17 July 2007

Kent forces repel assault in 'civil war'

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While today’s Crikey rather disappointingly contains no reaction from Jon Stanhope to Greg Barns’ challenge around the Haneef case, it does contain an interesting report (subscription required) on last night’s AGM of the Northern Electorate Branch of the ACT Liberals. It seems that the ACT division president Gary Kent’s man, Alastair Coe, handily saw off a tilt from one Don Graham, despite strong lobbying on behalf of the latter by “Wild” Bill Stefaniak.

However, this is where things take a turn for the comical – handing over to Crikey’s snout:

On the declaration of the vote, she demanded to see the signed attendance sheets, claiming there were more votes than attendees. As people from both sides sought to seize the sheets they were torn to pieces, effectively leaving no record of who was entitled to vote.

One long-time ACT Liberal member at the meeting said this morning it was hard to imagine the Labor Party at its worst behaving in such a fashion, and such scenes were likely to see an exodus of members — which just might suit one of the contending factions. Another said the
meeting had created a public spectacle, as it was held in a licensed club and was observed by curious spectators.

Do any of those “curious spectators” count themselves among the RiotACT’s readership?

GungahlinAl had this to say on the same story:

ACT Libs get their stoush national exposure

From today’s Crikey (not the full story sorry – I don’t subscribe):

Paper cuts sustained in civil war among ACT Liberals

A Canberra insider writes:

A little reported civil war, like a small war in Africa, continues to rage in the thin ranks of the ACT Liberals, with a branch meeting last night ending up in a melee with the attendance records being torn up.

Intriguing…anything anyone else can add??

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BeyondThought6:00 pm 18 Jul 07

Bring out your dead, bring out your dead ….

They don’t need sticky tape, just get one of those bloddy Troy Williams campaign stickers
🙁

Gungahlin Al4:58 pm 18 Jul 07

“As people from both sides sought to seize the sheets they were torn to pieces, effectively leaving no record of who was entitled to vote.”

Perhaps the bigger inditement is that apparently no-one in the ACT Liberals seems to have heard of sticky tape.

It’s not like it went through a shredder fer chrissakes…

Bit of infomation for those interested:
It’s extremely unlikey that Alistair Coe or his mates stuffed the ballot, for a couple of reasons
– He didn’t need to, NEB is 100% stacked out Kent Country. Why on earth do something as risky and obvious as vote tampering when they can just do it the old fashioned way?
– I’m certain that the observer Don Graham had appointed would have noticed such a thing happening.

I doubt anyone from the “left” thought that Don Graham stood a chance. A couple of them were half giggling, half crying(out of embarassment?) in the corner of the room when the woman started yelling and screaming about the stuffed list.
Finally, the actual “incident” happened behind closed doors – it wasn’t a public spectacle.
I’m sure there would have been arguments, fingerpointing, and whatnot outside, in the public area, but the “tug a war” was inside the room.
(The “Licenced club” was wests rugby club in Jamison)

Ah the Liberals, keep on shooting yourselves in the foot. If only they woulc/could/should get their own house in order, they’d probably take the next election. but instead they internally bicker and carry on. problem is of course that the internal bickering always seems to be made public. Labor just needs to turn up to win. As for the Indies, well yeah lets have a room full of “don’t put a tick, don’t put a corss, Vote 1 Helen Cross” Yeah cause that worked SSSSSSOOOO well.

Don is one very odd bod.

Looks like a great election coming up for the Indies.

We can only hope, cranky.

Do these people even consider the public reaction to their nonsense?

These singleminded powertrips are making this mob unelectable.

Looks like a great election coming up for the Indies.

Ralph Malph – care to enlighten us?

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