Army officer takes his Senate hopes on the road

Influential union-backed Labor senator Chris Ketter is under challenge from a progressive army officer.

Chris Ketter. Picture: Annette Dew

Influential union-backed Labor senator Chris Ketter is under challenge from a progressive army officer who plans to overcome his lack of factional support with a two-month campaign canvassing the party’s grassroots.

Pat O’Neill enters the preselection contest with little union support, meaning he will need to win over two-thirds of Queensland Labor’s rank and file to succeed in toppling Senator Ketter, the ALP’s deputy whip and a stalwart of the right-wing shopworkers’ union.

“I’m not endorsed by any faction, but together, with rank-and-file members across Queensland, we can win this and put real purpose back into politics,” Mr O’Neill wrote to party members ahead of his tour, touting the rank-and-file ballot as the first in living memory.

“Let’s show that politics can be at its best by talking about policies rather than politicians, trading ideas rather than insults, listening rather than lecturing.”

Queensland Labor’s rule book gives unions half of the voting power in Senate preselections, with the remaining half reflecting a plebiscite of party members. However, in reality, the influence of unions and factions make such challenges rare.

Mr O’Neill, who declined to be interviewed, belongs to the depleted old-guard faction Labor Unity, which produced Kevin Rudd and Peter Beattie but struggles to gain support from unions.

Senator Ketter, whose faction is the second-largest after the Left, said he would “certainly” contest any preselection battle.

“I have fought for fair work for fair pay, penalty rates and better superannuation outcomes for workers,’’ he told The Australian.

“I have spoken out on regional inequality, securing a senate inquiry to address it.’’

“I have worked closely with Labor’s economic leadership team in my role as chair of the Senate economics references committee and together, through pressure on the government, we helped secure the banking royal commission.”

Mr O’Neill will take leave from the army to undertake the roadtrip that is expected to stop in coastal and outback towns and cities including Mount Isa, Weipa and Barcaldine.

Mr O’Neill courted controversy in 2016 as the ALP’s candidate for Brisbane when he was forced to scrap three billboards depicting him in fatigues. Mr O’Neill, who is gay, replaced a billboard depicting him with his “second family” of a young woman, her baby son and her grandmother.

Mr O’Neill was defeated by Liberal candidate Trevor Evans by a margin of 5.9 per cent in a historic lower-house contest between two gay candidates.