26 November 2015

ACT Libs defend later pre-selection as ALP names candidates

| Charlotte
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Jeremy Hanson

As Labor prepares to finalise its candidates for the 2016 ACT election later today, Canberra Liberals leader Jeremy Hanson has defended the fact that his party’s contenders won’t be known until next year.

The Greens announced their candidates for the October 15, 2016 poll last month, and Labor will confirm its list of potential MLAs later today after completing the pre-selection process over the weekend. We’ve got the full list for you at the end of this article.

Mr Hanson said that while his party’s pre-selection process wouldn’t take place till the first half of next year, it would be finalised to allow sufficient time for candidates to campaign ahead of the election.

“In many cases, it’s not feasible for candidates to have their intentions revealed the year before an election,” Mr Hanson said.

“Unlike Labor and Greens candidates, who are often union members or political advisors, our candidates come from a diverse range of backgrounds and professions. It would be problematic for many candidates to announce intentions this far out.

“As an example, in 2007, the year before I was elected to the ACT Assembly in 2008, I was serving in Iraq until mid-December. A pre-selection in the year before an election would have prevented me from being preselected.”

Mr Hanson said the Liberals wanted to keep the door open for as long as possible, “to give talented but busy prospective candidates every opportunity, unlike Labor’s factions which actively seek to exclude real people”.

He said the process would be outlined later this year or early next year, but would be similar to that of previous elections. He also said all eight current Canberra Liberals MLAs planned to run in 2016.

“Prospective candidates must meet eligibility criteria outlined in the constitution and would need to be a member of the Liberal Party for three months prior to pre-selection,” he said.

This may mean potential candidates could join the party today and run in 2015.

As for Labor’s line-up, Mr Hanson said they were “mostly factional players who in many cases will have trouble connecting to the broader community”.

There were some surprises in Labor’s list. High profile Mr Fluffy activist Brianna Heseltine was unsuccessful in her bid for pre-selection. Joy Burch, a Minister in the current government, was successful but with fewer first preference votes than Karl Maftoum in Tuggeranong.

On the Ginninderra ticket is regular RiotACT contributor Kim Fischer. She is a former adviser to another of our contributors, ex-Labor MLA John Hargreaves.

We will profile every candidate for the ACT election on the site in coming months, starting with the Greens, moving through the Labor candidates then independents and minor parties before adding the Liberal players in once we know who they are.

We’ll ask them some questions about themselves, their connection to Canberra and their electorate, their goals if elected and their take on key issues for the capital.

We’d love to hear from you on this. Is there a question you’d like to ask every candidate? Let us know in the comments below.

There were ten unsuccessful candidates at Labor’s pre-selection stage, with others, including sitting MLA and longstanding Labor minister Simon Corbell, exiting the process during or after factional jostling for the opportunity to move to the next stage took place earlier in the year.

Those who were unsuccessful in the pre-selection process after Saturday’s count were: Vanessa Attridge in Kurrajong; Tracey Pulli in Brindabella, Sue Ducker in Ginninderra; Bernard Philbrick, John Serborne, Jo Chivers and Brianna Heseltine in Murrumbidgee; and Richard Fox, Thomas McMahon and David Wedgwood in Yerrabi.

Here’s the list of successful contenders for Labor candidacy for each seat:

BRINDABELLA (Tuggeranong)
Karl Maftoum, Mick Gentleman, Joy Burch, Angie Drake and Taimus Werner-Gibbings.

GINNINDERRA (Belconnen)
Yvette Berry, Kim Fischer, Tara Cheyne, Gordon Ramsay and Chris Bourke.

KURRAJONG (Inner North/Inner South)
Andrew Barr, Joshua Ceramidas, Rachel Stephen-Smith, Leah Dwyer and Richard Niven.

MURRUMBIDGEE (Weston Creek/Woden)
Chris Steel, Mark Kulasingham, Rebecca Cody, Jennifer Newman and Brendan Long.

YERRABI (Gungahlin)
Jayson Hinder, Michael Pettersson, Deepak Raj Gupta, Meegan Fitzharris and Suzanne Orr.

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dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

bigred said :

I will be very interested in policy. The liberals need to sound like they could form a viable government. Otherwise, the current mob will be returned by default.

The Libs could form a viable government but really, who would want to inherit the mess the current government has created?

I don’t know, I think Turnbull is slowly getting us out of the mire, despite the best efforts of the Liberals.

We are talking about ACT politics – I know all you lefties are mesmerised by Turnbull but he is Federal.

Well you did say getting us out of the mess, so it was obvious you were talking about the Abbott Government.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

bigred said :

I will be very interested in policy. The liberals need to sound like they could form a viable government. Otherwise, the current mob will be returned by default.

The Libs could form a viable government but really, who would want to inherit the mess the current government has created?

I don’t know, I think Turnbull is slowly getting us out of the mire, despite the best efforts of the Liberals.

We are talking about ACT politics – I know all you lefties are mesmerised by Turnbull but he is Federal.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

bigred said :

I will be very interested in policy. The liberals need to sound like they could form a viable government. Otherwise, the current mob will be returned by default.

The Libs could form a viable government but really, who would want to inherit the mess the current government has created?

I don’t know, I think Turnbull is slowly getting us out of the mire, despite the best efforts of the Liberals.

How? What exactly has he done that you think is getting us out of the mire?

dungfungus said :

bigred said :

I will be very interested in policy. The liberals need to sound like they could form a viable government. Otherwise, the current mob will be returned by default.

The Libs could form a viable government but really, who would want to inherit the mess the current government has created?

I don’t know, I think Turnbull is slowly getting us out of the mire, despite the best efforts of the Liberals.

I have so many questions after reading Hanson’s statement. Soon after becoming PM, didn’t Turnbull say that the next federal election would be in September or October 2016? Don’t those campaigns run quite intensively for around 6 weeks leading up to election day? During that period won’t the attention of the majority of the ACT electorate be on the federal campaign? With the Canberra Liberals delaying preselection until the first half of 2016, and the federal campaign set to take up a chunk of time, doesn’t that mean the Liberal candidates will be restricted to between 2 and 6 months effective campaigning while their Labor & Green opponents will have 8-9 months? I think I saw something about Caroline Le Couteur being on the campaign trail already. Without the big budget federal campaign funds to blanket the airwaves with advertising, aren’t ACT elections more dependent on successful grass roots campaigning? Are the Liberals surrendering a potentially massive advantage to their opponents? Does Hanson think that the current Liberal MLA’s have performed so well over the last 3 years that they don’t need much input from the other 17 candidates to win government? Is he saying the Liberals won’t preselect any political staffers? Given the exposure of the internal goings on with the Liberals in recent years, does he expect people to believe they don’t have factions who will back factional players and work to exclude real people? Are the Liberals so weak that they’re trying to hide candidates from media and electorate scrutiny? Are the Liberals so weak they’re delaying in the hope some half decent candidates join the party between now and when they hold their preselection? Are the Liberals just disorganised and putting up a smokescreen to deflect attention from them not being ready to preselect yet?

Sorry for the big blob of text, the questions just kept coming to me. BTW, have the Liberals chosen any federal candidates yet, aside from Zed who will presumably contest the senate again?

bigred said :

I will be very interested in policy. The liberals need to sound like they could form a viable government. Otherwise, the current mob will be returned by default.

The Libs could form a viable government but really, who would want to inherit the mess the current government has created?
Better for ratepayers that Labor gets returned and we await the receivers and administrator to be appointed.

rosscoact said :

gazket said :

Labor has too many hyphenated names. Those people can’t be trusted.

😀 Agreed, going back to Baden-Powell the dashed blighter. Scoundrels and blaggards !

Don’t forget Kingsford-Smith!

gazket said :

Labor has too many hyphenated names. Those people can’t be trusted.

😀 Agreed, going back to Baden-Powell the dashed blighter. Scoundrels and blaggards !

I will be very interested in policy. The liberals need to sound like they could form a viable government. Otherwise, the current mob will be returned by default.

Labor has too many hyphenated names. Those people can’t be trusted.

Pretty sure you can’t appear “down the ticket” in robson rotation…that makes no sense.

Charlotte Harper5:57 pm 23 Nov 15

Quite right, I have corrected the article. My apologies.

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