Asides

LET FREEDOM RING: Moderate rebels storm Lefty citadel at Adelaide Uni

Bleary-eyed Adelaide Uni students waking up today may not know it, but at 3:45pm on Wednesday 8 August 2012, twenty three years of Young Left rule at the sandstone campus came to a halt.

In a similar fashion to the Arab spring sweeping across the Middle East, the Young Left were vanquished from the Labor Club by an uprising of moderate forces in the ALP, Young Labor Unity. We can advise no machine guns were fired into the air in celebration.

YLU in South Australia are led by rising star Tim Picton, of whom big things are expected.

Tim Picton has done what most of his senior faction colleagues thought impossible. One to watch.

Recently elected to the influential position of YLU convener, Tim Picton masterminded a brilliant preference strategy that blitzed the brains trust of the Young Left.

Reports suggest several members of the Young Left were so overcome they failed to successfully complete a ballot, resulting in their vote being declared informal by their own returning officer, thus lowering quota and allowing more patriots to be elected to the club’s all-powerful executive.

In all, seven positions on the Labor Club executive were up for grabs, YLU got four, the Young Left got three.

The ballot for the office bearer positions, elected by members of the Executive, should have happened next as a matter of standard meeting procedure. Renton’s anyone?

However, discarding standard meeting procedure and comradely politeness to hide their sadness, the Young Left ran out of the meeting room to prevent the ballot taking place. It wasn’t a good look. Independent observers remarked the scene resembled the recent rapid exit by Tony Abbott and gazelle-like Chris Pyne out of Federal Parliament to avoid voting with the Member for Dobell.

As a result of the executive election triumph, Tim Picton is expected to become the first Labor Club President in over two decades from Labor Unity.

No word on whether an olive branch will be extended to the Young Left, many feel the lockout and shabby treatment of YLU members by the Left over so many years may cost them any chance of leniency. We hope not, as sharing is caring. Increasingly, Labor’s factions understand that while healthy competition is good, their vicious enemies in the Greensparty could exploit divisions if they get out of control.

Only time will tell.

What Unity sources are saying with relief and satisfaction know is a new dawn has broken at the University of Adelaide.

Tim Picton has done what most of his senior faction colleagues thought impossible. One to watch.

© 2012 VEXNEWS © 2013.