A Temporary Calm in Victoria

The Herald Sun has reported that Liberal Powerbroker (tm) Michael Kroger has finally abandoned his long-rumoured attempts to oust moderate Liberal Petro Georgiou from the seat of Kooyong. Does this also mean that Kroger - a long time Peter Costello crony - has abandoned hope of a Costello led government in the near or even distant future? It's almost passe to speculate nowadays. It must suck to be Peter Costello ...

Meanwhile, former Labor leader Simon Crean is on slightly safer ground today as far as his own preselection goes. On Sunday's Insiders, Kim Beazley made the rather glib (to say the least) excuse that all MPs, including himself, face the same pre-selection pressures and that this was a perfectly fair and democratic process - ironically, one that Crean himself helped to improve as part of his drive to foster greater internal party democracy. As to Barrie Cassidy's question of whether Crean was now being punished for exactly this process - well, Kim wouldn't bite at that one.

I'm not saying that Kim Beazley should intervene in factional brawls such as this. It's the factions themselves that should take a good hard look at themselves, stop using the figleaf of `party renewal' to fulfil their own ambitions, and pay some respect. One of the things the Liberal Party has always been most jealous of is the rich history of the Labor Party, and the regard it pays to its veterans (today's poll naming Gough Whitlam one of the three most admired Australians, for example, is likely to stick in the craw of the PM). I'm not saying Simon Crean is on a par with Gough Whitlam, but there are certain things you don't do, and throwing a former leader and faithful servant of the party on the garbage heap is one of them.