Who Are They?

In the famous old Abbott and Costello skit it was a case of ‘Who’s on first, What’s on second and I Don’t Know’s on third’.The same could apply to the shenanigans in Canberra at the moment. The current status seems to be that Labor has plunged from 86 seats to 72 and the Libs have 73 (or 72—if you don’t count a Western Australian National as being their camp).
 
And if you don’t, and I’ll talk about that in a minute, that leaves six supposedly unaligned politicians: the Three Amigos, Adam Ant from The Greens, Andrew Wilkie in Tasmania and Tony Crook the National who might not be a National.

Because these men are the ones over whom the would be prime ministers are fawning, because these are the men who will decide whether you have Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott as prime minister, and because these are the men who could force you back to the polls for another election in eight weeks, you are entitled to look a bit more closely at their connections and their antecedents.

First Tony Crook. He stood as a registered National Party candidate. He won as a National against the veteran, and irascible, Wilson Tuckey. Now he says he’s an Independent and will sit on the cross benches.

Is that misrepresentation?  Is that election fraud?

Surely, the people who voted for him though they were voting National.

And Rob Oakeshott. He stood as an Independent. But look at the list of Labor heavies who visited his electorate in the past 18 months:  Rudd, Gillard, Swan, Garrett, Burke, Albanese, Ludwig.

And what was a Labor member from Cessnock  --three hours away – doing in an Oakeshott T-shirt handing out How to Vote cards in Oakeshott’s electorate on Saturday?

It’s fair to say he’ll be leaning to Gillard. His electorate isn’t happy, His  primary vote fell from 68% to 47% this time round.

Andrew Wilkie is a former unsuccessful candidate for The Greens but he says  don’t put him in any camp. He says he’ll line with the party that can deliver  ‘stable and competent’ government.

 Is that the same as ‘stable and effective’ government that Julia Gillard mentioned at least six times in her brief press conference today?

As they say: Follow the bouncing ball.

Friday, August 27, 2010

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2010