14 November 2006

Jacqui Burke new Liberals deputy

| Samuel Gordon-Stewart
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The ABC is reporting that Jacqui Burke is the new deputy leader of the ACT Liberals, replacing Richard Mulcahy.

Mr Mulcahy called a press conference this afternoon to announce Bill Stefaniak has chosen to replace him as deputy leader.

He says he was given no reasons for the decision and has refused to offer his own thoughts on why he has been pushed aside, other than to say former leader Brendan Smyth helped Mr Stefaniak make the decision.

Interestingly, 2CC were reading from a Liberal Party press release which said that Bill Stefaniak had opened all positions (including his own) for election, Bill was pleased to be reappointed by the party, and he thinks the party has its best and most experienced lineup. I seem to recall him saying something similar in an interview with Mike Welsh.

I suppose the conflicting stories back up this line from the ABC article

It is the latest issue to hit the Liberal Party, which has been racked by infighting for months.

[ED – One wonders if this was anything to do with the brewing hotels association scandal]

UPDATED: The Canberra Times has finally got into gear. It seems Mulcahy is considering throwing in the towel and getting out of politics, meanwhile Zed and Vicki are reported to have walked out of the meeting in outrage at their leader’s dumping. Brendan Smyth has been promoted back into the leadership team, taking up the whip. Bill thinks that if they all play nice Canberran’s will flock to his Southern Cross Club orientated policies, the RiotACT begs to differ. Aside from Vicki Dunne it seems there’s been a counter-revolution by the tired old hacks of the Liberal Party against the newer blood of Zed Seselja and Richard Mulcahy. Heads seem certain to roll inside the party organisation as well.

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Jacqui Burke is the Liberals third Deputy Leader in the last 7 months. They illustrate that disunity is indeed political death. The Liberals are a spent force and a turning on each other. They could well fall back to 5 MLAs in 2008. Their only hope is for Stanhope and his team to make a monumental blunder or two before October 2008 and, at the same time, for the electorate to develop amnesia about their recent internal squabbles. Stanhope has made some tough decisions this year to get the budget right by 2008. He is now looking a very safe bet. His challenge is the hubris factor – containing it.

Yep I think your right Thumper sad though it is. We could have moc funeral to bury the opposition parties in civic.

Anybody wants to lay a bet say $5000 or maybe $10,000 that there is no way no matter what happens in Stanhope’s govt. The liberals will not get in.
I reckon my money will be safe.

i reckon he looks more like abe simpson….homers dad.

v_man_returns2:59 pm 14 Nov 06

ACT Liberals do lack good policies. They’ve condemned all the school closures yet produced no other options. I guess the school closures were initially proposed by the Libs but nothing to the same extent ever eventuated. Only Liberals as incompetent as this bunch could “lose the unloseable.” Bill Stefaniak looks like the principal/wrestler on Billy Madison…

Absent Diane2:50 pm 14 Nov 06

yeah its a tad hypocritical W_W.. given light of some other stories posted… but i don’t really care… i don’t pay to keep the servers on.

tsk tsk tsk

Johnboy has just started censoring posts……

Dear youshould_knowthis

You should know this …. I hate all fools,

not just Liberal fools

Hi seepi

lack of Lib cohesion just shows that factional blood does not make good glue.

All politicians want to build things, hire more cops, restrict liberty, and cry over public housing….

so what?

On the othe side of the coin, the labour party’s borrowed a few from the Libs – the school closures was something that Humphries was running when he was in the local libs, for example…

liberal policies:
Bill Stefaniac – build a dragway (same policy as labor)
Steve Pratt – more police (not bad)
– less civil liberties (his own hobbyhorse)
Jacqui Burke – beter public housing
(more like a labor policy)

I know they have policies, I’m just saying that as far as i have noticed, they don’t have a cohesive set of policies to unite allt heir members behind, and to mark them as different to labor.

youshould_knowthis2:20 pm 14 Nov 06

Well, haven’t we been an active, Liberal hating newcomer, wagga wagga?

yea seepi;

The true liberals ‘with policies’ are in the ALP.

Absent Diane2:06 pm 14 Nov 06

seriously if the libs get in power at any level.. you all might as well go kill yourselves.

seepi – perhaps you need to read press releases more closely (govt, opposition or crossbench) as those little things called policies appear all the time.

part of the problem for local libs is that they don’t have any policies to unite behind.

Good boy Thumper ….

Nats are hacks too (and sell wheat to terrorists).

Dear Evil

haven’t you been watching the news lately?

If Yanks can make America free – so can we.

“When we get to the next Federal election Australia will finally be Liberal-free.”

Are you off your fucking rocker? As if that is going to happen.

Federal Labor are just as useless as the ACT Liberal Party.

Can you please put together a sentence that actually makes sense?

God, it’s like reading a “See Jane Run” book. FFS.

Maybe the Libs could get all their mums to defend them. No-one elase will lift a finger.

poor ol Thumper

living in fantasy land. Just labelling political tramps and ho-bos as “potential leaders” does not make them anything but Liberal hacks.

unlike Thumper, I like my dictionaries without blood – these days, although any Liberal office copy probably drips with blood today.

barking toad1:07 pm 14 Nov 06

Don’t hold ya breath ww waiting for the true believers to run the real show – different story at local council level though because the libs can’t get their act together despite the incompetence of the mayor’s mob.

And the radio samuel host that was bagged by the mum-in-law was John Stanley I think, not Mike Jeffries.

poor thumper ….

Borat would be an improvement on this lot.

As Australia found with Fraser, no-one dictates more than a cranky Liberal.

You want a dictatorship – go play with Menzies.

You take a group of people, make them work closely together in a never-ending pressure cooker situation, and 4 out 5 times this sort of cat-fighting will happen.
It seems to happen across the board. Just look at how the 7 democrat senators managed between themselves to virtually destory the whole party…And Labor does it time and again at every level.
I guess the true leaders are the ones who manage to rise above the personality issues and get everyone’s focus back on the issues and reasons for being there.
Have the ACT Libs shown any likelihood they can rise above it? Buckleys!
WW: no Libs up on the Hill? You wish, I wish, not bloody likely though they way things stand.

Ol’ Thumper needs a reality check….

How on earth can he label these liberals as
“potential leaders”. Not in Australia, not every more. Thumping-bloody stupid thing to say.

When we get to the next Federal election Australia will finally be Liberal-free.

Geez, there are no better liberals so there is no point dreaming about some magic liberal voter who’s gonna vote for better ‘ones’!!!

These backstabbing leakers, ex-spies, and disloyal factionalists are true Liberals.

The incomptenance of current Government is totally eclipsed by the incompetance of the Liberal stupid seven.

We need competent opposition from another quarter.

Bye bye Liberals, its been good knowing you….

Phil Thompson is coming.

of course if you want better liberals you’ll need to vote for them

I blame the liberal voters who sent this lot in there.

barking toad9:18 am 14 Nov 06

Jacqui Burke’s mother-in-law rang radio samuel yesterday arvo to give the host a serve (is it Mike Jeffries?) She wanted him to explain why he was so unkind about Jacqui.

He didn’t elaborate too much but it seems to have something to do with past airtime allowed but favours not returned. The feisty mum-in-law gave a good spray insisting that Jacqui was a nice gal.

barking toad9:11 am 14 Nov 06

And so the incompetence of the local government will continue unchallenged because there is not an effective voice in opposition.

The mayor must be thankful for this gift that just keeps on giving.

Good to see dogs biting and snarling at each other.

This will all help to keep Australia clean – clean of Liberal fleas.

And all because a Liberal Pratt misused Australian Charity CARE Australia, and put his collegues in jeopardy (they are now suing CARE Australia).

Pratt and Burke should both go.

blingblingbears8:34 am 14 Nov 06

yawn

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