Politcs

At 12.10pm last Friday Julia Gillard strode into the Blue Room in Parliament House with Bob Carr in tow and knocked everyone’s socks off. In the hubbub one of the journos even called Carr “Senator-elect Carr”.

Then at 2pm on the same day NSW Labor emailed its members saying this:

Due to the resignation of Senator Mark Arbib, a vacancy has arisen in the Australian Senate. Under Rule N.4, the NSW Labor Party Officers have called for nominations for this position to be determined by a ballot of the NSW ALP Administrative Committee, according to the following timetable:

Nominations open:      1pm, Friday 2 March 2012
Nominations close:      5pm, Monday 5 March 2012
Nomination fee:        $750

The rest of Gillard’s Cabinet movers were sworn in this morning without Carr, who is waiting for this ALP process to pan out and then a joint sitting of the NSW Parliament before being sworn in as both a Senator and the Foreign Minister. It’s all a bit weird.

Bob Carr, along with Steve Bracks and John Faulkner, authored an extensive review into the Labor Party last year, which had many, many recommendations including: “Community engagement with primaries, introducing primaries for preselections in nonheld and open seats so that Labor’s supporters have a say in their local representatives.”

Continue reading "ALP members - you’ve got 3 hours to reclaim your dignity" »

LOVERS of test cricket know the best thing about the five day game is its potential to ebb and flow. One team can look to be winning but then the character of the match changes - sometimes dramatically and other times in a cumulative, almost imperceptible way.

The importance of small things - a dropped catch for example - becomes obvious only in hindsight. Politics can be strikingly similar in this regard. In this longest of games, there is a general assumption that Kevin Rudd is a shoe-in at the next election.

Polls confirm this on a fortnightly basis and it would be a brave correspondent who predicted otherwise. But equally, the result cannot simply be assumed.

Continue reading "Abbott’s leg spin to Rudd’s middle of the road" »