GAME ON: Victorian Liberal Senate fight night looms

 Friday night’s hotly contested Victorian Liberal Senate preselection race is too close to call, with insiders supportive of Ross Fox, Julian McGauran and the bemused Baillieu faction on-lookers professing confidence and uncertainty for their favoured candidates in equal measure.

THE RONNO PHENOMENON
Fox is certainly likely to be the beneficiary of the big man Senator Michael Ronaldson’s big organisation, once the faction that was at the heart of Peter Costello’s Victorian powerbase. As we canvassed earlier this week, they now appear to be enthralled by that paragon of all things Sydney, Malcolm Turnbull.

Turnbull is an impressive performer so we understand the affection.

One VEXNEWS commenter was sufficiently worried about Fox’s prospects to post a scathing excoriation and character assassination of Fox questioning his honesty, credentials and moral fibre. Naturally we’ll be re-posting it in full below for the edification of Policy Assembly patriots as they consider the vexed question of who should be #3 Liberal Senate candidate.

It follows a week where there has been much loose talk about the sexuality of one of the candidates, with this rather sadly used as a battering ram against them in dozens of phone calls directed to members of the Policy Assembly.

Excluding people from public office because of their sexual preference is a bigotry that we’ll all look back on one day with considerable shame. We are slowly growing out of it. We look down our nose with bewilderment at the generations that precede us about their sectarian obsessions, their anti-Semitism and their moving gaze of concern at the newest folks off the boat. But are we really any different?

Down to business. Most think the contest is now a battle between Ross Fox and Senator McGauran, with two female candidates Cate Dealehr and Caroline Kenny behind the pace.

A FIX FOR THE PROCESS JUNKIES AMONG YOU // WE KNOW YOU’RE OUT THERE
The process goes something like this. There’ll be a vote whether to have the preselection. Very quaint and polite. No such niceties are observed in the brutish ALP POSC, after they’ve slaughtered the goats they get straight into it.

The Policy Assembly is big, with two from each FEC or federal electorate (thirty nine in the People’s Republic of Victoria last time we looked), a goodly ten from Admin Committee, and thirty-two from State Council representing in equal measure Metro Males, Metro Females, Country Males and County Females. Country members are well represented. Yes, we remember, goes the Sir James Killen joke.

Next time you hear Liberals prattling on about the evils of quotas and affirmative action, ask them about their own internal party structure negotiated between Sir Robert Menzies and some very large women’s groups at the time of party formation. They supplied many tens of thousands of members and they insisted on an equal say for women across all structures of the party, long before Joan Kirner had ever read Female Eunuch.

Usually there’s a question about turn-out but not on this Friday night, this is full court press time with Ross Fox not wanting to become the serial candidate, an incumbent Senator fighting for his political life and two other quite serious and good quality candidates not that far behind them who at the least will be wanting to stake their claim for another time. Kenny is a dead cert for state preselection, one insider thought this morning as she has impressed many in this preselection process and is expected to present herself very well on the night.

And of course it’s the dreadful randomness of how people speak and what they say that has far too much influence on Liberal preselections. So anything could happen.

NO MAN. NO LAW. NO WAR CAN STOP THE RONNO
After the vote to have a vote there will be the election for the #1 spot on the ticket, Ronno is expected to win that and if he doesn’t will transform into a rampaging Rhino and start mowing old biddies down at will. Such is his power.

After that, there’ll be an exhaustive process where each member of the Assembly will write the name of the chap or chapette they are supporting. The one with the least votes is eliminated and then a fresh vote each time until there are two left standing.

The principal reason why ALP preselection processes are not done in that incredibly time consuming way is the very real prospect of eye gouging, head-butting and bouts of Hoppo Bumpo among the AMWU delegation.

It isn’t easy to figure out who will win these contests partly because of the quaint and polite Liberal custom of never divulging one’s intention prior to hearing all the speeches. Speeches can be barely heard at ALP preselections over the belching, snoring and farting of the CFMEU construction blokes.

Deahler will attract quite a bit of support from within the Kroger-Costello camp. She enjoys the backing of powerbroker femme fatale Kelly O’Dwyer and also of many old dears in the Women’s section who strongly support a woman candidate replacing a female incumbent, in the form of Liberal lefty Judith Troeth, mama of Red Ted Baillieu’s hard-pressed sec Simon Troeth.

But most suspect it won’t be enough. Many of Cate Dealehr’s votes will end up with Fox. Certainly the younger ones. McGauran has made an aggressive play with some of the oldies and will pick up some.

ANOTHER LAWYER IN PARLIAMENT – JUST WHAT THE NATION NEEDS
Caroline Kenny SC regarded as potentially good candidate talent is a political green-skin who is learning rapidly along the way. Like many at the bar, she probably looks at some of the hacks who are more actively involved with derision and thinking she could be so much better. Of course like any profession, the best at it make it look easy. For every Neville Wran QC who was one of New South Wales greatest Premiers and a master politician, there are many more from the Bar who simply don’t cut it. You’d think barristers would make great communicators, often that isn’t necessarily so. 

Anyway, she’s been working the phones like a speed-dial demon and has mostly made a very favourable impression. She’ll receive strong support from the Baillieu faction, with current indications being that many of them will favour Fox ahead of McGauran ultimately partly because they perceive him as being far more National Party than truly Liberal, according to the human rights McPerton legacy or whatever it is our favourite commenter is always going on about, in their deliciously mocking way.

Fox has been making the argument it’s time for generational change, that McGauran has been in the Senate for more than twenty years and he’s never going to be a minister. Implying that Fox will be. McGauran saying he represents an important socially conservative constituency, that he can deliver DLP preferences which could be crucial to getting #3 elected. Implying that if they don’t select the right candidate, the DLP could do a deal with Labor, of the kind that no doubt ALP State Secretary Stephen Newnham would dearly love to do.

Because of the number of factionally and fractionally non-aligned folk on the large Policy Assembly and because many sit there earnestly evaluating which chap has the better tie or sounds better in their speech, the result in this contest could still go anywhere.

Fox certainly has an advantage among the younger folks. And McGauran some advantage with those who still have a picture of our Sovereign Lady Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth on the wall, usually for some reason near the kitchen table.

But beyond that, it’s hard to know. Clearly there is a need for the Liberals to change and grow for them to be ready to govern in 2010 or 2013. The times – a deep and ugly recession with the prospect of big government debt and an inflation crisis – could suit them. But only if they’ve made the changes they know they must make to be credible.

How hungry are they to win government back?

We’ll know on Friday night.

After that slightly coded endorsement, we share a vicious attack on Ross Fox in the form of a series of questions proposed by a clearly very well informed critic. Enjoy. Of course, the views of VEXNEWS commenters are not necessarily the views of the management.

WILL THE REAL FOX PLEASE STAND UP?
I have just received a copy of Ross Fox’s application for the Senate pre-selection for this Friday night’s extravaganza and have forensically analysed the information he has provided.

Boy has this guy gilded the lily or what? He has more front the Myers!

For any budding delegates at this Friday night’s convention here are some curly questions and background information you might want to throw at the ‘star’ candidate Mr Fox.

I have also included other question marks over Mr Fox’s run for Parliament for your information.

But first the ‘raw’ application data –
FOX HISTORY AFTER GRADUATING FROM ENGINEERING IN 1998 (11 YEARS AGO)
Age 22 – Business Analyst, McKinsey & Co.  Why did he leave?
26 months – a real paid job!
Age 24 – Helping out in WA aboriginal community on a contact.  Why do this?
4 months – a real paid job!
Age 24 – Improvement Consultant, Pasminco Smelter
6 months  – a real paid job!
Age 25 – Adviser to Federal Member for Macarthur in NSW.
4 months – a political staffer!
Age 26 – (Senior) Policy Adviser to the NSW opposition leader.  Senior?
12 months – a political staffer!
Age 26 Business Improvement Manager, Emoleum Road Services.
6 months – a real paid job!
Age 26 – Fox paid for a place to attend an Oxford Bachelor of Arts Degree
24 months – no job
Age 28 – Research Fellow (part time), IPA
7 months – not a real job.  A small token salary!
Age 29 – Chief of Staff (read office manager) for Ronno.  Boy was this a setup!
6 months (Fox was preselected for Isaacs in July 2007 while the office manager) – a political staffer!
Age 30 – Liberal Candidate for the Federal Electorate of Isaacs
16 Months – no job
Age 31 – Research Fellow (part time), IPA
15 months – not a real job.  A small token salary!
Age 32 – Director of Public Affairs, Association of Independent Schools of Victoria
9 months – a real paid job!
So now we have a better picture of the last 10 years….
Real paid jobs  = 3 years and 9months
Political staffer positions  = 1 year and 10 months
Part time IPA researcher = 1 year and 10 months
Liberal Candidate = 1 year and 4 months
Student = 2 years

QUESTIONS FOR MR FOX
Ross in your application under the heading ‘Employment History’ you talk about being ‘Chief of Staff’ for the Office of Michael Ronaldson for 6 months.  Really?  This does sound impressive but we all know that Ronno was a backbencher at that time. Surely you mean ‘Office Manager’.

Ross you talk about your ‘business acumen and extensive business contacts’ gained through your fractured and mediocre work history.  Please explain how you obtained this business acumen and these business contacts?

Ross you talk about your fantastic campaign in Isaacs where you spent over $200,000 of Liberal Party funds.  Why then did you have a massive 6.21% swing against you?

Other key Labor held seats in the 2007 Federal Campaign did not have such a large swing against them when they only had a fraction of the Liberal Party funds allocated to them that you had.

In your pre-selection speech to win the endorsement for Isaacs you barked out loud that you would ‘challenge Mark Dreyfus (the Labor candidate) to debate you every day of the campaign’.  How many times did you challenge Mr Dreyfus to debate you in the Isaacs campaign?
Ross why did you lie to many Liberals in the Isaac’s electorate about your ‘independence’ when after you were endorsed it was found you were just another Costello sycophant being supported by Mitch Fifield for numbers in the Party room?

After your speech to win the Isaacs campaign you were seen violently vomiting in the toilets.  Do you really have the mettle to be a Senator?

It is noticed in your application that there is no mention of winning the next State election.  Is this because you still retain strong allegiances with Costello and will in no way help Ted Baillieu win the next State election?

Throughout your application you seem to be hanging a lot on your (only) 9 months working as a Director for the Association of Independent Schools of Victoria.  There appears to be several other ‘Directors’ at the Association of Independent Schools of Victoria.  Are you sure that this ‘trumping up’ of this short period with the organisations reflects the true picture of your involvement?   Or is this just another ‘Chief of Staff’ puff….?  After all you have included what you have done in this role in the last 9 months as one of your (two) major career achievements!

Ross you have included your second major career achievement as being the candidate in your failed Isaacs campaign. Your statistics (train station visits / media coverage etc) are not remarkable and compare with many other Liberal endorsed candidates who had a lot less Liberal Party funds to spend on their campaigns.

You talk about the ‘2nd BA’ at your paid Oxford Course that it will be converted to a Master of Arts in a few months time.  Now Ross you know that with an Oxford degree this happens automatically after 7 years not in a few months time.  Don’t imply you are ‘an exceptional student’.  Just tell it like it is.

Ross you were trying to destabilise the then Leader of the Federal Opposition, Dr Nelson last year, with your Internet antics that professed Peter Costello should come back to lead the Federal Liberals.  How do we know you wont get up to this mischief against Malcolm Turnbull?  You are simply not to be trusted.

It can be seen in your Accompanying Statement that you are playing for the Country vote that is being partially vacated by Judith Troeth.  Its great that when you were young, having a hobby of rearing a few calves, but can I be bold enough to say that this is your full extent of Country sympathy.  Lets not pretend.  You are a city dude who wouldn’t in a (pink) fit head off to live in the Country.  Nice try though. People see right through your opportunism to cash in on this Country sentiment.

Now Mr Fox.  You are a single 32-year-old male with lots of confidence (and bluff) but with limited life experiences.  You have a propensity to lie to get your own way and have been caught gilding the lily to try and get into Parliament by ‘whatever it takes’.  What do you really know about working families and what it is like to bring up children, have a mortgage and all the things important to most people in the community?  It is great to be a young ‘Turk’ wanting fame and notoriety by being a Member of Parliament, and I am sure your current salary of $70,000 going to $140,000 plus perks as a Senator would also be a buzz for you.  But look we already have a couple of young Turks representing Victoria in Scott Ryan and Mitch Fifield.  Do we really need another one?

Lets not go back to the Pre-Reform days that branded Liberal Party in Victoria as a club for the Costello boys (and Helen Kroger).  Lets elect Liberal’s to our Parliament who understand people as a result of their long and real life experiences.  Lets not have any more young chameleons professing to be something they simply are not.

Ouch. After reading that lot we’re glad we’re not running for anything except the #55 tram.

UNION OF SLEAZE: The health of sick kids jeopardised by CFMEU greed

It’s rare for us to criticise industrial action because the right to withdraw labour is a perfectly legitimate and lawful tool for working people to use to bargain. Not all – perhaps not many – conservatives would agree with that.

We like reminding them that before Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States who confronted and defeated the Christian and unionist persecuting Soviet bloc, he was the President of the Screen Actors Guild, a union for many in the film industry. He fought for and won minimum wages for actors that they’d never had before and when communists tried to interfere he showed them the door (and called the FBI to shop them too as a patriot would).

A BLOCKADE OF SHAME BY MEN OF GREED
But this past week has seen a despicable “blockade” of the massive redevelopment of the Royal Children’s Hospital by what is unquestionably the most morally compromised industrial organisation in the land, the Construction division of the CFMEU.

The courts ordered them to stop their sabotage of the construction of a facility for sick kids.

While they ran their blockade of greed to stop construction of the hospital, there were kids battling all forms of sickness, fighting cancer, recovering from surgery and healing from burns caused by our recent horrific bushfires.

It wasn’t the first time courts had ordered them back to work. They had done so before. The first order was ignored by the contemptuous and contemptible militants who hide their greed and avarice under a slimy cloak of workers of the world rhetoric.

They use the Eureka flag yet wipe their wealthy bums on its values.

On sites like the Royal Childrens, for companies like Lend Lease, it is not unusual for unskilled labourers to be paid more than $100,000 per annum. With 26 Rostered Days Off a year, construction workers last year demanded and got a 15% pay rise, well above CPI.

Being paid well is a great thing of course as long as you’re delivering value in proportion to what you’re being paid.

To argue these blokes are hard done by is outrageous. Sure it’s tough work and the prospect of unemployment looms large on the horizon for the whole industry. But those on that job have every reason to whistle while they work.

And on a site like Royal Childrens Hospital, make no mistake about who’s paying for them to be so well looked after, it’s the Victorian people.

IT’S A HOSPITAL FOR SICK KIDS, HAVE THEY NO SENSE OF DECENCY?
There has been a long history of industrial trouble at the Children’s Hospital site, with the ABC reporting in 2006:

Stateline has been told one allegedly involves a senior union official who was forcibly removed from Bovis LendLease’s Royal Children Hospital’s site on August 15th. In another incident, put to the Industrial Relations Commission last month, a Bovis LendLease manager received a death threat.

We were curious about what could have prompted the union pulling on a “blockade” of such an important project, particularly at a time when they are supposed to be agitating for more public sector spending on projects that could employ the members of the union in their very cyclical construction industry. Some say they are even intent on pursuing an “industrial alliance” with traditionally more responsible moderate unions in the form of the NUW and SDA in order to use preselection threats to squeeze more loot out of government for projects they want. Somehow we doubt PM Rudd and Premier Brumby are as easily shaken down as the builders/developers the CFMEU is used to pick-pocketing.

The left-wing press described the issue:

It comes after lead contractor Bovis Lend Lease and the unions were involved last year in a dispute over the introduction of swipe identity cards at a number of its building sites, including the Royal Children’s.

That’s a very polite description of what we understand transpired.

With the blessing and sanction of the union, it is alleged that workers were pretending to be present at the site while spending time at a nearby pub for hours and hours, day after day. It’s a huge site and management clearly were having issues keeping track of all the workers.

With the blessing and sanction of the union, it is alleged that workers were pretending to be present at the site while spending time at a nearby pub for hours and hours, day after day. It’s a huge site and management clearly were having issues keeping track of all the workers.

In order to defeat this, they decided to introduce an identity swipe card system for clocking on and off so they could keep track of who came in and when and who left and when they departed. It’s not the normal situation at many building sites but is certainly common enough at very many workplaces. Indeed, the ministerial office for Roads and Ports Minister Tim Pallas strictly administered by hyper-organised chief of staff Cressida Wall is believed to have a similar system in place for the ministerial staff there. Legend has it she also commissioned and required the wearing of “Team RoPo” T-shirts. Surely, that’s an urban myth.

That’s what provoked the blockade. Management’s insistence that people paid to work actually be at work and be working. It doesn’t seem at all unreasonable.

THEY ARE BUILDING A PALACE OF MIRACLES YET ARE LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK
When you visit the Royal Childrens Hospital development as we did yesterday, you’re struck by the vastness of the project, it must be more than doubling the size of that important facility where so many Victorian kids are rushed in an emergency, are taken to be healed and cared for in occasionally terrifying circumstances for both parents and patients.

In the minds of most Victorians, it’s practically hallowed ground. The miracles they perform come from man-made skill and dedication.

And yet for the venal scum waving Eureka flags of rebellion while caring for little other than loot in that part of the union, building at the joint is just another excuse to pull on obscene rorts that ultimately all Victorians end up paying for.

Getting paid for work you don’t do is theft. A union actively involved in arranging this on a grand scale is little more than an organised crime outfit. It’s like the ugliest aspects of mob-controlled unions in New York.

A tough union that goes in hard for its members is a delight to behold in our view. Most unions do such a good job that we’re surprised more people don’t join them. They are very good value. And underlying everything most of them do is a real sense of decency and justice and passion to do the right thing for society and for their members.

But the construction division of the CFMEU for too long enjoyed absolute power on construction sites. And you don’t have to be Lord Acton to know what that does. Yes, it corrupts absolutely.

The CFMEU construction bloke in NSW who owned fourteen North Shore properties was clearly a crook. But it’s the crooked culture in the whole organisation that worries us.

Shaking down a Maserati driving property developer for bribes might be illegal but what they’ve done at RCH isn’t just illegal, it’s immoral too.

For how else could one characterise a union tolerating or condoning or encouraging its members to bludge off – to steal from – a development designed to help cure sick kids. And then when they’re busted for it, they arrange a blockade that has the effect of delaying construction and costing millions.

What kind of morality drives people who engage in blockading the construction of a hospital for kids so a few shonks can sip beer all day while the economy and construction industry is in freefall and the state is literally in flames.

The words ‘heartless scum’ don’t do them justice.

Tomorrow we’ll keep exploring the dirty secrets of the nation’s most despicable trade union.

THE DON: Mark Butler might be factionally shy and retiring but Don Farrell remains large and in charge

The Adelaide Advertiser reports a changing of the guard in Labor’s South Australian Left faction as Mark Butler hands off to his apprentice David Gray.

They kind of half suggest that SA patriot Senator Don Farrell, the leader of the Right faction, might similarly be stepping back from his powerbroking activities. That’s not what we hear. Farrell remains as a dominant player in South Aussie politics, highly regarded by all and continuing to play a major role in keeping the party sorted, our sources suggest.

THE TIMES SUIT HIM: Peter Costello early riser

Anyone doubting Peter Costello’s ongoing interest in public life would have had that removed by his appearance this mercifully chilly and drizzly Melbourne morning on the Today show at seven minutes past seven o’clock. That would have required a departure from the warm lands of doona by no later than say five thirty AM to get to the Nine studio in time for make-up etc.

Dr John Hewson might call him lazy but there’s certainly ample evidence to the contrary. He’s hungrier than Bob Mammarella on pie night.

Cossie acquitted himself well talking about the recession although of course didn’t offer that much about what he would do although he persuasively made the case against the government’s cash splash.

He declared that “hundred of thousands” of Australian’s would be likely to lose their job in the looming downturn.

Karl Stefanovic asked him whether he still has “the fire in the belly”?

The answer is clearly ‘yes’ which could spell bad news for both Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull.

GOT WOOD: Former cop politician fondly remembers police groupie conwoman as "breath of fresh air"

The federal MP for the very marginal seat of LaTrobe Jason Wood has fondly remembered his former squeeze conwoman Jodie Harris as “a breath of fresh air” in today’s Herald Sun.

ONE-WOMAN CRIME SPREE
Harris was the odd conwoman who pretended to be a policewoman on occasion to steal money from people and who had serially dated policemen. She stole hundreds of thousands of dollars that way before being busted and sentenced to years of imprisonment in Victoria and other states.

The parliamentarian and former counter-terror cop who famously and repeatedly confused his ‘organisms’ with his ‘orgasms’ in a late-night speech in the House of Representatives appears to have scored quite a few from the eccentric woman and cop-groupie.

Some of the least likely objects of affection in political circles appear to be able to maintain a Charles Manson-esque level of young political female groupie-love so if it’s possible for them we don’t see why the boys in blue who risk their lives to keep us safe every day should be denied.

WOODY REMEMBERS PAST ENCOUNTERS OF THE SKANK KIND
Wood – who will perhaps be used as a case study for why a good no-comment can be a superior option to chatting the day away with pesky scribes – has told the Hun’s Paul Anderson that the convicted serial conwoman was “a breath of fresh air” around the stations he worked at in the early 1990s. No doubt she was.

He explained she operated under a different name back then. But of course a rose by any other name would surely smell as sweet.

“Jodie Harris was under a different name and she used to come around, for example, (to) East Melbourne and Russell St police stations, I regarded her as a casual acquaintance.”

Very casual. You could of course drive a divvy van through such a non-denial denial. She was perhaps filed under “Booty call” on his speed-dial. What a heartless brute, willing to give her one out the back but not willing to buy her a meal afterwards:

“I never went out with her,” he insisted.

It seems he didn’t have to in order to take full advantage of her services. A bit sad really. The parliamentarian says as much:

“She was infatuated with all police members.She would come across as the world’s nicest girl . . . (but) I never had a relationship with her. Definitely not.”

No, not a relationship. She used cops to be able to perfect her crimes. And they used her in the manner of a town bike. Not nice.

THE TRUTH IS ONLY A PRISON VISIT AWAY
Hopefully if the honourable member’s non-denial denial of over-the-counter love isn’t satisfactory to Jodie Harris, an enterprising member of the press will make their way in to see her where she is currently a guest of Her Majesty and Minister Bob Cameron to get her perspective.

That would be a breath of fresh air.