12 July 2013

Confused Gary Kent will destroy the Liberals to save them

| johnboy
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The ABC brings word of former Liberal heavy Gary Kent’s judicial battle to take things back to ye oldie days when people paid attention to him.

A former Canberra Liberals president is taking action against the party in the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Gary Kent led a push earlier this year to overturn the party’s federal preselection in which former ACT opposition leader Zed Seselja beat sitting Senator Gary Humphries for the top spot on the Liberals’ Senate ticket.

Some party members were angry about how the preselection was handled and claimed they were unfairly denied the right to vote.

But a motion to overturn the result at a party meeting in March failed.

Mr Kent has been seeking documents about the controversial process and the Canberra Liberals’ financial situation.

I particularly liked this line of nonsense:

“The right to access party documents is provided for in an act of the Assembly parliament,” he said.

Rather than citing a non-existent beast (we have a Legislative Assembly, not an Assembly Parliament) naming the Act would have been far more convincing IMHO.

There may or may not have been skullduggery, but the simple cold hard truth is, just like in Gary’s expensively advertised tilts for the Assembly, he doesn’t have the numbers.

My advise would be that If he wants to remake and reform the Liberal party he should, rather than lawyering up and quoting rules of order in ACAT, find like minded individuals to join the party until such point as he can carry resolutions at meetings and win officeholder elections.

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DisaffectedRump1:44 pm 12 Jul 13

Let’s clear up a couple of things.

******
I particularly liked this line of nonsense:

“The right to access party documents is provided for in an act of the Assembly parliament,” he said.

Rather than citing a non-existent beast (we have a Legislative Assembly, not an Assembly Parliament) naming the Act would have been far more convincing IMHO.
******

Gary was clearly put on the spot. He didn’t have the luxury of taking his time to Google the legislation. It’s the Associations Act (1991) that he was referring to.

Gary Kent, in the years I’ve known him (by seeing him at meetings), has been an absolute stickler for the rules. I’ve wanted to strangle him on several occassions. His manner can come across as abrasive, for sure, but it’s really all about him wanting the rules adhered to, to the letter.

In fact, Gary Kent is a well-known Gary Humphries opponent. They have rarely, if ever, seen eye-to-eye. This speaks volumes to Gary Kent’s inspiration to fight the good fight – the rules were broken, and he wants to right a wrong.

GK made it clear on 666 ABC this morning that he accepts the result of the preselection battle, and that is behind him. He is now simply trying to access documents held by the Liberal Party Division (which is the right of all members) to make sure that the rules were adhered to in the preselection process, and if not, to make sure that the facts are presented at the next Management Committee AGM in November.

Furthermore, GK has stated that if ACAT decide against him, and do not push Division to produce the required documentation, he will drop this entirely and walk away from the whole shamozzle.

Pretty reasonable to hold your party accountable, I would think.

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