The Lieutenant takes the Mission
Todays Sydney Morning Herald carried what appeared, at first glance , to be an encouraging report on John Brogden's life after politics.
The article detailed how Mr Brogden has been able to stare down his personal demons and undertake a worthwhile public duty fronting Lifeline, and speaking candidly about recovering from the debilitating illness of depression.
However, a line at the end of the article, almost an afterthought, brought me abruptly back to reality:
"Alex Hawke, whom Mr Brogden accused of undermining him before his resignation, is a surprise candidate for preselection in the federal seat of Mitchell. The lieutenant to the Liberal right-wing powerbroker David Clarke will stand against the sitting Liberal, Alan Cadman".
This is very disturbing news.
Despite holding one of the safest Liberal seats in the nation, and being second only to Phillip Ruddock in length of Parliamentary service, Mr Cadman has struggled in the past to retain his preselection, securing it by a mere 3 votes in 2004.
One would hope that Mr Clarkes particularly noisome cadre, whose last public performance was to bludgeon to death any chance that the Liberals may have had to win the NSW election, will be denied the opportunity to present their poster-boy for election to Federal Parliament.
posted by Milltown Pete @ 9:12 PM
1 Comments:
Scenario if Alex Hawke gets pre-selected.
If some Labor official was feeling mischievious they might think of approaching a dissident Liberal of running in this seat - they'd probably only knock about 10 per cent off the margin, but it could help in neighbouring electorates in reinforcing how the Liberals have been hijacked by the lunatic fringe of the religious right and with the demise of Brogden just how willing the modern liberals like Hawke are to play politics to the nth degree. This might help create a foul smell that would help in neighbouring electorates like Bennelong, Parramatta, Greenway where this sort of Machiavellian behaviour isn't going to go down well, where Howard and "mean and trickey", "plays politics too often" are starting to become more apparent to more people.
I remember before the state election when the David Clarke faction attempted to support Cnr Thomas over Wayne Merton, one of the rival liberal councellors announced on the front-page of the local paper that if Thomas was pre-selected as the Liberal candidate he would run as an independent and preference Labor, which stopped the pre-selection challenge in its tracks. I wonder if one of the progressive libs (or former libs) would be willing to throw their hat in the ring. I know an old friend who was in the young libs, who refers to Clarke's mob as "Australian Taliban," it wouldn't be surprising if there was some hearty soul not too happy with branchstackers anonymous and their bizarre medieval practices.
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