Hanson dumped, Castley new Canberra Liberals deputy following leadership spill

Bye bye Hanson, a Zed number of the right that has no concept as to what the voters of the ACT desire from a local government.

Watch this space because Zed failed in his bid for NSW senate , Zed vs Hansen vs Wheeler for ACT senate Preselection. All poor candidates with no real life experience who aren’t in step with the community of hard working voters. No more staffer hacks from the major parties running for office anymore please!!!

This is the best news from the Liberals in a long time. Hanson is the worst kind of Pollie and Leanne Castley has ‘cut thru’ with far more of the electorate and has proved to be a terrific local MLA which will stand her in good stead.

Our democracy is a joke, Labor will get 40% of the votes next year, Greens 10% and the deal will be done. The party that 90% of Canberra DID NOT vote for will continue to call all the shots here for another 4 years.
If the Liberals ever want to win the need to seed a second party that they can work with in the hope that they can secure 10% of the votes, the days of Liberal receiving 50%+ on their own are long gone.

Those of my vintage will well remember that for many years the ALP was critised as being unelectable federally as it was controlled by the ‘factions’.

In more recent times, it is well understood that all political parties, yes even the sanctimonious Greens, have factions and, as such, need to learn how to appropriately manage their internal machinations.

The dumping of Jeremy Hanson is a direct result of the turbulence currently pervading the rank and file of the Canberra Liberals and until that is resolved Elizabeth Lee has very little chance of becoming the Chief Minister.

For Liberals to offer an elctable alternative in the ACT , they need to replace the un-credible current leader, and with Castley aleady in place as Deputy, Elizabeth Kikkert is the natural choice…

There could only be one winner with this leadership team mismatch. Elizabeth Lee had no choice but to dump Jeremy Hanson! But who to come up with as deputy? Unfortunately, there is not much happening in the party’s talent pool and Mark Parton didn’t want the job. That left Ms Lee with only one choice, Leanne Castley. Way out of her depth, Leanne is from the conservative right wing of the Liberal party. She was a bitter disappointment in the opposition’s business and now health portfolios. Currently up against the very competent Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith, Ms Castley has much work to do to get her act together in the leadup to the election just under 11 months away.

But what happens to Jeremy and his cheer squad of excitable Young (and old) Liberal supporters from the far right and their extreme and toxic views? They still dominate the party as the recent AGM meeting revealed. There is also the party’s “woman problem” which was highlighted at the meeting. John Cziesla remains as president and is not going anywhere. Out of sorts at Jeremy losing the deputy position and never a supporter of Elizabeth Lee as leader they will continue to snap away on the sidelines, scheming and undermining the party and her leadership in the months to come.

What possibly could happen next?

There is a perception that to win government, the Libs need to take a jump to the left, and become politicially closer to the ALP. Maybe that thinking is what resulted in Jeremy Hanson losing his Deputy role?

There are a few clues that support that thinking in Ms Lee’s speech. “I know Leanne will support me 100 per cent and the direction we are taking to win government in 2024,” and
“… look forward to working closely with Leanne as the Canberra Liberals put forward a fresh alternate vision for Canberra in the lead-up to the election next October.”

There is a well known and I think wise statement that’s made about Australian politics and that is that “Opposition’s don’t win Government, Government’s lose it”.

Put simply, provided an Opposition appears credible and stable, eventually, their time will come. The ALP-Greens are hardly fresh and apart from “The Chief”, they don’t have a lot going for them, in my opinion.

I don’t know Ms Castley, and I think that is part of the problem. Jeremy Hanson is well known. He represents that issue of stability.

I’m not convinced that rearranging the deck chairs leading up to the 2024 election is that smart. Concentrating on the ALP-Green’s failures and offering an alternative, might have been a better strategy.

Leanne is a great MLA and is an inspired choice for deputy, great to see an all-female liberal leadership team heading into an election!