By Kishor Napier-Raman and Noel Towell
As the NSW Liberals prepare for their Star Wars-themed convention next weekend (remember it’s called A New Hope) and elect a new senator, numerous hopefuls are sharpening their pitches.
Former NSW transport minister Andrew Constance remains the frontrunner, and the video he circulated to delegates this week was suitably vanilla, spruiking his cabinet experience, and leadership during the Black Summer bushfires.
Meanwhile, fellow moderate and former Wentworth MP Dave Sharma reckons the party can win back government if they improve their “competitiveness”.
“As a proven parliamentary, campaign and media performer, I know how to scrutinise Labor, develop policy to attract voters, and bolster our campaign resources,” Sharma wrote in a candidate statement.
Huge call from a bloke who lost Wentworth twice. He probably won’t win this one either.
But our favourite promo was released by another defeated has-been, former ACT senator Zed Seselja, who delivered a painfully awkward video spiel from in front of Queanbeyan’s Riverside Plaza, promising to “fight against cancel culture”.
“We need to stand up against the woke indoctrination of our kids in schools and against the left-wing bias in the ABC,” Zed reckons. Real hip-pocket stuff!
The video features some awkward endorsements from Tony Abbott, coal-loving Senator Matt Canavan and shadow ministers “Well Done” Angus Taylor and Andrew “Tasty” Hastie.
Seselja also has Nathaniel Smith, the abortion-hating, Donald Trump-loving former Wollondilly MP who lost his seat to independent Judy Hannan in March taking time out of his new job as Chief Executive of the NSW Master Plumbers’ Association to work the phones.
Smith has been delivering a few disses at rival candidate Monica Tudehope, daughter of ex-finance minister Damien Tudehope, and a former staffer to Dominic Perrottet. They’re meant to be in the same faction, but such is the splintering over on the party’s right flank.
Speaking of Tudehope, her video looks a little more chipper and professional, and features a long endorsement from Perrottet. Former Space Industry Association boss and Malcolm Turnbull’s ex-son-in-law James Brown released his brochure too, featuring endorsements from the big dog John Howard, Julie Bishop, and David Elliott.
KELLY EVERYWHERE
The catastrophic failure of the Optus network last week continues to cramp the style of chief executive and self-described Citizen of the World Kelly Bayer Rosmarin.
REA’s AGM failed to see KBR “IRL”.Credit: John Shakespeare
Attendees at Thursday’s REA Group annual general meeting hoping to see Bayer Rosmarin in the flesh there – she is a non-executive director of the real estate listings giant – would have been disappointed.
REA Chairman Hamish McLennan – no doubt enjoying a break from questions about the bin fire that is Rugby Australia, which he also chairs – broke the news that Bayer Rosmarin would be beaming in from Canberra where she was required for a “public hearing”.
Which we thought was a little weird, because the Optus CEO wasn’t due to front a much-anticipated hearing of the Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications, chaired by the Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young until Friday morning.
It wasn’t that weird, it turns out, with a source close to the Optus camp telling us that Bayer Rosmarin and her team thought it sensible to get to the capital in plenty of time for the hearing. Nothing to chance and all of that.
HAWKWARD MOMENT
Former immigration minister Alex Hawke is learning about the price of loyalty. A powerbroker for the Liberal Party’s Centre Right Faction, Hawke was Scott Morrison’s most loyal confidante, helping his prayer buddy work the numbers during the 2018 leadership spill.
Now, Hawke is a backbencher facing a tough pre-selection fight to remain member for Mitchell in Sydney’s Hills District, and his perceived closeness with Scomo is not helping him.
It’s forced Hawke to get on Canva and put together a pre-selection booklet documenting his achievements for the good Bible-belt branch members.
The whole thing has a real “running for school captain” energy to it, but while Hawke isn’t making any outrageous promises of pumping Coca-Cola through the bubblers, we do have one truly rank photoshop job.
The MP was awkwardly added into a picture of the Hawke clan on the front cover, hovering uncomfortably in the background.
It didn’t take long for political watchers to find the original picture, of just the family sans Hawke, on his Facebook page, as shown below.
Alex Hawke’s original family photo on the left, before some subtle retouching occurred for the campaign pamphlet.
Meanwhile, there’s no mention of Morrison in the booklet, and while he’s not been airbrushed completely from the selection of pictures, you’ve got to squint very hard to find a snap of Hawke and the man he helped make prime minister.
UNION BLUES
It’s bad enough for the Labor when the Greens keep taking their lefty inner-city seats, but it’s really gonna sting the comrades if a card-carrying greenie jags a key leadership role at one of the ALP’s most reliable unions.
A key player in the concerted challenge to the long-standing national leadership of the Community and Public Sector Union led by Labor lifer Melissa Donnelly is none other than Adriana Boisen.
Boisen, who is running to be the union’s national president, is a former ACT Greens candidate who now works as a staffer to the party’s federal housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather, known – not affectionately – in Labor circles simply as “Hyphen”.
But, Boisen told us the internal CPSU insurgency, which has forced the union’s first contested elections in 18 years, was a cross-party effort – with another candidate from her group, which is called Members United, an ALP member who works for an ACT Labor government MP.
She and her colleagues have pledged not to hold office in any political party while filling official roles with the union, said Boisen, who argues that the close relationship between the CPSU and Labor is a problem when union officials faced their ALP mates across the wage bargaining table, to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in affiliation fees handed over each year.
Voting is under way and polls close on December 6. Exciting stuff.
Donnelly declined to comment.