Federal Government

WHIPPED: Kim Carr loyalist carpets Vamvakinou challenger as “Caligula’s horse”

The Australian hasn’t run Rick Wallace’s excellent story in its online edition, so we thought patriots would not be able to live without it.

It offers the connoisseur everything: left-on-left violence, colourful insults, intra-union head-kicks and even a dignified response from Andy Richards, the target of Socialist Left venom in Calwell. It is the policy of VEXNEWS to oppose candidates of the extreme left and yet after reading Ian Jones attack on Comrade Richards, we almost feel sympathy for his plight. Win, lose or draw, we’re sure he’ll avail himself of the opportunity for what the CFMEU WA boss Kevin Reynolds refers to as "GST": Get Square Time.

Labor insiders have expressed amazement to VEXNEWS the challenge to Vamvakinou hasn’t been called off yet.

Ambition Faction insiders associated with Senator David Feeney have told us that the Socialist Left have been so slow off the mark that they have been unable to slow the unstoppable momentum of the freight train headed at increasing speed in the direction of a person who is probably widely and cross-factionally considered the most useless Federal Member of Parliament from Victoria.

"If they’d approached us earlier, we might have been able to call this off. They have been disorganised and undisciplined in this and seem incapable of conducting coherent negotiations with the Left Unions. It’s not our fault they can’t hold their faction together. And anyway, will anyone miss Maria Vamvakinou, a woman who has never lived in her electorate and barely has a pulse? As VEXNEWS would say she is an ‘oxygen thief.’"

Indeed we would say that.

That said, our bet each way is that Carr faction operatives are rolling out the tanks in the way they were trained to do so at Army Reserve and while we hope Vamvakinou will be defeated, we suspect their rigorous Stalingrad style defence of the ailing MP could be sufficient for her to survive. Just.

Anyway read Rick Wallace’s excellent piece. He did very well to get such amusing quotes:

Fellow unionist blasts ALP choice
By Rick Wallace, Victorian political reporter

A UNIONIST hoping to topple a Rudd government MP has been attacked by a leader from his own union, who described him as “dead wood” and “unsuitable for public office”.
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union leader Ian Jones launched a spray at Andy Richards, a special projects officer with the AMWU who is hoping to topple MP Maria Vamvakinou in a preselection this Sunday for the prize Victorian Labor seat of Calwell.
“My view is, Andy Richards is unsuitable for public office,” Mr Jones told The Australian. “It’s a disgrace that people are seeking to dump their dead wood by putting them into one of the safest seats in Australia.
“It makes a mockery of the ALP’s preselection processes and it makes a mockery of the AMWU and the processes we have for dealing with these things.
“Putting Andy Richards into the federal parliament is the political equivalent of Caligula trying to make his horse a senator.”
Mr Richards, who sits on several ALP committees, said yesterday he did not believe Mr Jones’s comments “warrant a response”.
“I have run a positive, issues-based campaign, centred around growing manufacturing jobs, helping migrant families and working on local infrastructure issues,” he said.
“ALP preselections are internal party matters that in my opinion should remain internal.
“I am happy to stand on my record in the labour movement in Victoria.”
The bitterly contested preselection in the northern Melbourne seat is threatening to blow up a fragile peace within the Victorian ALP and all sorts of manoeuvring was going on yesterday to force Mr Richards to withdraw his challenge.
Whoever wins the local vote will have to cobble together an alliance between members from the Turkish, Kurdish and Greek communities.
Mr Richards is being backed by AMWU state secretary Steve Dargavel, who has fallen out with Left faction powerbroker Kim Carr, a strong backer of Ms Vamvakinou.
Ms Vamvakinou’s allies have been quick to point out Mr Richards was recently elected to the council in Geelong, west of Melbourne, and had few links to the Broadmeadows area.
However, Mr Richards said he was familiar with the area through his union work and family connections, and pledged to move there if preselected.
Mr Jones told The Australian Mr Dargavel was backing Mr Richards to get him off the union’s books because its metals division had struck financial problems.
But a source from the AMWU denied the claims about the metals division’s finances and said Mr Jones’s comments about Mr Richards were wrong.
Ms Vamvakinou’s allies are confident they have enough support to win enough of the local vote to ward off the challenge and that Mr Richards will be withdrawn from the preselection race before Sunday.
However, talks yesterday between the Left faction and Mr Richards’s backers are believed to have failed to resolve the standoff.

© 2009 VEXNEWS 2010©.