Val Jeffery to be the Liberals' secret weapon in Brindabella?

Yes, his coming out in the Canberra Times was quite revealing. How many times over the years have they identified him as a Liberal Party member? And before he gets too much more mileage from the straight talking cantankerous old warhorse persona, someone might tell him and his camp followers youse don’t need no university education to speak proper – just good old fashioned discipline and attention to detail – qualities which some of us look for in our representatives.

New Yeah said :

Jeffrey’s bushfire fighting prowess aside, I don’t think he has much to offer voters out in the ‘nong and beyond.

In the Crimes interview last week he was only able to offer asinine policy suggestions. If this cantankerous old geezer is the best the Libs can exhume for the upcoming election then gob help us.

No slight upon his business sense, bushfire experience or personality, but I have to agree.

+1
I’m sure he is a nice guy and all, but well that doesn’t make a good politician, not that we have any in Canberra right now.

“A key plank”

Very good Johnboy. 😉

Jeffrey’s bushfire fighting prowess aside, I don’t think he has much to offer voters out in the ‘nong and beyond.

In the Crimes interview last week he was only able to offer asinine policy suggestions. If this cantankerous old geezer is the best the Libs can exhume for the upcoming election then gob help us.

andym said :

(where the rest of Canberra’s firefighters performed less admirably in the opinion of many)

I think thats a bit harsh.

Harsh, but fair.

If the ACT Emergency Services had properly engaged with NSW Bushfire brigade, a significant amount of damage could have been controlled. Blind freddy can tell you that fires burn faster going up a hill thenn down, and someone with an once of bushfire experience should also know that eucy forests burn at a much hire temp (700+ degrees) compared to a Pine forest (400+).

THEREFORE… when you have a get a very hot fire at the bottom of a valley and moves into a medium that burns at a much lower temp you will get a massive accelleration of the fire front.

The management of the ACT emergency services MUST have known this (as it’s basic stuff that any undergrad environmental science student is taught), which means that those in charge at the time were either (1) asleep at the wheel or (2) incompetent (or worst case both).

I live in Macgregor said :

You don’t see many examples in politics where a former “independent” subsequently outs himself as a Liberal stalking horse: Val said ”My sole purpose of last time was to get the Liberal Party into power.”!!! That’s a big addmission from the lead candidate in a party purporting to be “independent” of the major parties. It might make a lot of people who voted for CAP last time wonder why Val and his friends weren’t being completely honest with the voters??

You might find CAP is not happy about statement since their aim was to prevent a re-run of majority government from anyone, as much as that is not the ALP preferred view of life.

It has happened before, too, and not just by individuals. If you look at the last federal election campaign where the Senate, Greens and Labor were all telling people to vote against Humphries to force a quicker change of power in the Senate, you have three whole parties working together – all stalking horses for each other?

There are people – usually not ALP, Greens and Lib hacks – who think that power should change hands often enough to prevent the entrenched interests and assumption of unaccountability we see in long-running governments. At any time, it makes them de facto supporters of the opposition of the day. The Democrats, God bless their little hearts, used to be the party of choice in that regard.

Disclaimer: Disenchanted Democrat voter wishing they could come back and keep the *$# honest.

Anna Key said :

I look forward to Val’s views on a wide range of issues other than bushfires. But I can see why the Libs would be keen, he outpolled most of them at the last election

Yes – When it came time for me to put my mark on the ballot paper last time, I quickly notgiced that Val J. was the only person of substance on offer.

I would probably still vote for him even if he joiuned the Libs, but I have a serious problem with the party that gave in to Nimbyism from the neurotics from Macarthur to scotch the eminently sensible gas-fired powerstation and data centre which was being planned for next door to the Mugga Lane Tip.

The Libs are meant to be pro-business – what’s the deal with them blocking development on account of selfish and incoherent “environmental” objections?

Just visited the CAP website at http://www.cap.org.au/electorates/brindabella

They still have Val listed as their Brindabella candidate. Woops! 🙂

Either they will have to update that page or change their slogan from: “We are seeking to establish balanced government” to something much closer to Val’s latest honest to god quote in our local journal of record: “Our sole purpose is to get the Liberal Party into power”!!

It’s a very interesting story by a highly reputable journo in the Canberra Times, and quite revealing. You don’t see many examples in politics where a former “independent” subsequently outs himself as a Liberal stalking horse:

Val said ”My sole purpose of last time was to get the Liberal Party into power.”!!!

That’s a big addmission from the lead candidate in a party purporting to be “independent” of the major parties. It might make a lot of people who voted for CAP last time wonder why Val and his friends weren’t being completely honest with the voters??

It might also make people think twice about the other major “independent” players in 2008 (some of whom may or may not re-emerge in 2012).

e.g. Johnboy summed up the other ACT Liberal “stalking horse” motorists party nicely when he described them as “One Nation on wheels”… their lead candidate Burl Doble being a well-known One Nation member AND candidate.

Also, while we’re on Liberal stalking horses, I don’t mind Mark Parton as a radio announcer (although I have to admit I really enjoyed listening to Jorian Gardner over summer)…. Parton’s politics on the other hand are very conservative and very pro-Liberal. You don’t have to look far into his website to still find several photos of Mark “consulting closely with Zed Seselja”, presumably about Liberal Party policies? 🙂 It will be interseting to see if he does a “Val” and openly runs with the Liberals in Ginninderra in 2012.

Unsurprisingly, last Friday morning Parton let Zed off with a jovial pat on the back after whipping him with a soft piece of lettuce for a whole 3 minutes over serious allegations on the front page of the morning paper… Allegations that a very large proportion of Zed’s 10 staff were campaigning for Gary Humphries and other federal Liberal candidates while they were on Zed’s public payroll.

and before anyone claims I’m not upfront, yes I am a Labor voter and am so pro-Labor I work for them as well! happy to admit it. Will “Mr Gillespie” and other Liberal stalkers do the same?

Frustrated #7

The whackjobs are the ones who banned plastic shopping bags and put their own worries about the environment ahead of the day-to-day needs of shoppers, and the right not to be charged for bags when the only things the shoppers are shopping for are groceries, not the things to carry groceries in, called bags.