CACTUS: Saturday night take-out is Oakeshott and Windsor are finished

Federal Labor-supporting Independent MPs Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor have been sent a pretty emphatic message in the NSW state election: they’re dead meat.

NSW Labor was vanquished as widely expected despite a formidably resilient showing by outgoing Premier Kristina Keneally. Bearded Victorian lefty Alex White says it’s the worst ever effort, the pre ALP Labor Electoral League managed to win 34 seats in 1891. The only joy for Labor on this funereal night for them was that they appear to have fended off pushes from dodgy vitamin marketer Jamie Parker in Balmain and fanatical Israel-hater Fiona Byrne in Marrickville. Both seats are still considered too close to call though.

The Liberals polled incredibly but the Nats also did extremely well, reclaiming territory lost to highly politically effective, cunning Independents.

In the state seats of Port Macquarie, once held by Rob Oakeshott, and Tamworth, once held by Tony Windsor, the Nats brutally knocked off the Independents, linking them to their federal counterparts, the Greens, the Prime Minister and, of course, the dreaded carbon tax.

There was a 30% swing against Oakeshott’s mate Peter Besseling in Port Macquarie.

There was a 12% swing against Windsor’s mate Peter Draper

The country members are now staring into the political abyss. The seats don’t have exactly the same boundaries although there is considerable overlap. Swings like that would be enough to obliterate Oakeshott and almost certainly Windsor too, assuming he runs again (and it’s widely expected he won’t). The Nats can smell blood now and are going to devote themselves to wiping the two out, whatever happens.

And the contrast with their somewhat estranged mate Bob Katter couldn’t be more stark.

He’s come up like roses, stood up for principle (some of them admittedly a bit eccentric from a city-slicker’s point of view), maintained his rage against Green taxes on mining and carbon but for the most part has been a sensible and pragmatic MP in the chamber, voting with the government often enough and maintaining very cordial relations with the Prime Minister and her colleagues, keeping a good rapport with the Opposition Leader too.

He’s likely to stay the member for Kennedy for as long as he likes. His cheeky plan to hand the seat over to one of his sons will probably work such is the high local community regard for both father and son (a local councillor).

The two wanted to be players and went their separate ways from the bloke who was probably their natural leader. The rush of blood to their head, demonstrated by 17 minute orations by Oakeshott and their foolish participation in a boastful 4Corners programme (that Katter was wise enough to shun in the end) has meant that they are all but finished politically.

While it’s far too early to write off the Prime Minister, the two blokes who ensured she got there have learned this Saturday night that the party is well and truly over.

HIT THE ROAD JACQUES: Power-mad psycho causing rift in anti-carbon-tax movement

Conflict between the mainstream of the No Carbon Tax movement and the extremist Jacques Laxalle is boiling over into conflicting dates for the next Sydney rally and a fight over the future of the group.

DICTATORIAL
Insiders with the grassroots movement – that has impressively signed up no fewer than 22 different right-wing organisations to support its popular cause – have told VEXNEWS that Laxalle acts like a “jumped-up dictator” who won’t listen to advice from those trying to ensure public rallies build opposition to the carbon tax not provoke sympathy for its proponent, Prime Minister Gillard.

Laxalle was repeatedly warned, insiders say, of the need to be strict with extremists who were carrying or wearing offensive messages that would be exploited by hostile elements within the media who were desperate to pain the anti-carbon-tax movement as being controlled by the ultra-right.

INCOMPETENT
The concern about Laxalle is such that Liberal members of Parliament, from the Leader of the Opposition down, are reluctant to appear at future rallies unless and until they can be assured that responsible, sensible and pro-Coalition people are firmly in charge.

“There can be no repeat of the farcical situation where the area behind the speakers at the rally was not cordoned-off and protected from people carrying stupid signs that don’t reflect the mainstream of the anti-carbon-tax movement and only served to help Gillard,” one worried insider said.

“Laxalle has come from nowhere and suddenly wants to be the control-freak in charge. He’s certainly a freak and many are worried that he is basically a lunar-right type who is intent on setting up his own fringe-dweller political party under the banner of Consumer and Taxpayers Association,” they explained.

Megalomania is defined as:

1. A psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence.
2. An obsession with grandiose or extravagant things or actions.

MEGALOMANIACAL
Laxalle has made no secret of his anti-Liberal political ambitions to get into Parliament under his own self-promoting banner, exploiting the carbon-tax issue as his springboard to power. The fact that this is regarded as the raving as someone totally disconnected from the Liberal party and barely in touch with reality offers mainstream conservatives no comfort, we’ve been told.

His lack of organisation and contempt for the advice of the more politically savvy contributed to the sign fiasco and apparently caused considerable inconvenience to many older people about the logistics of getting to Canberra on the rally’s buses and so on. “All the seniors wanted to string him up,” one close observer explained.

Insiders tell VEXNEWS that they have built a mighty grassroots movement with literally tens of thousands of email contacts and hundreds of people who’d like to volunteer and take part in opposing the Gillard government.

THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THE TAX IS TO UNSEAT THE GOVERNMENT, LIBERALS SAY
The view of mainstream conservatives is not surprisingly that the single best expression of opposition to the tax is to get behind Tony Abbott and the Coalition, not play games with fringe-dweller, lunar-right groups that are the notorious haven of crooks, psychopaths and those with an obsessive wannabe-dictator complex that is best treated by counselling.

Dictatorial Jacques Laxalle is considered to be a serious impediment to the movement continuing to gain momentum and stop the tax. While pretending to be vehemently opposed to the Prime Minister, many no-carbon-tax insiders believe his foolish leadership have played right into Labor’s hands.