Bob Debus to Contest Macquarie

Former NSW Attorney General Bob Debus has confirmed that he will stand for the seat of Macquarie in the upcoming Federal Election, citing his desire to see a Labor government elected and a number of issues both within and outside his former portfolios addressed at a Federal level. Before retiring from NSW Parliament at the election, he was the last remaining Minister from the Wran Government, the country's longest serving Environment Minister, as well as the NSW Arts Minister. He is perhaps best known as the target of an extraordinary attack last year by Peter Debnam, involving allegations made under parliamentary privilege but later comprehensively disproven. Coming as they did at the time of the Milton Orkopoulos scandal, Debnam's monumental blunder has been identified by many observers as a key turning point in the Liberal election campaign. This, perhaps even more than any reiteration of his policy to cut 20,000 public service jobs, led to many people deciding they `couldn't risk Debnam'.

Debus should be a formidable candidate in Macquarie, a seat which, as I said earlier, is held by Liberal MP Kerry Bartlett but is notionally Labor after the redistribution. Should Debus win - and of course, should Labor win - his name will almost certainly be raised as a potential Federal Attorney General.