James Campbell: Preselection anxiety spooks both parties
AN unfortunate side effect of the recent early election chatter has been an outbreak of preselection anxiety among Victoria’s political classes, writes James Campbell.
James Campbell
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AN unfortunate side effect of the recent early election chatter has been an outbreak of preselection anxiety among Victoria’s political classes.
Preselection anxiety is a condition which occurs when one faction of a political party becomes gripped by a fear that their internal opponents plan to game the party rules to give it to them in the neck.
There are several ways this can happen. The dominant group can use its power over the party rules to knock the other side’s votes out, they can hold the preselection at a time and place that advantages them or — in extreme cases — they can even cancel preselections altogether.
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In recent weeks it is this last fear that gripped the world of Victorian politics, with rumours that despite protests from Labor and Liberal powerbrokers that of course they are committed to internal democracy, in fact the fix is in and who gets to run at the next federal election will be stitched up centrally.
The ostensible reason we are in this position — less than a year to go before the next federal poll and not a single candidate for either party yet endorsed — is because the Australian Electoral Commission has only just handed down the final boundaries for the House of Reps in Victoria.
It doesn’t explain, however, why neither party has yet to pick its Senate ticket.
In Labor’s case this doesn’t really matter as its process for choosing Senate candidates is a straight vote of its standing Public Office Selection Committee — which can be held any time.
The Liberal Party’s procedures are a good deal more complicated — a convention made up of the members of its State Assembly plus six delegates from each electorate plus 120 random State Council delegates (60 men and 60 women). You could argue of course that the election of the six delegates from each seat could not have taken place until the new boundaries were released but, again, one can’t help feeling that this could have been overcome if the will had been there. Anyway, the boundaries are out now and there is still no sign of the Liberal Party calling a Senate or indeed any kind of federal preselection.
What is more this isn’t going to change for the better part of two months — the next meeting of the party’s Admin Committee, which has the power to call preselections, isn’t until August 23. This point blank refusal to get on with it is said to be causing irritation in the Prime Minister’s office and the party secretariat in Canberra as preselections in other states are already well under way.
The fear among some Liberals is that the clique that controls the Admin Committee would like to hold off for so long that it becomes too late to hold preselections at all, in which case they would move to re-endorse all sitting lower house members and perhaps the sitting Senators as well, though the supporters of Senator Jane Hume suspect the conservatives would like to put her to the sword.
This move would be sold to the membership as a peace-in-our-time deal to prevent challenges to moderates Tim Wilson and Kelly O’Dwyer and the conservative war horse Kevin Andrews.
In reality Wilson and O’Dwyer have made it clear they aren’t worried about being challenged because they are confident they would win. Andrews’s supporters don’t seem so optimistic which is why there is a belief his friends will make sure he doesn’t have to go through a preselection.
On the other side, Andrews’ opponents are determined to force the issue — even going so far as to collect the signatures for an emergency state council which could overturn a decision of the Admin Committee.
Meanwhile, at the ALP, a fight is on between those who want all Labor’s preselections to be sent to the party’s National Executive and those who want local votes.
The National Executive push is being spearheaded by Senator Kim Carr of the Socialist Left and former senator Stephen Conroy of Responsible Wagering Australia, both of whom happen to be members of the National Executive. The argument they have been using is that the Right faction grouping, associated with Legislative Council MP Adem Somyurek, and the breakaway group from the Socialist Left, associated with former Emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett, plan to use their factional might to whack a bunch of federal MPs.
This narrative has suffered something of a setback in recent days as the Right faction resolved — unanimously — that all sitting MPs should be re-endorsed.
The decision was due to be made last night but has since been postponed a week. Some suspect the real source of the blue is Carr’s obsession with stopping any deal that might see the newly created seat of Fraser — or Maribyrnong if Bill Shorten jumps seats — used as a bargaining chip to get Garrett a seat in state parliament. We’ll have to wait until then to find out if Labor democracy has been abandoned or merely postponed as it has in the Liberal Party.
James Campbell is national politics editor
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