Dunne and Pratt incident - What happenned?

Interestingly, I got some political fluff from Richard Mulchay in my mailbox today, which included stuff with the official Legislative Assembly leterhead on it. He also included a sheet we could send him with “I am concerned about” headings on it (including the usual – Health, Education, Roads, policing). I’m wondering whether I can include “loyalty to your party leader” in there somewhere?

I’d love to do it. However, I don’t think anyone in the Legislative Assembly would like my “reforms” – kicking out all the useless MLAs, making them use their own cars etc. Then I could give more money to health, police and education.

Oh well…I can dream.

Well, seeing as it just became that much easier to get into the legislative assembly, I’ll expect to see a few of the local experts in the running next election, right?

Jordania – I can only say that it’s ppl like yourself that should consider running for a seat. You obviously seem to possess a supreme intellect and have all the necessary skills to do the job.

You’ve got my vote ole chum!

When you’ve got a bucketful of toads, what you get when you dip into it is a dipper full of toads. Consider this: the ACT is a very small political gene pool; expanding the number of members will only suck more toads into the Assembly. Take a look at the first preference results from the last ACT election and ponder the members who got the lowest first preference vote – hardly stellar performers, intellectual giants or fabulous legislators. Now ask yourself about the qualifications and characteristics of the colossi who got fewer votes. Those sad lesser folk would be what you’d get if you expanded the Assembly. The current members of the Assembly are the best, tragically, that any party has to offer, and you wouldn’t want to go too much further down the toad scale.

ssanta — I disagree. We probably wouldn’t be increasing the size of the Executive, so it shouldn’t affect the speed of the decision-making process much. It might lead to poor decisions being caught earlier, though.

Swaggie — first of all, you don’t want or need every person elected to Parliament to be leadership or even Minister material. Having multiple strong & ambitious leaders in a government is a sure recipe for instability.

Secondly, there is a place in a democracy for people whose expertise lies in engaging with the electorate and representing their interests to the appropriate authorities. No-one is good at everything.

Thirdly, really high-quality candidates can earn far more in the private sector or as SES executives in the public service.

Fourthly, there are many people who would make excellent administrators and legislators who don’t want to sacrifice every last bit of their privacy and have to attend innumerable community functions to curry favour with fickle and self-interested voters.

Fifth, disinterest in the political process by the public and declining membership makes it easier for small blocs of people to ensure a candidate’s preselection. And if you think this factor is more important than the others then I can only suggest that you and your friends join a political party and start influencing the process of preselection so that better candidates get picked.

It’s easy to criticize, but much harder to be one of the people who actually put up their hand to do the job.

The really important issue here is whether Vickie actually does know shit from clay. No doubt she’ll let us know in the local rag tomorrow.

ffs – please don’t let more people on the council – there’s enough clay there already!

Guru – you miss the point by a light year. Why don’t the parties present candidates of quality and talent? We then wouldn’t have to shuffle the lot of them to find just one or two with any talent.

I believe in diversity, or at least that’s what I say in selection criteria 5 all the time, although in this instance it could be argued that all we would be achieving is putting more highly paid people in positions that are ineffectual.

I find this spat interesting in light of what we know about the leadership jostling — Dunne’s a Mulcahy supporter (along with Zed Seselja) and we had heard they were trying to recruit Pratt to their cause. Does this fight mean that’s now all lost?