Why the Diaz campaign was always going to be a disaster

Unless you've been living in a cave for the past few months you have had heard of Jaymes Diaz and *that* interview. It was a gaffe of the highest magnitude and the publicity surrounding it guaranteed his loss in the most marginal seat in NSW - Greenway. Greenway is a seat the Liberal party has been targeting and should have been one of the first seats in the country marked down as a Coalition gain but history will record a 2.32% swing TO Labor and Diaz will go down as a 2-time failed candidate in a seat he should have won.

Yes, Diaz has now lost Greenway twice, his campaign in 2010 was almost as invisible as his campaign this year, he didn't attend candidate forums, he was hardly at pre-poll meeting voters, he didn't go to community group events. His failure in 2010 was due to being invisible to voters, this is because he was not very confident at public speaking. In fact when I met him in 2010 and again this year both times he didn't make eye contact and one of his minders did the talking. This time, after that gaffe went viral Diaz went into hiding and wouldn't even return calls or respond to emails from the local NewsCorp paper - The Blacktown Advocate. In fact, his gaffe was so worrying to head office they banned almost all Sydney candidates from speaking to media and attending community forums. Without the scrutiny from the voters, how does the party expect an elected member to stand up to the scrutiny of Parliament and the Canberra Press Gallery? In the end the only Liberal candidate to pick up a seat was one of the only ones who actually attended a community forum and put themselves in front of the voters to be scrutinised - Fiona Scott in Lindsay. It's probably a good thing for the Liberal Party that they didn't pick up more seats in Western Sydney having not known how some of these candidates perform under pressure.

The signs were there for the Liberal Party about Diaz being a dud candidate but because his father, Liberal Councillor on Blacktown Council, Jess Diaz controls the numbers in the area he was preselected again. If the Liberal Party wanted to win Greenway they needed a different candidate. They were told this from a sources (including me privately to a few Liberal members) and while Tony Abbott didn't want Diaz as the candidate (he approached both Angry Anderson who ended up running for The Nationals in Throsby and increased their primary vote almost 5% and Matthew Adamson who ended up as the lead Palmer United Party Senate candidate), in the end Jess Diaz made sure his son got the nomination.

The Liberals in Blacktown have a history of preselecting dud candidates in the 2 Blacktown seats. Diaz in Greenway in 2013 and 2010, David Barker (son of Liberal councillor Jacqueline Donaldson) in 2010 who the party was forced to disendorse due to anti-Islamic posts on his Facebook page. , Jess Diaz himself in Chifley in 2007.

The Liberal Party took control of Blacktown Council for the first time ever after elections in 2012 and came close to winning the seat of Blacktown at the 2011 state election. They should have realised by now that there are a lot of affluent people in the area and most of the Labor voters are socially conservative. If they can get their act together and start preselecting decent candidates they might be able turn the once Labor stronghold of Blacktown and surrounding suburbs Liberal and if they can tap more into the social conservatism while not scaring people about their rights at work they might just even be able to turn Mt Druitt marginal. 

SA and Tas elections: Still counting.

UPDATE: 9:40pm Thursday - Fox (ALP) has taken the lead in Bright. She has gone from trailing Kourtesis (LIB) by 6 to leading by 144


UPDATE: 3:30pm Wednesday - Isobel Redmond has conceded defeat.


UPDATE: 5pm Tuesday - The latest Bright update sees Maria Kourtesis (LIB) leading Chloe Fox (ALP) by just 6 votes on the 2PP vote.

UPDATE: 5:05pm - Mount Gambier - Don Pegler (IND) ahead of Steve Perryman (LIB) by 724 votes on 2PP. Just waiting for postals there.

Tasmania looks like going 10-10-5 (although iElect thinks it could go 11 ALP, 8 LIB, 5 GRN and 1 IND (Andrew Wilkie)

In SA, the ALP has held on despite a pretty swing to the Liberal Party as the swing was big in safe ALP and LIB seats but quite small in the marginals. The final make up in SA looks like 25 ALP, 18 LIB and 4 IND. The Upper House in SA looks as though it will be 4 ALP, 4 LIB, 1 GRN, 1 FF and 1 Dignity for Disability.


As I said, counting is still taking place and these results may change. The most likely change would be the last spot in SA Upper House as the ABC computer counts differently to the SAEC and D4D may not be ahead in certain parts of the count using the SAEC method.

Will update when I have more news.

Andrew Robb as next Liberal Party leader?

That's the latest coming out of Canberra. It might work for a while but he won't win the next election. In fact nobody in the Coalition can barring a major stuff-up from Rudd and Co. I can't see anyone challenging Turnbull until after the election loss and he may in fact resign after the loss.

Senator Coonan condemns Mumbai Terrorist Attacks.

The Coalition has joined the Australian Government in condemning the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

Speaking this morning Senator Coonan said “The Coalition expresses its deepest sympathy for the victims of these attacks and their families, those responsible for these serial attacks in Mumbai have launched a cowardly assault on the values of freedom and democracy in India.

It is also an assault on all of us that share the values of free societies.

I, together with all Australians, condemn the perpetrators of these cowardly and frightful attacks which demonstrate in the clearest terms that terrorist groups are active in South Asia,”

“The Coalition understands that the Australian Government and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade are providing consular assistance to Australian nationals in India, as well as to relatives in Australia,” Senator Coonan said.

Source: Liberal Party media

Relatives can seek further information through the DFAT hotline on 1300 555 135.

Liberal Party website offers fake Rudd merchandise.

THE Liberals have begun to toy with Kevin Rudd.

The Kevin Rudd Decisive Action Doll is just one of the items available at a mock memorabilia site set up by the Liberal Party to celebrate the Prime Minister's one year anniversary.

The ruddshop.com website has pictures, watches, dvds and books all dedicated to lampooning Mr Rudd's first year in office.

The Kevin Rudd Decisive Action Doll is said to "feature real voice recordings of all your favourite Rudd catch-cries: 'My challenge to you is this…', 'The buck stops with me', 'On the question of…', and many more."

The toys section also includes the Kevin Rudd Model Plane with the accompanying pitch: "Now you can fly whenever and wherever you like – just like Kevin Rudd!"

News.com.au article
Fake shop

Obviously, that is "non-core" merchandise. Well that is what the Liberal Party will claim when they don't deliver it. All of our Rudd merchandise is real.

Preference deal adds to woes in Turnbull's battle

MALCOLM TURNBULL's chances of hanging on to the seat of Wentworth were dealt another blow yesterday when Labor formalised a preference deal with the Greens.

The Greens have agreed to preference Labor in 50 key seats across the country, including Wentworth, in a deal that will significantly boost Labor's chances of winning the election.

In return, Labor will preference the Greens in the Senate, dramatically increasing the chances of Bob Brown's party winning extra spots and seizing the balance of power.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald