Caleb Bond: Nick Champion is following a pattern that has become all too common for the ALP

It doesn’t matter where you live, Labor will parachute its chosen favourites in and take local votes for granted, writes Caleb Bond.

People expect politicians to lie, evade and be a bit slippery.

It hurts but it is part and parcel of the game so, sadly, we accept it.

But what really hurts as a voter is to feel as though you have been taken for granted – that you are merely a number to allow a party to parachute in their preferred candidate.

That is exactly how Labor is treating the good people of Adelaide’s northern suburbs by asking them to elect Nick Champion to state parliament – having made the transfer from federal parliament despite the fact he now lives a world away in hoity-toity North Adelaide.

Mr Champion grew up in, and has spent most of his life in, the northern suburbs. There is no question he understands the area and generally understands the people who live within it.

But what sort of message does it send that the bloke who has represented you federally since 2007, and now wants to represent you at a state level, who has lived among his constituents most of his life, has decided he no longer wants to live near you?

He’s happy to take your votes and the associated pay packet. He’s happy to get in the car and drive out to the northern suburbs, safe in the knowledge that he can return to the leafy surrounds of one of Adelaide’s most exclusive suburbs at day’s end.

Former Federal Labor backbencher Nick Champion. Picture: Lukas Coch

It’s not like he even lives in the same general direction as his potential constituents, unless you count the fact North Adelaide is a short walk north of the CBD.

It’s easy for Labor – and always remember it is called “Labor” because it is meant to be the workingman’s party – to parachute a man like Mr Champion into a safe seat and guarantee him a spot in parliament.

His former federal seats of Wakefield and Spence were safely held by Labor.

The state seat he now seeks to win, Taylor, is such a safe Labor seat that Nick Xenophon’s ill-fated SA Best attracted about 1300 more voters than the Liberals in 2018.

There is little question that, despite his lack of proximity to his would-be constituents, Mr Champion will be the next member for Taylor. But they shouldn’t have to cop that kind of treatment from the Labor Party.

They deserve a local – not just someone who has lived locally but does live locally. Who is as intimately familiar with daily issues as they are.

There are two things that make this instance of fly-by-night candidacy particularly egregious.

The first is that North Adelaide may as well be in a completely different world to Davoren Park. Its make-up is completely different.

The difference in income levels could not be more stark. Nor the difference in property values, or the investment of councils in making the place look beautiful.

Many of the people who live in North Adelaide have most probably never been north of Gepps Cross. Davoren Park? Where’s that? Somewhere in Baghdad?

When these people are your neighbours, the people you now live among and mix with, you have to ask why.

It’s certainly not for career opportunity – it has made no difference whatsoever to that. Is it because he feels more comfortable living in North Adelaide? Is it because he likes the area better than the northern suburbs?

Pray tell, Mr Champion.

It is, quite frankly, insulting that he would think he could still represent the people of Taylor after moving somewhere about as far from Taylor as you could get.

The second thing is that Mr Champion, a backbencher for 15 years in the federal Labor caucus, may now have a shot at a frontbench position.

Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Mariuz

Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas is said to be a big supporter of his factional friend.

Should Labor win government, Mr Champion could well become a minister for the first time in his life. And with it will come a handsome pay rise and all the other perks, such as a driver.

It’s hard not to see this as an opportunity for the Labor Party to leverage the people of the northern suburbs.

There will be no Canberra travel, he’ll be able to spend more time with is family, he’ll be in line for a plum position on the frontbench and – lucky for him – he’ll be able to spend more time in North Adelaide.

When Mr Champion nominated for Taylor preselection last year, he told Gawler newspaper The Bunyip that he was doing it for two reasons – because he liked Mr Malinauskas’s leadership and he wanted to be closer to the community.

He had already been living in North Adelaide for nigh on four years when he said that.

This is, unfortunately, a pattern that has become all too common for the ALP.

Their star federal candidate in the seat of Fowler, in Sydney’s western suburbs, is former NSW premier turned broadcaster turned Senator Kristina Keneally.

NSW Labor Senator Kristina Keneally. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Flavio Brancaleone

At the time of her preselection she was living on exclusive Scotland Island on the Northern Beaches – accessible only by boat.

She was parachuted in over the top of a young local candidate, Tu Le, who had the backing of the sitting member and is of Vietnamese descent.

So much for supporting diversity. Labor leader Anthony Albanese even had the temerity to suggest Mrs Keneally would make a good candidate for the area because she was a “migrant success story”.

Michael O’Brien, Leesa Vlahos and former premier Mike Rann are all one-time northern suburbs Labor MPs who actually lived in the eastern suburbs.

How can the Labor Party profess to genuinely care about the needs of working people when it continually lumbers them with candidates who do not live among them?

Just because it’s a safe seat, it doesn’t mean people don’t deserve proper representation.