Political circles are getting very excited by the Canberra Times reporting on Tony Abbott’s remarks last night on the pre-selection race.
Bearing in mind that the Times is basically the Mouth Of Gazza at this point in the race Abbott’s remarks are not as clear cut as they at first appear:
Mr Abbott praised Senator Humphries’ political skills for becoming ACT Chief Minister before he entered the Senate.
”I want to see those gifts continue to be available to us in the Senate and more widely, so I really want to support Gary’s continuation in the Senate as strongly as I possibly can.
”Gary Humphries has done a marvellous job in politics and should have many more years in politics ahead of him. I think people who have worked like that deserve the support and loyalty of their fellow MPs and their fellow party members,” he said.
Mr Abbott said the Liberal Party believed in competition and its MPs should expect to face challenges for their positions.
”But it’s got to be a fair and clean preselection, there should be no dirty tricks, there should be no ambushes, we leave the dirty tricks and the ambushes to the Labor Party,” he said.
”I hope that every ACT Liberal who wants to participate in this preselection will be given every opportunity to do so.”
Now the weasel words are clearly there:
- — “as strongly as I possibly can” Can easily mean: “not at all”.
— “will be given every opportunity to do so” Can easily mean: “none at all”.
The Zeddites of course are working from the basis that all process has been duly followed and we imagine it probably has.
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