A couple of days ago, Julia Gillard was in Townsville as part of her election campaign, accompanied by the Labor candidate for Herbert, Tony Mooney.

Oh dear, if there is one person in the world that I could NEVER vote for it is Mooney, who was Mayor of Townsville for many years, and an old arch-enemy in my early environmental and sustainability debating days, fifteen or more years ago.

So this means that I couldn’t vote for Gillard, even if she does really come good on her population and sustainable Australia rhetoric, which are the policy areas that matter the most to me.

Or perhaps I could vote for her if she really really got it right. But by crikey it would be awfully painful to put a tick in the box next to Mooney’s name!

So I was wondering: how important are local candidates in the forthcoming election to OLO people?

I would imagine that they don’t figure very highly at all in most peoples’ voting decisions. In fact, I reckon most people probably wouldn't even know their Labor or Liberal candidates until just about the last moment! Is this right?

[Erm, I just had to do a Google search to find out who my LNP candidate is!! { :> # ]

My local candidate works his guts out for the community .
Every one knows him he will be hard to toss he came close last time.
We will fight hard, have a better candidate, and have found faults but this well known bloke will be hard and the seat will go on local issues.

Ah Ludwig... the purists dilemma.

I live in a Liberal safe seat, so my vote counts for absolutely nothing, and it really gives me the #hits.

The ALP fellow is OK but I'd never give the ALP the first vote.

Preferential voting being what it is though, I have no choice but to vote his way, ultimately, as you would too, unless you are a closet Lib/Nat, which I doubt.

Don't agonise over it... just grant them your reluctant preference after making him work hard for it.

I assume that you have no credible independents, most of whom are really Tory chaffcutters anyway?

And being Qld, no doubt a swag of generally looney Christo-fascists in various guises?

Roll on multi-member electorates, Hare-Clarke, and whatever else is needed to produce something closer to 'democracy' than we endure today.

Of course, the Senate is another matter, and there the ALP deserve to suffer. Most of the Qld ALP Senators are attached by umbilical devices to Christianity first, and Qlders last, so they can sing for their supper as far as I am concerned.

My local siting member has turned a safe seat into one of the most marginal in Australia.
He did this largely though his own ego and his investigated by the CMC over his allowances. It was reported he even refused to supply a copy of his signature.That was a legalistic nil all draw ...not cleared just not provable.

He has a predilection towards not being sure which level of Government he is employed to be in. By his own admissions he claims his biggest "wins" (highly debateable that his input was meaningful) even while in govt, as issues that are state and local govt issues.
When voting he votes with the religious motivated right..i.e. He voted against RU486 quoting his medical experience and ethics....he was an ophthalmic surgeon...?

In his own jurisdiction, he could be labeled as unimpressive and missing in action.
The vote against him in the last election exceeded the national swing.
IMO he will win, because of his posturing and the lack of knowledge and lousey alternatives,the question is will it be by 100 postals like last time.

The current crop of wannabes all have similar profiles as the mangrove blue butterfly, Drab and relatively unseen. Even the Greens fail because they do nothing untill the election period.
Labor are similarly inclined. IMO they are all giving the seat(s) to the NLP.

He is a grand stander par nauseum.



My assessment is that the electorate is now down to rumps V rumps.

Local members are important.
The local member must be forced by their party to live in the electorate.
Bob Hawke became member for Wills, and tricked the locals into believing he would move from his leafy bay side suburb of Sandringham where he owned a castle,Sandringham Castle.He travelled around the electorate with local real estate agents.Once elected he never moved out of Sandringham castle.
The Minister of Transport in the Victorian Labor Government has a western suburbs electorate but chooses to live in the leafy bayside suburb of Black Rock,close to Sandringham castle.
The problem with both these members is that they are never aware of local problems except second hand by their electoral staff.
Kevin Rudd who became a Queensland member had his heart in Canberra and the UN or China.
If he concentrated on local issues I am sure he would have been a better PM and posable still the PM.

Local candidates are very important.
I live in a safe Liberal seat with
an established candidate who wins every
election. And, just
like TBC, it gives me the sh**ts that
Labor can't come up with a serious candidate
you'd give this Lib. a run for his money.
The candidates that Labor sends to our district
are total persona-non-gratas - who are not at
all capable of attracting voters, and this Liberal
candidate will probably be here until he dies.

It also riles me that considering how much the
Liberals are screaming about Labor's spending -
yet in our area alone, we get very fancy,
expensive documentation from the Liberal candidate
instructing us on all sorts of voting information -
and postal balloting, and even fridge magnets.
Whereas the Labor candidate information is not
mailed to each resident but hand delivered by
volunteers into our mail boxes. Simple single
sheet inexpensive information about the candidate,
nothing more.

Who's paying for the fancy stuff coming out of the
Liberal offices? I thought the Opposition wasn't
supposed to spend big - seeing as they're always
accusing Labor's spending. I guess it's a case of
when they do it's allright!