Comments on: Baillieu’s Liberals not keen on new blood

By: lloydhdavid@gmail.com

lloydhdavid@gmail.com — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 07:12:50 +0000

The funny activities that present themselves at preselection are all but deviod from the 20yrs inparty local activities at grass roots , the faces that appear on the glossy laefletts with literator that a cake icing would die for are all odd pretence. The question has to be begged if you are to be the representative of a long lasting been here a long time Aston member why is it we have never participated in your correspondence while you have dallied in your own segment of politics and alas we have not been privy to your enemies, friends,or efforts or your political charactor, and mainly your shortcommings as well as your success. Grass Roots sounds like the ecomony of spouting green shoots , The members were dismissed to galley levels years ago the young — up and comming internal aggressiveness required for future reps went with them, others with some sort of opinion had to leave, that left, a party of odds and administrators it will take a few radical influxes of ideas to get this lot moving.Many Aston Members will meet these prospective challanges for the first time at the Sunday Aston Preselection Battle. Satisfaction to be voted or the adage Best of the Show Bunch. My vote will add some icing
David Lloyd

By: Charles Richardson

Charles Richardson — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 03:20:09 +0000

Hi Andrew -
Thanks for that; I think we pretty much agree there. As I mentioned, however, the grassroots reforms don’t yet apply to sitting MPs, who have been grandfathered in, so it would be unfair to say in 2011 that they’ve failed - they won’t really have been tried yet. But I guess that won’t stop people saying it.

By: Andrew Elder

Andrew Elder — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 03:27:21 +0000

The Liberal Party likes the idea of generational change, but the unpleasant reality of confronting someone you've worked with and admired for years and telling them to give it away for some thrusting young thing doomed to make excuses for failing schools/ transport/ healthcare is too much for most people, including most Liberals. By the end of next year the Liberal Party will probably lose the next State election, and be left largely leaderless federally: Peter Costello, the most senior Victorian Liberal, will retire. The leader of the federal parliamentary Liberal Party will not be a Victorian, nor particularly popular in that state. Liberals in safe seats, who'd normally be expected to step up and help candidates in marginal seats, will themselves be newbies. Peter van Onselen points out that the State Director, Tony Nutt, was "Howard's enforcer" but that he has changed profoundly, embracing the spirit of grassroots democracy among Victorian Liberals. As I've said elsewhere, this is not merely wrong but very, very funny. My prediction is that Nutt will declare the grassroots experiment to have failed and that he will spend 2011-12 tapping timeservers on the shoulder, bringing home the disappointment of repeated failure to those occupying the elected offices from which such disappointment might be reversed. Peter van Onselen might be able to imagine Nutt with flowers in what's left of his hair, but I can't. I think that things are going to get worse in Victoria before they get better, but however much grassroots Liberals might appreciate that they will not be able to claim credit. New MPs will get their chance but at the behest of the State Director, setting a pattern that will probably continue throughout their careers. Nutt could well play the same sort of role in Victoria that John Carrick did in NSW during the Menzies era: it will be interesting to see how Victorian Liberals adapt to this, given what appears to be their failure to sieze the day now that the opportunity has been presented to them.