seat holders want him to come to their electorate.
Thanks Lizzie.
spur212: the vote “lost” to the Greens doesn’t matter all that much, as its preferences largely come back to Labor.
anyway, the inner city types are the sort of constituency that Kim Il Carr, Mar’n and Crean are yearning for.
[121
jaundiced view
Agree with those saying Crean’s comments are part of bringing the split to a head]
LMFAO
Whatever Crean says will be about one thing – his unrequited ambitions, impelled by his delusions of relevance, competence and talent.
His utterings will have nothing at all to do with the future of Labor. The record is there for all to see. Simon Crean believes in nothing but his own gorgeousness. Like so many other idiots, he mistakes biography for national history. He has, yet again, argued his own ineptitude.
briefly
I think Crean is acting from the same motivation as Faulkner, Cavalier & Latham and the slight minority of the parlt party – trying to save the party from hollow careerists.
This is boring and achieves nothing. I will check back later to see if something positive somehow pokes it’s head through the negative weeds.
Yeah Puff, its a pity, the tone of the board has pretty good of late – until this morning.
[Peter van Onselen @vanOnselenP 9m
Plenty of Nationals out there who wouldn’t mind seeing Barnaby fall short in New England. On a separate matter Warren Truss is fit and well.]
Interesting. Can anyone confirm that Barnaby has to resign his Senate seat in order to contest a LH seat?
I was under the impression he would have to resign his LNP membership and take up NSW Nationals membership, but not that he would have to resign from the Senate.
[175
jaundiced view
briefly
I think Crean is acting from the same motivation as Faulkner, Cavalier & Latham and the slight minority of the parlt party – trying to save the party from hollow careerists]
LOL
….saving the party from hollow careerists? You mean Simon is trying to save Labor from people just like him?
The Bold one is the sine qua non of privilege, careerism and hollowness.
The only people talking about a Labor split are those who are not members of the ALP, make no contribution to it, and are armed with nothing but their own archaic prejudice and hatred.
The royal family’s surname is now officially Mountbatten-Windsor, although they don’t all use it. Both names are of course English replacements for the German names of the dynasties both the Queen and the Duke descend from. (It’s wrong to refer to the Duke as Greek – he doesn’t have any Greek ancestors.) If they used their original dynastic names they would be called Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg-Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha.
briefly
John Faulkner? Rod Cavalier? Mark Latham in Quarterly Essay? Latham is the only one of those 3 not a member I believe.
These are some of the things invented since copper wire started being used for telecommunications:
Moving pictures
Rayon
The fountain pen
The mechanical cash register
The steam turbine
The automobile
The dishwasher
Barbed wire
The gramophone
The zipper
Perforated toilet paper
Paper drinking straws
… and the Liberals think they’ve developed a 21st century telecommunications system!
confessions:
Which version of Gillard are we up to now?
Mark #4,
5?
8?
australian-bankruptcies-record-low
Bankruptcies are at their lowest level since the March quarter of 1996, according to a report released yesterday by the Insolvency and Trustee Service Australia.
Psephos,
Why didn’t they do their writing hands a favour and change it to Smith?
Is it true that the govt is proposing to cut $2 billion from universities to fund Gonski? Tell me it isn’t, please.
so next time you have some one say
business is always better with a liberal gov,
tell them.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/4/11/small-business-sme/australian-bankruptcies-record-low
Bankruptcies are at their lowest level since the March quarter of 1996, according to a report released yesterday by the Insolvency and Trustee Service Australia
Chris Sant.
Gold! 😆
Re Greer’s (and Mike Carlton) views on Thatcher, why is it not the ‘done thing’ to criticise the dead? Bin Laden’s death and Saddam’s were celebrated. I’m not saying they’re the same, but Thatcher DID provide safe haven for Pinochet.
And how is Pinochet much different from Saddam? Both executed, tortured political enemies, yet we went to war on the premise that regime change was good enough reason.
[Is it true that the govt is proposing to cut $2 billion from universities to fund Gonski? Tell me it isn’t, please.]
Well, its been reported in the OO for what’s that worth. Disappointing if true. Particularism if as reported its 3.25% general cut over two years.
[153
bemused
briefly@116
confessions @ 115…entirely right
briefly, you are a real sucker falling for confessions tactics to start conflict.]
bemused, confessions is indefatigable and needs no help from me. But she didn’t “start” anything. PB is heavily populated with Green Anachronists today – typists that enjoy baiting the coherent, forbearing and steadfast. confessions’ reply was mild, imo.
[The Finnigans
Posted Saturday, April 13, 2013 at 12:07 pm | PERMALINK
FACTs #NBN Vs #Fraudband:
1. $37.5B Vs $30B]
It isnt a fact that the ALP NBN will cost $37.5B, it is an estimate.
Remind us of the estimates that the current ALP government has got right again….
[2. 100Mbps Vs 25Mbps]
Everyone gets 100Mbps with the ALP version do they?
Is the maximum 25Mbps with the Lib version?
[3. Last 100y Vs 10y]
In 100y I am guessing we are not going to be using fibre
[4. Last mile $0 Vs $5K]
That ALP supporters think the ALP version is free is why the ALP is always generating debts and deficits and making us paying billions in interest whenever they are in power!!!
imacca
Cripes. That will be big, if true. Maybe it’s just a kite, but it’s crazy.
jv
You know what is crazy? The crap you sprout
j-v, there is no point in trying to glamorise Simon Crean. It’s like trying to pretend Fanta is nutritionally valuable.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/university-sector-to-be-hit-in-gonski-reforms-20130413-2hry2.html
Which version of Gillard does her cutting billions out of Education represent?
Puff, Germans like long names, like Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann-Maier-Leibniz. But Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg-Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha are not of course surnames in the modern sense, they are dynastic names, all referring to places in Germany.
Mod Lib
For goodness sake, stop waving threadbare, smelly old rags and expecting anyone to take them seriously. For your sins, you should go over to Finny’s site and copy out the relevant BISON a hundred times.
Does Finns have a site?
Why have I not been invited to participate there? Its dull without me aint it? :devil:
Pesphos,
Okay, how about Wem, in Shropshire?