Situations vacant

Opportunity knocks for aspiring Labor parliamentarians in Charlton, Hotham, Batman, Perth, Kingsford Smith, Rankin …

Two further additions to the already voluminous Labor retirements list since my last preselection review:

• Greg Combet is calling it a day after two eventful terms as member for the Hunter region seat of Charlton. Mentioned as possible successors are Pat Conroy, whose background as a staffer to Combet, George Campbell and Anthony Albanese, and as an official with the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and CFMEU, is detailed in The Australian; Daniel Wallace, a local organiser with the AMWU; and Sonia Hornery, who represents the local area in the state parliament as member for Wallsend.

• Simon Crean is calling it a day after 23 years as member for the south-eastern Melbourne seat of Hotham. Michelle Grattan in The Conversation reports the seat is effectively reserved for the Right, with Bracks government adviser Rosemary Barker spruiking backing from factional figurehead Stephen Conroy as well as a base of support from the Australian Workers Union. Also mentioned is Geoff Lake, a Minter Ellison lawyer and former Australian Local Government Association who shares Crean’s association with the National Union Workers.

Another two vacancies have been resolved:

• David Feeney has emerged victorious in the contest to succeed Martin Ferguson in Batman, after defeating Left candidate Mary-Anne Thomas by 383 votes to 247 in the local party ballot on Sunday. The matter was to be settled the following evening when the state party’s public office selection committee to determine its 50% share of the overall vote, but Thomas rendered this a formality by withdrawing.

• Alannah MacTiernan, senior Gallop/Carpenter state government minister and more recently the mayor of Vincent, is now confirmed as Labor’s candidate to succeed Stephen Smith in Perth after two other mooted contenders – Tim Hammond, a barrister who ran unsuccessfully in Swan at the 2010 election, and Matthew Keogh, a lawyer with Freehills – chose not to nominate.

And some developments in two further preselection races:

• Tony Bowen, mayor of Randwick and son of Hawke era deputy prime minister Lionel Bowen, has emerged as a second candidate for the preselection to succeed Peter Garrett in Kingsford Smith. Bowen says he has nominated despite being told “in no uncertain terms” not to run by the state party’s head office, which is evidently very keen on the candidacy of Senator Matt Thistlethwaite.

• The preselection for Craig Emerson’s southern Brisbane seat of Rankin looms as a contest between Brett Raguse, who won the outer Brisbane seat of Forde in 2007 before joining Labor’s Queensland casualty list in 2010 (and who claims the support of Kevin Rudd), and Jim Chalmers, a former chief of staff to Wayne Swan.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,225 comments on “Situations vacant”

Comments Page 25 of 25
1 … 24 25

  1. ShowsOn 1195

    ‘S.A. was the only state that regulated the insulation installation industry before the fed government program started’.

    As all States should do. I wonder if the QLD Coroner noted his State’s laws in respect of regulation.

  3. @Kevin/1197

    No surprise there, Rudd playing games with Coalition Party on the date.

    I’d be very surprised if we don’t get a date announced at the end of the month.

  6. [gusface
    Posted Monday, June 11, 2012 at 11:46 pm | Permalink
    cmon bilbo/shows
    where is your defamatory tweets?
    gutless?]

    Just search PB for the name…you will find what them..

  14. Ctar

    Yep, them. As a loyal subject, am I overstepping the mark if harbouring with ‘u’ a little racism towards the sunburned pommie ragheads?

  15. CW – I have a lot of time for them.

    But they are funny to watch when things get warm – 30C predicted is considered ‘death warning’.

    The A303 out of Basingstoke will be total madness at the moment!

  16. [If the distribution of the measure has a standard distribution (the definition of IQ is based on that assumption), then the mean, medium, mode and average have the same value, and 50% of the distribution is below all 4.]

    Sexy talk here!

    I was going to mention that Tom was confusing mean and median.

  17. ShowsOn@1199


    I still think October would be better than August for the government.

    So do I. Establish authority and show the people that this can work, it can be stable, it won’t fall over at the first whiff of trouble. Labor should have done the same thing last time and didn’t.

  19. @Crikey/1218

    So far Rudd hasn’t fallen over the first whiff.

    Batty’s and boats have been attacking him left and right.

  20. Not that sure, Zoidlord.
    Batty Batts saw him fold.

    Though I doubt, as referred to my earlier, that he has damaged himself there. As is thought, people do see through dog whistling of a self interested type.

  22. crikey whitey@1218

    Kevin Bonham.

    But. What if KRudd falls over at the first whiff?

    Well in that case Labor’s stuffed in either scenario. But if there is an early election and some major problem breaks out during the campaign then perceptions that there is nothing to the Rudd comeback and Labor is still a great mess could prove impossible to counter. Whereas the same after a few months of stable and successful government would not be such a big problem.

    Some want to rush to the polls before Abbott sorts himself out but that’s a bad idea. Indeed Carpenter in WA tried to call the election early to take advantage of the opposition there being in an absolutely farcical state and still lost.

  25. TP

    And I can bet with a new GFC around the place the world is going to become a little more complicated… and Aust in need of a leader competent on the international scene.

    TP obviously ignorant of JGPM’s brilliant achievements on her last China visit, outshone that pretend FA expert Rudd! Geez, already resorting to lies to prop up that treasonous little turd?

Comments Page 25 of 25
1 … 24 25

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *