WA Premier Alan Carpenter has got away with imposing his well on the ALP's preselection process, appointing his COS Rita Saffioti and various other friends and mentors such that people now refer to the "Carpenter faction".
It's a worry because his choice in mates is not always so sound. One, Attorney-General and leftard Jim McGinty excelled himself last week claiming that pedophiles vote Liberal. McGinty reckoned "It was meant as a joke, people ought to lighten up a bit." Charming.
THE PARTY PRESELECTION PROCESS IS A JOKE
While the preselection processes of the political parties remain such an elite and exclusive affair, decided only by those who go through the trial by ordeal necessary to maintain membership putting up with the Ken Aldreds and the Diane Andersons, then it will remain very vulnerable to party leaders, especially those in government, announcing who the candidates will be via press release with a minimum of consultation.
In Victoria, we saw the previous Premier appoint his own COS Tim Pallas who wasn't such a bad choice but then felt the need to distract from appointing his own man by appointing a demonstrated outsider hated by both factions Evan Thornley who not only had a lot of Louis Vuitton bags but had more baggage than Louis Vuitton (he slightly redeemed himself in some eyes by joining the moderate faction Labor Unity) which then created an opportunity for the Socialist Left to appoint Khalil Eideh, also a multi-millionaire but one who'd sworn allegiance to the President of the Syrian police state while informing on those he thought were acting against the regime's interests.
Pallas wasn't so bad and would have been preselected for something eventually otherwise, Thornley a bit of a shonk but showing signs he might redeem himself and Eideh a disgrace so profound it still shocks he's in Parliament. It's hardly the proudest record of Premier intervention.
IT WAS THE LEFT WOT DONE IT
It's ironic that the Socialist Left played such a big part in discrediting the old process now have so much to lose from its dismantling. Many of their candidatards are not the sort likely to appeal to the average Premier's office. It's a messy situation of their own creation too. They took branch-stacking of the ethnic kind to a whole new level in the 1970s and 80s, pioneering multiple recruitment campaigns across many immigrant communities. It didn't take long for their factional rivals to wise up and get much better at recruiting than the Left ever were, partly because their values had much more in common with the potential recruits, many of whom had fled socialist regimes of one kind or another.
So the Left got very narky and whined repeatedly about the injustice of defeat to their favoured outlets, Four Corners, The Age and the SMH about how corrupt the system was because they kept losing. They won the argument, partly because the preselection system is largely undefendable, with some MPs elected with very little grass-roots support. As one example, there are said to be only forty ALP members in Lynne Kosky's seat of Altona, a seat she is said to be contemplating leaving. So if you'd stumped up with fifty of your closest personal friends and mentors in time, joined the Carr militant tendency of the Left, made nice with Kosmos Samaras (and possibly joined the Army Reserve or at least got a buzz-cut) and it could have been yours. The Libs, Nats and Greens Party have similar horror stories of rotten boroughs. The system is a joke.
The truth is we'll see much more of party leader's unilaterally selecting candidates until there's a genuine reform that permits all party supporters to have a vote in selecting party candidates. All taxpayers pay the bills of these parties, pumping in many tens of millions of dollars. The vast majority of people live in seats which never change hands, are always either solidly Liberal or Labor. It's time that vast majority actually were given some say in who represents them. In many cases, this would be a formality because many of our MPs do a fine job. But those who didn't get the balance right, who were too low-profile, too indolent, too unpleasant, corrupt or whatever would be made vulnerable in their hitherto safe seats.
Until our elected representatives accept the need for this kind of genuine democracy, a good number of them will continue to be vulnerable to their party leader telling them their number is up.
Game on.
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