Crikey

If Miranda Kerr is the so-called “face” of self-proclaimed upmarket retailer David Jones, why is she nowhere to be seen in any media activity promoting the growth of the business as Myer sneaks up behind it? The “old face”, Megan Gale, is in press ads, the face of the AMEX card and plastered on walls outside the Melbourne and Sydney redevelopments. Has Miranda been painted over? The reason — internal research shows Miranda is not resonating with DJ’s customers. She is seen as too young and looks like she is wearing her mum’s clothes.

Re: “Interesting ALP preselection rumours”: David Bradbury may well be looking to shift seats to avoid a possible preselection challenge, not just to shore up his chances of re-election. There is talk in the Penrith branches that he might be opposed by either May Hayek or Mark Ptolemy from the Right or possibly Adam Searle from the Left, who is unlikely to get the nod to run in Macquarie when Bob Debus retires.

The feeling among the branch members is that Bradbury is a good person but has really failed to inspire or make a big impact. Certainly Rudd is lukewarm towards Bradbury and when compared with others who won seats at the last election, such as Mark Arbib or Jason Clare, or other same generation MPs Tony Burke and Chris Bowen, he just hasn’t set the world on fire.

Already overlooked for promotion, he just hasn’t made a notable contribution to anything, but as a good and decent local MP who has reached as far as he will get, that may be enough for the powerbrokers to back him at the next election.

Watch this space.