Have a go Kernot dreaming of a seat in Senate

JULIA Gillard styles herself as the candidate for "moving forward". Cheryl Kernot is now trying to appeal to those who prefer the view in the rear-vision mirror.

Kernot, now 61, entered politics 20 years ago when she replaced Michael Macklin as a senator for the Australian Democrats. A year later she attempted to topple Janet Powell, the leader of that now-extinct band of fantasists. She didn't secure the top job (that went to John Coulter, who became the Democrats' fourth leader) but she continued to hunger for the leadership. In 1993, she took over. A great media flirt with enormous personal ambition, she managed to increase the popular vote of the Democrats in the 1996 election before realising that the Democrats were not in the main game. She did a runner in 1997, wooed by Labor's foreign minister Gareth Evans, later revealed as her lover. The Labor Party ran her in the Brisbane electorate of Dickson in the 1998 election but Kernot later protested that she had been given a tough task in that seat, adding to her growing reputation as a whinger. The voters of Dickson were not impressed and dropped her for the Liberals' Peter Dutton at their first opportunity, the 2001 election. Kernot will run as an independent Senate candidate with the former independent one-term Manly councillor Simon Cant, a self-described "community building organiser". That apparently is someone who believes he builds socially cohesive communities. Cant's campaign is based on his community organiser credentials, the need for parking, improving traffic and safety. He should attend Manly magistrates' court to learn how successful he has been. Kernot says she has been urged to stand by members of the public with whom she shares "their expressed despair at the quality and expense of our current election campaign with its narrow, superficial focus and avoidance of the complex and challenging issues facing us as a nation and a global citizen". Kernot doesn't explain why anyone could believe she would be capable of offering anything meaningful to politics, though she says she has "learned a great deal from my previous parliamentary experiences, and I believe I still have something constructive to contribute to Australian political life. Instead of just commenting, I am willing to 'have a go' in this last phase of my working life". The decision to run was taken on Tuesday and Kernot has taken unpaid leave from her job as director of social business at the Centre for Social Impact at the University of New South Wales. If this is a dream team, the dreamers are the candidates.