>>Good riddance to bad rubbish.<<

I agree completely. If the reports are true that Belinda Neal tried to influence local ALP supporters to vote for her by way of her getting hip replacements etc for them quicker, then that's just corruption. And it should be dealt with by the appropriate authorities ijn the system.

Then there's the rough way she treats others. On balance, the right decision has been made. If losing the seat is the price the ALP has to pay, that's not too high a price. A phoenix will eventually rise from the ashes, by way of a better local candidate, and the ALP will be better for it. As long as the overbearing Neal was there, such candidates would have been suffocated at birth.

It would have to be expected that at the 2010 Federal election in Robertson there would be a significant number of swinging voters who, whilst in 2007 voting Labor, would intend voting Liberal no matter who the endorsed ALP candidate happens to be.

Swinging voters could have been pursuaded to deliver an additional electoral message in the process by casting their primary vote, their first preference, for Melissa Batten (Ind), and their second preference for the Coalition candidate for whom they otherwise intended to vote anyway. If Melissa polled like most independent candidates, such primary votes cast for her would end up reallocated to the coalition candidate after her expected exclusion after the first distribution of preferences.

The thing that may have pursuaded intending Coalition voters as well as erstwhile Labor voters to give Melissa their first preferences was that a grudge vote was involved, and Melissa herself had been one of the first innocent victims of the behaviour that gave rise to that grudge.

Melissa, as an independent candidate constituting the only channel for the delivery of popular (poetic?) justice, was something electorally very special.

If unpopular enough with the VOTERS as opposed to the ALP membership, as endorsed ALP candidate, Belinda Neal may have attracted less primary vote than Melissa Batten, but provided all voting 1, Neal, gave Melissa Batten their second preference, the return of a member favouring the formation of a Labor government may have been more assured despite any otherwise expected swing to the Coalition.

So perhaps it can now be seen why a candidacy of Melissa Batten up against Belinda Neal may have been, as an insurance policy at the national level, a very astute move for the ALP to have discretely facilitated, without involving any deception of voters.

Without Belinda Neal as an ongoing target for payback, the chance of directing swinging vote away from the Coalition, and capturing punting Coalition grudge vote, has evaporated.

Nope, no ALP electoral astuteness after all.

Justice denied.

The machine wins.

Unless the pre-selection vote is able to be set aside for some reason as invalid.

Robinson is aways hard, it swings truly.
Belinda rode on the back of Rudd, it truth she never was going to win this seat.
I tread on thin ice, a foot soldier for my ALP[ rightly ashamed of the NSW branch, Belinda never should have got a run.
I truly think her husband is a great man, but she never has had support from me.
Long before the nightclub, long before she won this seat.
She was what she is, a combative trouble looking for an outlet self server.
Those who want evidence do me this favor, look for todays issue of the N S W based Sydney morning Herald.
Look at her eyes in the front page photo as she looks at her opponent.
I rest my case but leave saying this, in NSW we have a leader.
First one from the day Carr left, we however do not have a team, we are lemmings rushing to our cliff.
Those about to take power have not earned it, but we gift rapped and present it to them.
Thanks to those who dislodged this lady, more than rank and file did it, but please consider dumping about twenty more now.
Our party deserves nothing but the best Even in impending defeat, action please pride in party needs restoring.
PS
please except my note, I will be to sick on polling day to do HTV,

I hope she loses.

A report in today's Central Coast Express Advocate claims that Melissa Batten has abandoned her intention to stand as an independent candidate in the division of Robertson at the upcoming Federal elections. She is quoted as saying:

"I was only interested in running if I was
up against Belinda Neal. Now I won't make
any difference. ..."

I think Melissa is quite right to abandon her plans for candidacy. Without Belinda Neal as an endorsed candidate to vote out, Melissa would be just another independent candidate in a probable field of at least three or four of such, plus one or two minor party candidates. She might have had a reasonable chance of retrieving her deposit, but thats probably about all. Why should she give herself the grief?

It would have been interesting to know why poster Beaumonde hoped Melissa would lose should she have stood. So far as I can tell from that user's rather sparse and sporadic 19 post posting history, I get the sense that it was hoped Melissa would lose because her candidacy offerred prospect of denying some primary vote to the Liberal candidate, Darren Jamieson. Which, if that sense is correct, was exactly my point as to there having been, be it ever so briefly, an opportunity for the ALP to display some electoral astuteness in the upcoming contest for Robertson.

Earlier, pelican, Hasbeen, and Foxy questioned Melissa's suitability as a potential representative. Normally they would have been quite right to wish to apply some test as to such possible candidacy, a test analogous to that which is presumed would normally accompany a party endorsement. I suggest that such considerations, in Melissa's sole case, had no relevance whatever. Such tests, if applied at the last-but-one ALP pre-selection, clearly failed even though all the signs were in evidence as to the likelihood of such as eventually happened occurring.

If the voters were to have seen Melissa as the instrument of poetic justice and the means of removal of Belinda Neal, any assessment as to Melissa's suitability was irrelevant.

Forrest I too think she is better not running.
And I understand it is most unlikely she did not wrongly suffer at Neal's hands, Dela Bosca does ,he continues to be a victim, of his wife.
That poster, well in truth the forum is used by many practicing politicians.
Some ,quite a few in their own name.
I would truly say if Labor wins it will be a miracle good candidate but a much tainted party.