Of all ACTU candidates only RJ Hawke stands out.
Crean was soso, Ferguson & George believe in rank and file selection so much they don’t have them and have been failures to say the least.

the Best parliament from the ACTU was Ralph Willis.

Get rid of Hacks, former union officials and ‘research officers’.
put in people from the real world

Still, I reckon it would be a good idea to send someone in to bloody well straighten up the ALP in the Newcastle area. Looks like a cess pit to me (although I agree with you on the Jodi thing).

McKew and Combet are very different candidates. Max is ideal for a marginal, especially against the PM. Greg, no way in the world – a complete waste.

But anyway — and this is serious — Labor almost lost the seat of Newcastle this past weekend. Newcastle! Almost lost by Labor! Talk about insanity. And why? Because they kicked out a sitting MP to put in a celebrity candidate. Now, Jodi McKay hardly lights up the joint and is one millionth of the asset somelike Combet would be but there is a message there. As important as this area is and has been to the Labor party and the labour movement, a period of TLC is required.

The “bigger struggle” is the future of the labour movement/working conditions which he can attend to just as well with the ACTU.

She of course has the claim of living in the electorate and having been preselcted by members. These things still count, you know — and more important than the principle probably is that the media loves to beat preselection stoushes up. I see no reason to hand them a free kick. Especially as Hunter Labor has been given a box around the ears over these very issues in the election two days ago. Of course he can get a safe seat and that will be fine. But no going that route builds more goodwill, makes him harder to attack as a celebrity candidate (see: McKew) and may actually contribute to ALP winning the election — which they will not do without winning those marginal seats.

I suspect its a fait accompli anyway now so it hardly matters. But I regard Combet as an ace not to be thrown on the table lightly.

No, Amanda. Local noise must be attended to, of course, but if Greg moves, it must be to a safe seat. Few things could be more insane than taking him out of the bigger struggle to go door-knocking in a marginal struggle. Even star candidates have to do a bit of this, of course, but the only point in Combet standing would be to take him into the national leadership team. Anything less would be unforgiveable waste.

I don’t want to caste aspersions on Kelly, about whom I know zip, but here’s Ramsey:

KELLY HOARE is a fortunate politician. For 18 years Robert James (Bob) Brown was a hard-working and conscientious federal Labor MP, for which his political reward was the better part of five of those years as a junior minister in the Hawke and Keating governments. Brown’s electorate was the NSW seat of Charlton, one of four in and around industrial Newcastle which, collectively, have never – never! – voted anything but Labor. And when Brown retired on the eve of the 1998 election, he was replaced by his daughter, whose key qualification seemed to be that she had been her father’s electorate secretary. Kelly Hoare is that fortunate daughter.

In other words, she appears to have no more claim than to have been parachuted into one of the safest ALP seats in the land from the womb. She’s had a good run, and deserves good treatment, but seats are hardly heriditary in Australia.

What is the point of the exercise if all his lustre comes off on the first day? What is the point if the message is lost in the inevitable noise about the process?

This far out there’s time, you’d imagine, but the whole thing speaks more of bankable confidence on the part of Labor that the IR debate will go their way.

Starving Howard of fodder for his scare campaigns needs to be an important consideration for Labor at this stage.

Killer marginal seat candidates are easier to come by than killer ACTU leaders.

So true, the loss to the Union movement (or the little thats left of it) would be far greater than the benefit to the ALP.

Killer marginal seat candidates are easier to come by than killer ACTU leaders.

That piccie is just cribbed from the Evatt site, you have raised our expectations with your photoshop contribution. Like Morris Iemma, don’t let us down.

I think the union movement would be the loser, and there

But I wonder if there wasn’t some wisdom in his initial decision to concentrate all his energies on the union movement this term. He’s very skilfully held together conflicting interests among the unions and navigated some very tricky situations – both in terms of policy, the correct approach to take to the demise of the state based systems, and strategic direction. I think the union movement would be the loser, and there’s a lot to lose at the moment.

The Mackerras Pendulum gives the seat an 8.4 per cent margin. Has there been a redistribution, post-Malcolm?

Yes, all NSW and Qld seats were redistributed last year, because Qld gained a seat, and NSW lost one.

However, the story in the papers is still wildly inaccurate.

The margin for Charlton has been calculated to have dropped from 8.4% to 8.0%.

http://www.pollbludger.com/364