FEDERAL Finance Minister Penny Wong has been placed only second on Labor’s South Australian Senate ticket for the next election.
The party’s SA convention on Saturday selected the high-profile minister behind the relatively unknown Don Farrell, a former union official.
While that’s pretty funny, it is hard to get too excited. Unless the SA Labor party expect to perform so poorly at the next election that their second Senate spot is at risk Wong will be re-elected to the Parliament and that is the important consideration.
Union official! The gene pool in deliverance is deeper than the ALP’s
Expect more of the same in future. Labor must cull the present herd and bring in fresh blood if it wants to survive.
I certainly hope that their vote is so low that her seat is in danger.
Her removal from the ministry will improve the average level of capability – at least I think so.
Wasn’t Farrell one of the ‘faceless men’ who helped depose Kevin Rudd?
Sexist misogynists ‘n stuff!!
And I think it raises the question about the role that Tony Abbott’s playing.
As Bolta says, Pen is ‘fluent without being persuasive’…. like a talking metronome.
Ever a chance Kirby and our Pen manning a mardi gras float together, just so the electorate can reflect on their prime ‘tail wags dog’ social doctrine?
Perhaps the preselection committee became momentarily confused: “give it to the guy in the suit”. Ooops – wrong guy.
Assuming that the wrong guy is just as much an incompetent liar as Wong… does it matter?
The ALP are going to be beaten like a red-headed stepchild.
“It’s not misogyny when we do it…”
If the libs have three and a half quota, the ALP less than 2 and the greens less than one, then things could get interesting if, say, the Katter party gets half a quota and directs to the conservatives.
The greens could miss out altogether and you end up with four libs, two ALP.
Do the nats have a separate ticket in SA?.
Its hardly a victory; Farrell is a union darlek of the worst kind.
Well I’ll be a skanky ho! that sounds like misogyny to me.
Gab,it’s clear that Abbott has infiltrated the SA Branch of the ALP.
“Farrell is from South Australia, where he is the flag carrier for the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association. He’s been in the Senate since mid-2008.
He was also one of the faceless men who had Rudd removed.
Anybody looking at SA Labour Govt can see that Union is pretty much running the state and the Shop Union connections are incredible.The Farrell has been top of that pile for many years.
Also note same Union is having a major say in next Senate selections in WA and Qld. Look how many from the Union in Federal parliament.
Current HSU head was involved in selecting next Senate candidates from TAS.
Hopefully somebody will do an in depth look into the Union background of current Labour Govt. Crikey had one about 6 years ago but the situation is worse now. In particular look at AWU (Gillard, Swan, Ludwig x 2, Shorten, Roxon etc) and Shop Union in SA and upcoming Senate selections. A bit of Googling quickly reveals a lot of connections going back years including this information about SDA :
On the SDA – it’s one of the few unions without rank and file voting. Only union officials vote at union meetings, yet the SDA vote in the ALP is rated on the total number of members – the most of any union in Australia, about 230,000. That’s why Joe de Bruyn has led the union for around 30 years, and why Don Farrell was SA boss for about 20. Only a handful of people are needed to keep them in power, yet the SDA was the largest contributor to the Your Rights At Work campaign which did for Howard and his Work Choices laws. Remember that in SA, 50% of the votes at ALP conferences are allocated to unions (who represent 11% of the population), with the SDA having more of those votes than any other union.
Further proof that the Unions are running Labour not the party itself.
First Roxon’s dirty tricks against Ashby and now this.
The Labor Party: they really hate homosexuals.
Tony Abbott stood by the lesbian in his life.
But Julia Gillard didn’t.
Shame.
Search on Youtube for
The SDA (‘Shoppies’ Union) power over SA Labor government
to see a 2011 Today Tonight report on the Don and the Shopranos and power over SA Govt.
Judging by her suits it’s an honest mistake.
Loyalty isn’t a trait associated with Gillard.
Meow
purr…Meow…HISS
stalk…Slash…ROAR
Misogynistic, homophobic and racists. The Labor Party has it all.
Where is the outrage from the Liar and the Love media?
Come on guys. Even if you have to blame Tony Abbott, make some noise.
I wouldn’t give two bob for either of the bitches. They’ve both sat on their ample backsides as public servants sucking on taxpayer dollars for most of their miserable whingeing manipulative lives. Both will enthusiastically lie to suit their own self centred purposes.
One simply delights though in the bitch-on-bitch brawl, in which both will engage with unscrupulous cruelty, and the damage it does.
I don’t understand their constant cry for a war between women and men. Do they want to wipe men out, so that they are left with only women around them? That’d turn out well ‘cos no-one does irrational destructive anger better than women turning on each other!
Like most blokes half the people around me are un-men. I do stuff for them that they cannot do and they do stuff for me that I cannot do. In family, professional and business life we’ve enjoyed the company, taught and learned things and laughed a good deal.
I like the differences. The terminally unhappy divisionists are there only so that I have someone to turn my back on and ignore.
Sorry Argonauts, I intended to place my comment above on the “Typical ABC journalism” thread about the upcoming Comrade Bogan Broadasks vs Comrade Mzzz Hogg McWho bout.
Seems like a deliberate slap in the face for Penny Wong.
Whereas c. Thomson is looked after oh so carefully.
Are Labor “union bosses” getting worried that representatives of Emily’s list, and the recently raised handbag brigade, is exerting too much power and needs to slapped down?
Interesting that you guys see this as a personal attack on Penny Wong. There is an equally rational explanation that the ALP are structuring their ballot to return the largest number of votes.
Penny Wong has held some controversial ministries (e.g. climate change, carbon tax) and many ALP voters in SA are coming from a heavy industry background (steel yards, mining, automotive). The first name on the list tends to stand right out there, if you know what I mean.
Just for the record, I do believe that Penny Wong is a loyal party member and her policies are party policies, not her own personal ideas. Her job is to sell the policy to the media, and I’m sure she would do any job asked of her. However, many voters remember her for climate change and carbon tax.