Top stuff Nick!!
And a slap in the face for Labor when an independent captures a bigger % of the primary vote:
Article featuring Nick by Geoff Kitney
Sep 10, 2013 | 3 Comments
Labor still not getting the message.
It is the case of the one-man band outplaying the full orchestra. In one of the most remarkable results in Australian political history Independent Senator Nick Xenophon out-polled the Labor Party in the race for senate seats in South Australia. With meagre resources, the senator with the name that nearly always gets spelled incorrectly came within a whisker of getting himself elected, together with a running mate. The once great Labor Party appears certain to get just one of its candidates – Penny Wong –re-elected for the first time since federation. Don Farrell, one of the famous faceless men who played a part in the plot that removed Kevin Rudd and started the rot which ultimately destroyed the Labor government, appears certain to lose his seat. This is the result which shows the depths to which Labor’s political credibility has sunk.
It is the worst individual result in an election which produced Labor’s worst overall result for more than a century. It’s the result which screams to the Labor Party the resounding message of this election – that something has to change. Xenophon is a shining example of what the Labor Party isn’t. He is a common sense, middle-of-the-road, community minded and accessible parliamentary representative. People like him because he seems to listen to them and to make decisions in their interest. He has no axes to grind, no masters to answer to, no party baggage to weigh him down. He is the epitome of what a senator should be. He is the opposite of what many of the party hacks who get to take seats in the Senate – but also increasingly, on the Labor side in the lower house – turn out to be. It is impossible to say whether Farrell’s “faceless man” reputation worked against the Labor vote.
Party of insiders.
But it is absolutely clear that voters across the country are increasingly disillusioned with the modern Labor Party and the people whom it chooses to represent it in parliament. It has become a party of insiders, of apparatchiks and former trade unionists. The internal review conducted after the last election concluded that this was killing the party. Almost nothing has been done about it. Most of the new Labor MPs and senators elected on Saturday – filling positions made vacant by retirements– come from this narrow base. Labor just does not get the message. Within hours of Saturday’s election drubbing, it emerged that a fix is being put in place to hand the most recognisable “faceless man” behind Julia Gillard – right wing unionist Paul Howes – the Senate seat held by foreign minister Bob Carr, also beneficiary of a factional fix. Howes was reportedly “in two minds” about whether to make the move. He should follow the part of his mind that thinks this might not be a good idea. A fix to put Howes in the Senate to replace Carr would be an extraordinary “get stuffed”symbol to voters who thought they had sent the clearest possible signal to Labor that they hate its self-indulgent insider culture. This would especially be so now that it appears that the Labor right has used its muscle to seize the leadership for poor parliamentary performer Bill Shorten, predecessor to Howes as national secretary of the Australian Workers Union. Factional muscle and insider dealing have done terrible damage to public trust in the Labor Party but it still doesn’t seem to care.
Could I also suggest that Nick (along with Senator Fawcett) has exposed a long list of due process and accountability issues with the previous Labor government, yet one of the biggest culprits of government obfuscation was the former Minister for DoIT and yet now he is running for leader of the ALP...wonders will never cease!
I'm with Creamy on this..bring on more like minded independent Senators like Nick to keep the bastards honest..hmm or maybe we should just clone him??
