Dai Le’s campaign for the Western Sydney seat of Fowler "ran on the smell of an oily rag" -- a stark contrast to the well-funded campaigns of other independents this election, or the national grassroots infrastructure the Greens have developed over two decades.

People assumed Fowler would be a contest between an experienced campaigner and a relative amateur. They were right: Kristina Keneally has never won a competitive campaign before.

In 2003, intervention by Labor’s head office ensured Keneally would win her first preselection battle in the NSW state seat of Heffron -- a seat safely in Labor hands for 30 years. When the aggrieved former member for Heffron, Deirdre Grusovin, complained the process had been undemocratic, Keneally told the Sydney Morning Herald: