Based around Penrith 50 kilometres west of Sydney, Lindsay was created with the expansion of parliament in 1984 to accommodate growth in the city’s outer west. It currently extends into conservative semi-rural territory to the north (Castlereagh and Llandilo) and south (Mulgoa and Orchard Hills), but most of the voters come from an urban concentration around Penrith. This area is stronger for the Liberals in the south and west (Glenmore Park and Emu Plains respectively) and for Labor in the east (Werrington). Before Lindsay was created, Penrith had shifted from Macquarie to Mitchell to Chifley, the general area becoming progressively stronger for Labor as it became more urbanised after the war. Lindsay had a notional Labor margin of 12.3 per cent when it was created, and the area remains a happy hunting ground for the party at state level: the corresponding seats are held by margins of 7.0 per cent (Londonderry), 9.2 per cent (Penrith) and 10.9 per cent (Mulgoa). My 2004 election booth result and swing maps for the electorate can be viewed at Crikey.
Labor’s Ross Free held Lindsay by margins of around 10 per cent throughout the Hawke-Keating years, having previously been member for Macquarie from 1980. He was most unpleasantly surprised to find himself voted out in 1996, following an epochal 11.9 per cent swing to Liberal candidate Jackie Kelly. Free was able to secure a re-match because Kelly, who did not expect to win, had failed to get her affairs in order before nominating (she was still serving as an RAAF officer, an “office for profit under the Crown”). Voters dragged back to the polls on a technicality rewarded Free with a further 6.8 per cent drop in the primary vote, and Kelly picked up another 5.0 per cent on two-party preferred. The combined 16.9 per cent swing to the Liberals meant the electorate’s demographic profile came to be seen as typifying John Howard’s constituency – high numbers of skilled workers on good incomes, low levels of tertiary education and a distinctly less multicultural flavour than suburbs closer to the city. Kelly was able to limit the Labor swing in 1998 to 0.3 per cent, one of a number of decisive marginal seat outcomes that ensured the return of the Howard government from a minority of the two-party vote. This secured Kelly’s status as a prime ministerial favourite, helping her win promotion to the position of Sport and Tourism Minister. Many thought this to be beyond her competence, and she did not return to the ministry after leaving it while pregnant immediately after the 2001 election. She nonetheless continued to perform well electorally, picking up a 2.4 per cent swing in 2001 and almost holding even in 2004.
Two events during the current term have given good cause to think that Lindsay might finally return to Labor at the coming election. The first was the unveiling of new electoral boundaries last July, which added Labor-voting St Marys, Oxley Park and Colyton in the east from Chifley, and transferred Liberal-leaning Glenbrook in the Blue Mountains foothills to Macquarie in the west. These changes cut the Liberal margin from 5.3 per cent to 2.9 per cent. The second came in May when Kelly announced her intention to retire, much to the Prime Minister’s dismay. Kelly immediately named Penrith councillor Mark Davies as her preferred successor, but he evidently found little support from the party. The Prime Minister and the Right faction hoped to enlist Penrith Panthers recruitment manager Peter Mulholland, but their approach was declined. The nomination instead went to Kelly’s electorate officer Karen Chijoff (right), who picked up a 6 per cent swing as candidate for Mulgoa at the March state election.
Labor’s candidate for the third successive election is David Bradbury (left), Blake Dawson Waldron lawyer, Penrith councillor and former mayor, who for all his campaign experience is still only 31. Bradbury was installed as candidate by the national executive using the power the national conference granted it in April to determine preselections in sensitive seats. This displeased the National Union of Workers, said by a number of sources to have been marshalling forces for union official Mark Ptolemy – although Brad Norington of The Australian reported in May that it was in fact backing Ptolemy’s fiancee, 23-year-old school teacher May Hayek. Ptolemy was Labor’s candidate for Macquarie in 2004, and turned his attention to Lindsay when it became clear the Macquarie nomination would go to Bob Debus. Norington reported the conflict in terms of a split in the Right, with Bradbury having “historical links” to the Transport Workers Union.
Judging by the exchange rate on offer from the orange-shirted “Your Rights at Work” unionists at last weekend’s Penrith Show, the Liberal’s Karen Chijoff is worth 3 of Labor’s David Bradbury!
Let me explain: I saw with my own eyes on 2 separate occassions the union boys asking children for their yellow Liberal helium balloons (which were promptly let go), and giving them 3 orange union balloons in exchange. One irate father gave these guys a real serve. Talk about “how to win friends and influence people”. I thought it was a real hoot!
Am I right in assuming that Lindsay was one of those Howard Battler seats that went to the Coalition in 1996 ?
If so, making allowances for the comparatively small 2PP margin (2.9), this seat might be one to watch in terms of getting a sense of whether or not the Howard battler dominated seats are coming back to Labor on election night.
Kelly retiring will do JWH no favours, her popularity might have acted as a buffer against any swing against the Coalition in NSW.
Then again, JWH is doing Turnbull no favours in Wentworth by demanding approval of the $2 Billion Gunns pulp mill project but it might keep Bass and Braddon in his pocket if he makes hay with his ‘pro jobs’ discourse.
I work in the Penrith region (drive through it every day) and must say I’m very surprised that this seat is not Labor territory. Penrith is very much a “westie” suburb, and thus I’m surprise there aren’t enough votes there for the ALP to tip the balance. The electoral realignment, though, does seem to point to this seat returning to Labor this time around.
Fascinating analyis, William. I’m starting to enjoy these forays into local politics, and it helps when the electorate is a familiar one.
Lindsay is interesting for the size of the swing Kelly got.
I think overall Howard got a 5% swing to him in 1996 and picked up around 29 seats, in NSW alone he picked up around 13 seats.
But in Lindsay Kelly got a 11.9% then a 5% swing one after the other.
Shows two things, if the mood is against the Howard government then big swings in individual seat will happen, say up to 12% or even 17%, and labor could pick up some extra seats in NSW.
“Am I right in assuming that Lindsay was one of those Howard Battler seats that went to the Coalition in 1996 ?”
I thought that Lindsay was the textbook definition of a Howard Battler seat.
William great analysis.This is my electorate and if I were Mr Rudd I would be confident of winning back this seat.Mr Rudd is not Mark Latham and from what I can see and hear he is extremely well liked.I would expect a big swing to the ALP in areas such as St Mary’s,St Mary’s South,St Marys North,Oxley Park,Clairmont Meadows,Werrington,Kingswood.I also would not be surprised to see areas such as Glenmore Park go to Labor either.
The main reasons I think the ALP will win is WorkChoices,Interest Rates and housing affordability.Five straight rate rises in a row will not help the Coalition here.
The price of fuel here is important as most people drive to work.You only have to look at the M4 at from 6.00am on any workday and the traffic heading east.We call ourselves”squinters”,we get the rising sun in the morning and the setting sun on the way home.
Although the Liberal candidate did get a swing at the last state election,that seat did not contain Penrith which recorded a swing TO the ALP.
Sondea I think “Squinters win back the Labor heartland” would be a great post election headline. I am thinking of other western suburb seats in other states around the country where they drive into the sun going to work and going home will be the key to this election. Go the “squinters”, much more appealing that the Howard battler tag.
I haven’t seen any polling done in Lindsay, but the punters in the betting markets at the moment certainly have Labor as the favourite to win the seat:
Coalition: Labor: Others:
Portlandbet: 2.80 1.36 81.00
Sportingbet: 2.50 1.40 26.00
So it looks like the battlers are definitely deserting Howard.
It is ALP territory. It just doesn’t happern to be so at Federal level at the moment. Lookt at http://elections.nsw.gov.au/state_government_elections/election_results for the state seats mentioned by Bill. You will see that even the CP vote did not flow reliably to the Libs as it did in most other electorates.
Bill: was it Free who petitiioned the Court of Disputed Returns? I thought it was one of the independents who ran at the March election who brought the case. In addition it was my understanding that Free was quite unhappy about the case and had to persuaded to run again.
You forgot to mention that the Liberal win was a complete surprise to the party. Kelly wan’t not even an Australian citiizen at the time of the election – or at least held dual nationality. In actual fact it was most improper )some would say incompetent) for the Liberal party to not have made sure that their candidate was properly qualified to take their seat. That was the proximate cause of the need for a special election.
However the rerun did open up the possibility for the issue of the Second Sydney Airport at Badgery’s Creek to be ventilated at in the long term Kelly’s conversion to the Anti side assisted with putting aside of the project for the time being.
If this seat falls, it will be “WorkChoices stupid”. Also, in the absence of Kellie, I think voters will reward Bradbury for his persistence/bloody mindedness.
Aussies love a fighter, and this guy just refuses to quit!
The increase in the Liberal vote in Mulgoa can be put down to:
a) no One Nation
b) the redistribution which took away strong ALP areas like Kingswood and brought in the rural areas etc around Ludenham and Wallacia
The constitution only bars people who are subjects or citezens of a foreign power or entitled to to the rights of a subject or citizen of a foreign power on citizen ship grounds.
There is an exemption for some naval and millitary personnel from the office of proffit or trust rule.
Read section 44 of the constitution.
Although Lindsay should technically have been a Labor seat, Howard’s stance on refugees and his leaning towards some of P Hanson’s policies are popular here. It’s also mortgage belt territory and there was a great fear of interest rate rises in the past. Jackie Kelly walks around the electorate in a track suit so as to identify with the battlers, despite her 7 investment properties. I hand out Green how to vote in this area and sometimes cop abuse from the voters.
My Sydney spies say that NSW Labor is absolutely confident of three seats: Parramatta, Dobell and Lindsay. The new boundaries, the retirement of Kelly and the threatened reintroduction of the Masters and Servants Act (WorkChoices II) will deliver Lindsay to Labor.
William, have you read that Greens-Liberal link on the front page? It’s absolute trash.
Tom: There were two issues with Kelly’s election the first time. One was “office under the crown”, the other was the rights to NZ citizenship which was a little less clear at time (It was One Nation Senator-elect Heather Hill’s case in 1998 that provided a clear ruling by the High Court; that is dual nationality with another Commonwealth nation is not acceptable). Of course, the first issue was easier to argue (even it was not a clear case; she was on permanment leave at the time).
Tom (and Bill)
(Obviously I was wrong to suggest that it was one of the independent candidates who challenged the validity of Kelly’s election.)
However I have read S 44 of No. 1 of 1901 and it says, inter alia:
In Free V Kelly (1996) Brennan CJ held
In that decision the question of dual citizenship was not decided.
Blair
You say
My understanding is that she wan’t ie. she did not take advantage of the dispensation engineered in the 1960s to allow serving members of the forces to stand for federal parliament. This was some device that was dreamt up that some nashos used to stand in 1966 and 1969 I think.
I thought that the One Nation senator-elect case`s was rulling that British Citizens were not allowed to be MPs because Britain is a foreign power and or the E.U. connection brought them under “entitled to the rights of a subject or citizen of a foreign popwer”.
The millitary exemtion is not an amendment. It is original.
At the 1945 British election hundreds of servicepersons, mostly “other ranks,” nominated for Parliament in order to get the leave that had traditionally been offered to officers who were candidates. Some were bona fide Labour candidates, but most were just taking a holiday. The rules were then changed to that servicepersons had to convince their CO that they were legit candidates before they could take leave.
The “office of profit” situation didn’t seem to apply to them, in fact many serving members of the armed forces have been simultaneously MPs (among them Churchill). There was a famous incident in 1940 when Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes MP spoke about the Norway fiasco in the House, in full uniform with medals. I don’t know if this is still possible in the UK. This must also have been true in Australia, since Wilfrid Kent Hughes and Adair “Chill” Blain spent several years as PoWs of the Japanese without losing their seats. Blain was in fact re-elected in 1943 while a POW – the rules must have changed to allow him to be nominated by proxy.
In 96, Lindsay was one of the Sydney seats where the swing was boosted by Bob Carr’s broken toll-ways pledge after the 95 state election. Whilst there may have been legal justification for the legal challenge and subsequent by-election; it was politically ill-judged for the political climate and had the effect of actually giving Jackie Kelly a profile in the electorate.
Otherwise, she may well have been a “oncer”. Ross Free had been respected but his career was finished by the challenge and the ALP candidate in 98 was the hyper-ambitious but unelectable Cathy O’Toole.
I think you will find that New Zealand might be considered a foreign power (at least in Rubgy Union). Any legal attachment to NZ would have been via the UK and all of that would have been removed by the Australia Act 1986. It is a mess field and the best suggestion is that any candidate renounce any other citizenship if possible.
Personally, as one the 25% of Australians with dual citizenship I feel it is a rather poor law to have on the books.
Harold Holt served in WW2 briefly whilst an MP before the Canberra air crash. He was then recalled by Ming to serve in cabinet.
Lindsay voter is correct with his/her analysis of the seat in respect of his/her contention concerning refugees and the policies of Hanson.
However, I would guess that the interest rate campaigns of Howard in 2004 would have found fertile ground in this area. It is not that long ago that all that area south of the freeway (Glenmore Park area) was farm land but is now wall to wall McMansions.
This same area is also affected by increases in petrol price and other cost of living expenses.
It will be the reaction of the voters to these increasing costs (interest rates, petrol, child care, food, etc) that will determine what happens in Lindsay.
If the voters think that Howard can fix these problems then Lindsay will still be Liberal after the election but if they blame Howard for their financial stress than it could be a safe Labor seat in the next Government.
Adam,
I would have thought that Macquarie would have similar odds to those Divisions mentioned by you as changing sides considering that Macquarie is now notionally a Labor seat after the redistribution and the quality of the Labor candidate.
The new part of the division is in the west and is more inclined to vote Labor than the eastern end. Debus is very well known in the eastern end having been the state member for many years.
It is worth noting that the part of the old Macquarie (before redistribution) that got hived off to Greenway was a strong Liberal area.
I therefore would have thought that Macquarie would have been included in you list of seats that the Labor party was confidante of getting.
Living in the electorate until 97, I had assumed that Jackie Kelly would be a oncer. That was until the ALP right wing in NSW committed electoral suicide by putting unelectable candidates in the marginal seats e.g Belinda Neale (wife of de la Bosca) in Robertson and Cathy O’Toole in Lindsay.
O’Toole was a 22yr old law student and boy-friend of ETU sub-capo Peter Jones. She had already destroyed the spirit of the branches with some very tacky stacking. There was a ghost branch at Clearmont Meadows which I tried to join but no one could tell me when it met. Meanwhile, at one meeting of the Kingswood branch, 36 manly Philipino members of the ETU turned up for admission. At the next branch one of O’Toole’s advesaries rounded up 15 Irish navvies from the bar. While O’Toole was able to get helpers from Young Labor the local branches took a long time to recover and Jackie Kelly has been given a much better run than she should have.
I understand that O’Toole and Jones both fell foul of Sussex St and are
no longer interested in politics,
dirk provin,
The by-election subsequent to the 96 election was definitely ill judged in that (from memory) Kelly increased he winning margin in that by election.
Tom
You said
The millitary exemtion is not an amendment. It is original.
Please don’t be so obtuse. I didn’t say the constitution had been amended.
To explicate still further: back the 1960s it was argued that people doing National Service (ie. people who had been conscripted into the military by a coward too gutless to serve in the military himself, ie Robt. Menzies supported vociferously by the equally spineless J W Howard) should be allowed to stand for election. Some way was found to achieve this. I was trying to see if someone could explain how this was achieved and perhaps why Ms Kelly and her Party controllers did not avail themselves of such an option thus saving taxpayers the expense of a special election.
Blair
You say:
I feel it is a rather poor law to have on the books.
You are possibly right but when you seek to represent the people of a country you should be a committed citizen of that country ie. I can’t see how you can have a simultaneous allegience to two states although I suppose it could be argued that paying taxes to a state should be the qualifier rather than some outdated concept of national ein volk identity.
In any event such things are practically impossible to get changed given the way our constitution was formulated..
Yes, but some nations do not allow you to renounce citizenship. And others make it rather difficult to renounce. In such cases, swearing an oath would make more sense. Given that the number of dual citizen is set to only increase (due to citizen/dual citizen parent combos producing dual citizens) it will only increase the disengagement of public from the political process.
So, when did it become impossible for a serving member of the ADF to be a parliamentary candidate? Clearly it wasn’t during WW2, but clearly it is now. (Mike Kelly had to resign his commission before nominating). When and by what means was this change made?
Whogivesarats, I’m a she. The other reason why the Libs did well in the past is the increase of small business owners in this area. JK really hasn’t done much for this area.
WhoGivesaRats, Macquarie is a Labor seat on the new boundaries so it doesn’t appear on the list. My spies are confident that Labor will hold Macquarie.
Conversely, Parramatta has a sitting Labor member but is a Liberal seat on the new boundaries so it will count as a Labor gain. The Liberal candidate, a Mr Robinson, still has no website, and there is no mention of him at the Liberal Party website. Rumour suggests that he does not in fact exist.
[WhoGivesaRats, Macquarie is a Labor seat on the new boundaries so it doesn’t appear on the list. My spies are confident that Labor will hold Macquarie.]
If you add up all the seats your spies think they are going to win, does it come to a figure greater or less than 16? 😛
Adam,
I would have thought Labor would have been confident of picking up Eden-Monaro as well (plus retaining Macquarie). Is there anything there that is concerning the ALP? Or are they just being cautious?
ONE PARENT FAMILIES: BEWARE THE MARGINAL SEAT ‘SLEEPER’.
Lindsay has a higher than average proportion of one parent families as have other Coalition marginal seats, so the following information should be taken into consideration when speculating on the outcome.
If you think one-parent families will have no profound influence the outcome of this election, think again. They are indeed going to be one of the ‘sleeper’ influences on the outcome of the 2007 election. This is primarily because of the draconian changes they are being put through by the Howard Government via Centrelink reviews of their payment obligations, as I write this, smack bang in the middle on an election period.
As reported in The Australian, there are 20 Coalition marginal seats with a higher than average proportion of one parent families. There is grounds for why I “titter so†[Life of Brian| on this issue, so lets look at the numbers from the ABS first.
In 2004–2006, there were on average 486,000 one-parent families with children under 15 years. One parent families accounted for 22% of all families with children under 15.
Government pensions and allowances are the largest single source of income for 61% of one-parent family households. 49% of one-parent family households with children under 15 years were simultaneously in the lowest three deciles of income and of net worth. This compared with 11% of couple families with children under 15 years.
(Source: http://www.csmc.org.au/fileadmin/files/ABS_One_Parent_Families.pdf )
The economic and social well – being of one-parent families has been a focus of social policy for some decades (see Australian Social Trends 2006, Children living apart from one parent, pp 44–48). Compared with other family types, one-parent families are considered to be at a higher risk of disadvantage including income, housing, employment and social participation.
So what does Howard introduce from July 1st 2007, a demand that sole parent families with children over the age of 7 must work or be looking for work 15 hours a week or risk having their Centrelink payment cut off for 8 weeks for ‘participation failures’. That’s right, participate or get no Parenting Payment Single for 8 weeks.
The proportion of lone mothers employed full-time was 19% in 2006. A further 32% worked part-time. It is the other 49 % of Australia’s 486,000 one-parent family heads that Howard is going after.
But, I hear people like Glen claim, they can put their children into child care places and after school care like one parent family heads working part time or full time already and stop ‘bludging off the system’.
Sorry, no they can’t. There is a massive shortage of child-care and after school care places and they cost the individual so much if they can get their child placed that is hardly worth the inconvenience and disruption to the families lifestyle. Howard says ‘go to work people’ but provides bugger all in the way of practical support mechanisms {child care; after school care; etc} to enable one parent families to do what he is demanding, typically.
Not very clever to introduce such a draconian social policy in the middle of an election period that directly affects one parent families not working now and those who might lose their jobs in the future. That is, almost half a million voters who are battlers struggling in the bottom 3 income tiers in this country and a good proportion of them living in Howard battler electorates. Too late to ‘campaign left’ on this one JWH.
Lindsay voter,
I don’t know about that he put all that money into that new grandstand for the “Panthers†:):).
On a more realistic note, outside of those personal costs what is required in the area is expenditure on things like public transport, education and health services. Now I now that these are “State issues†however with the Feds sitting on a huge surplus and the State stretched I guess most Lindsay voters would not be averse to a “Tasmanian Hospital†type approach to the areas problems.
Thanks to the “heads up†re the correct pronoun.
Section 44 of the constitution on eligibility of election:
iv.) Holds any office of profit under the Crown, or any pension payable during the pleasure of the Crown out of any of the revenues of the Commonwealth
But sub-section iv. does not apply to the office of any of the Queen’s Ministers of State for the Commonwealth, or of any of the Queen’s Ministers for a State, or to the receipt of pay, half pay, or a pension, by any person as an officer or member of the Queen’s navy or army, or to the receipt of pay as an officer or member of the naval or military forces of the Commonwealth by any person whose services are not wholly employed by the Commonwealth.
This is an original section, so I presume that the military can still stand. Was Kelly’s election overturned because she was a Kiwi or because she was airforce (not the Queen’s navy or army) or both?
Adam, technical note, Mike Kelly hasn’t nominated. If he has resigned now, it’s a defence force thing about being involved in party politics. The constitutional bar doesn’t apply until nominations, which only occurs after the writ is issued.
The legal advice on the defence disqualification exemption is that it applies only to British armed force members and to Commonwealth reservists. It does not apply to serving members of the Commonwealth armed forces. It is one of those archaic provisions where the meaning of Queens forces has been modifed by the breaking of constiututional links with Westmnster.
My reference for this legal is the report of an inquiry by the House of Reps Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs into into Section 44.
To answer my own question, this is an abstract from the High Court (Disputed Returns) judgement:
By a petition addressed to the Court of Disputed Returns pursuant to s 353(1), Mr Free challenged the validity of the election of Ms Kelly as a member of the House of Representatives for the Division of Lindsay. The challenge was based on s 44(i) and (iv) of the Constitution. The former basis of challenge, an allegation that the first respondent held at the time of her nomination dual citizenship as an Australian and New Zealand citizen, was not pursued at the trial of the petition. But it is now common ground that, by reason of s 44(iv) of the Constitution, Ms Kelly was incapable of being chosen as a member of the House of Representatives while serving as an officer of the RAAF at the time of her nomination as a candidate. That is the relevant time for determining whether a person is incapable of being chosen on any of the grounds specified in s 44 of the Constitution . As Ms Kelly was incapable of being chosen as a member of the House of Representatives, an appropriate declaration of incapacity must be made.
Obviously the interpretation of the constitution is different to the plain English meaning.
Antony, you are right. Kelly resigned his commission before nominating for preselection. I’m still not clear from what you say at what date it became impossible for a serving ADF member to be a candidate, or even a candidate to be a candidate.
Swing Lowe, no my spies do not claim 16 seats in NSW 🙂 They put Eden-Monaro in the second tier, as a probable gain. The three they are absolutely certain of are Parramatta, Lindsay and Dobell. Personally I would put Eden-Monaro in that category too, but I don’t live there.
Adam,
Thanks for your reply.
I suppose it is how one looks at the seat. I understand the basis for your classification of both Macquarie and Parramatta however in my mind actual overrides notional.
I should have realised the basis of you approach as I have noted it previously.
It just seems strange that (say) in the case of Parramatta if Labor “retains†the seat it is considered a gain while in Macquarie if Labor does not win the seat and Bartlett is returned it will be considered a loss for Labor
I guess it is hard to override ones preconceptions and habits.
I can’t give you the full history of the defence exclusion, but it definately only applies to ‘Imperial’ forces, and if you read the section cerfully, it only applies to Commonwealth reservists, the reference to ‘services not wholly employed by the Commonwealth’.
I can’t tell you when the meaning of Queen’s forces changed (Statute of Westminster or the Citizenship Act in the 1940s), but it was known in the 1960s. The Defence (Parliamentary Candidates) Act 1969 caused serving Commonwealth defence personal to be immediately classified as reservists if they nominated for Parliament to get around the Constitutional problem.
This is one for Graham Orr.
Adam, at the date of nomination, as specified in the writ. Kelly for instance is not currently a candidate in the legal sense because a writ has not been issued. I always get odd members of the public calling me at this point in the cycle protesting that the AEC will not tell them who the candidates are in their seat. I always have to placate them by saying that as far as the AEC is concerned, there is no election until the writ is issued and nominations called, so without an election there can’t be candidates. That’s why all of us who run websites manage to make a living.
Section 44 uses the disqualification ‘is incapable of being chosen’, which the High Court has taken to mean at the point of nomination. Party advice is that you must resign before you lodge your nominations. I think various Public Service Acts have been re-written so that whenever someone nominates for an election, they are automitically dismissed, as a belt and braces approach to ensuring election results aren’t overturned.
AG sez:
I wonder why that didn’t apply in Squadron Leader Kelly’s case? Incidenally given she is/was a lawyer should she have been fully aware of the situation?
and then:
It would have been a painless no brainer for her it seems…
‘May’ transfer. If the head of Defence declined to transfer, you couldn’t use the act. You’d have to know Kelly’s situation exactly and the attitudes of defence to candidacy to know whether you could use that act any more.
She was on maternity leave. Perhaps, the maternity leave legalisation (which I reckon might have been later than 1969) has something about not changing the woman’s status. I am not sure.
Phil Cleary was on Leave Without Pay as a teacher and judged to hold an office for profit. On maternity leave is not in the Reserves so the ban applied to Jackie Kelly.
I seem to recall that back in 1996 St Mary was in Lindsay and was removed after the 1998 retribution.
Lindsay is a seat the ALP should win, but haven we heard that before.
If I recall in 1996 there were other seats in Western Sydney which recorded bigger swings against the ALP, I think there were a few 12-14 percent swings in seats like Propects and Blaxland.
Lindsay or that the area covering Penrith has a history of going towards the Govt of the day, Frazier held this area and Hawke/Keating did as well and now Howard.
The thing I recall about 1996 was while Jackie Kelly had a high profile when selected, I remember her in an interview saying she didn’t expect to win it.
I suspect this is stating the obvious but I would expect this seat to fall before Wentworth and in the contest of the over all result is perhaps more important for the ALP to gain.
I’ll take a guess at the identity of ‘Adam’, who wouldn’t have mentioned Macquarie for a reason, because loss of preselection could be painful and the memory of it no better – because he is Adam Searle, who no doubt believed he had a good chance of being pre-selected by the ALP Left for Macquarie, until Bob Debus decided to ‘go Federal’ when Macquarie became notionally Labor. But Debus ought to shit it in, as I understand from Blue Mountains sources he is well liked up there. Debus might actually enjoy being a bankbencher again, but could even be made Federal Attorney General without frightening too many horses.
Labor will pick up at least five seats in NSW – Lindsay, Macquarie, Eden-Monaro, Page and maybe even Cowper, with Luke Hartsuyker from the Nats sounding vulnerable, as it seems he is a bit of a charisma bypass, according to PollBludger.
If they don’t pick up Cowper, there’s still the Jewel in the Crown of Bennelong – and Maxine has one of the cleverest political strategists living with her, in Bob Hogg – he maybe getting a bit old, but I bet it hasn’t hurt his political brain. Little Johnny has a genuine struggle there, much more so than Turnbull in Wentworth, but see below.
3 or 4 in South Australia makes a solid 9, with maybe 2 from Victoria if a solid swing is really on.
More problematic is Qld – maybe only 3 after Beattie’s council’s brainsnap – I smell something from ‘Breakfast Creek’ via Fortitude Valley – a lovely gang of ‘comrades’ – it’s well known Rudd hates Swan and junior Ludwig is one of the bludging lower ALP Frontbencher’s Kevvie has just given the ‘rocket’ speech to. They are the weakest frontbench in living memory, aside from Garrett. McLelland is an undertaker and another lawyer in the ALP Mob law firm of Turner Freeman.
No wonder Kevvie still says it will be desperately close, knowing what extra baggage he carries on his Frontbench – 1961 all over again, just as the great Mackerras believed last year, though I note he has changed his tune since late last year.
Turnbull should still hang on against the decidedly uncharismatic Newhouse ( the Liberals polling says “George who”. He has the NSW ALP Right ( or at least parts of it) behind him and knows Walt Secord, Rudd’s principal spin doctor very well from the Bondi ALP Branch, so he’ll get some money from ALP Head Office. But he really needed the Left’s Paul Tracey as campaign manager, not the lovely, but inexperienced, Rose Jackson ( daughter of Liz, the ABC journo) if he really wanted to have any chance of beating Turnbull. Looks like Rose is being groomed to take over Paul Pearce’s state seat of Coogee when Paul eventually takes the London option.
As for Bradbury – do the voters of Lindsay really want a previous two-time loser, albeit against the formidable tracksuited mum in Kelly – a young lawyer working for a big city law firm not known for being friends of the workers and someone controlled by the TWU? I can assure you TWU influence over the NSW government is enormous in certain portfolios ( not just Transport) and most pernicious.
Maybe more tomorrow, if you punters don’t ‘vote me off’.