17 candidates in search of a seat

THIS weekend's preselection for the safe Liberal seat of Bradfield on Sydney's leafy north shore has been remarkable more for the nature of the contest than for the outcome.Glossy brochures, high-profile endorsements, wining and dining are just some of the campaign methods that have been adopted by serious contenders. One well-placed candidate told me $10,000 was the minimum spend for getting his message out.

While that figure may not compare with what Malcolm Turnbull and Peter King had to spend in their high profile preselection showdown in Wentworth in 2004, it is hardly chicken feed, especially if you consider that there are at least a half-dozen contenders.

The Bradfield showdown isn't a US-style primary. It doesn't even include a membership-wide plebiscite system such as that used by the Liberal Party in Victoria. But the professionalism of some of the candidates' campaigns has matched to sort of mass distributions normally associated with such contests. Labor won't be contesting the by-election that will follow the Liberal preselection, but whoever wins will still need to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for what will be an important test of Turnbull's leadership against a host of local independents and the Greens.

One of the arguments local candidates such as Menzies Research Centre executive director Julian Leeser and former opinion page editor at The Australian Tom Switzer have been running when campaigning for endorsement is that controversial development issues locally may play a role in a by-election. An outsider running in Bradfield could be upset by a strong local independent, so the argument goes.

For a party with rules preventing its members talking to the media about internal matters, a fair number of column centimetres have been consumed by the Bradfield showdown. But preselectors upset at this approach by candidates can hardly mark down any one contender for doing so, given that the main challengers or their supporters clearly have been on the phones to the media.

Before a date had even been set for the opening up of nominations, the Liberal Party state director in NSW, Mark Neeham, wrote to possible candidates to warn them against talking to the media. It was a premature strike, especially given some of the people he wrote to weren't even Liberal Party members and didn't even nominate. Judging by the amount of press the Bradfield contest has received in recent weeks, Neeham's letter doesn't appear to have had the effect he wanted.

The extent of backgrounding of the media hit new heights yesterday when a list of businesspeople endorsing one high-profile candidate, favourite and Optus executive Paul Fletcher, was published as a news story on the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald. That followed stories naming high-profile endorsements for candidates such as Leeser, Switzer, PBL executive David Coleman, former Brendan Nelson staff member Simon Berger and author and business analyst Philip Senior, candidates worthy of a seat in parliament.

The Liberal hierarchy may like its organisation to carry the hallmarks of a secret society but at the moment it more closely resembles a leaking ship.

If you are reading this on Saturday, take a moment to feel for the 117Liberal Party members locked away from the outside world at the Hornsby RSL. There won't even be a television in the background broadcasting the AFL grand final. If they're lucky, theyll get a few newspapers to share around. The process will continue through the day as the 17 candidates formally work their way around small groups of preselectors in round table format to answer questions and make short pitches.

By 7pm the voting process starts as each of the candidates gets eliminated. It is entirely possible we won't know the result until the early hours of Sunday morning. If you are reading this article on Sunday, in all likelihood the result will be available on The Australian's website, even if it wasn't known in time to make it into the Sunday papers. The talk will quickly move from the process of the preselection to the choice of the candidate selected.

The danger of predictions aside, there are four main challengers for Bradfield. For the past two weeks Fletcher has been tagged as the favourite but he has the twin negatives of being close to the left-wing cliche The Group and not living in the area. Coleman is a centrist rival to Fletcher, but he also doesn't live in the area and the risk for him is not having enough support early in the count to last long enough to pick up expected preferences. Leeser and Berger should get strong local support but the difficulty for each of them is winning enough factional support to secure a majority if they make it to the final two.

For the defeated candidates there are limited options to seek parliamentary representation for the next federal election. The reason: nominations for neighbouring safe Liberal seats closed on Friday.

Seats such as Berowra and Mackellar, adjoining Bradfield, are occupied by ageing backbenchers Philip Ruddock and Bronwyn Bishop, both 66. The best years of their parliamentary careers are in the past. In Ruddock's case he is the father of the house having been in the parliament for more than 35 years.

If the Bradfield candidates are such a talented lot, as Liberals will try to tell you until they are blue in the face, why not hold off closing nominations for nearby seats until after Bradfield preselectors make their choice so the remaining candidates can make a run at another seat?

A senior Liberal pointed out to me that there is nothing to prevent any of the Bradfield candidates nominating for another seat, as long as they did so by Friday. Technically that is true, but not if they want to be seriously considered for Bradfield on Saturday. It would be a damaging whisper campaign against a contender in Bradfield to be accused of having been so uncommitted to the electorate that they also nominated elsewhere before even knowing how the Bradfield result would play out. It might be a good question for preselectors to ask in the round table sessions.

In other words, it is likely that, when the music stops in Bradfield, 16 of the 17 candidates will be left without a seat. For all the talk about the quality of the field, only one member of it may get the chance to represent the Liberal Party in parliament. That's not the sort of renewal that will help Liberals win their way back into government.