Liberals
SWOOP: Kennett backs ex-Hawthorn tall for Burwood state seat
Liberal patriots are hopeful of liberating Burwood from Labor clutches at the next Victorian election. It has some sentimental value as it was once a ‘leadership’ seat held by long-reigning Vic Premier Jeff Kennett.
And the big man Jeff is weighing in on the fight, providing a reference for former Hawthorn Premiership player Stephen Lawrence, who played nearly 150 games for the club that so often loses to Essendon it is a laughing matter.
If successful in his bid, Lawrence at 200 cms will be one of the tallest members of Parliament ever, although will still be dwarfed by the former Essendon player Justin Madden at 206 cms.
Some locals are not laughing about the Hawthorn play though, feeling that Kennett might be trying to strong-arm them by imposing an outsider who lives in Fitzroy. Others say Kennett has chosen a candidate more in keeping with the Burwood seat in the 1980s not as it is now. Changing demographics in the seat have made it slowly shift Labor’s way, local Liberals are saying that footy or Kennett connections are not greatly significant to, say, the local Chinese community in the area.
Other candidates include IT manager David Solly who while he couldn’t play footy t elite level has fine patriotic credentials, even extending to an involvement in the Democratic Club at Melbourne Uni that in days of yore would recruit people with pics of goodies like Thatcher, Reagan and Hawke and baddies like Gaddafi, Arafat and Castro. We only narrowly avoided joining ourselves. He kicked on from there to join the National Party and then came to his senses and joined the Libs.
The other candidate is the owner of a thriving carpet cleaning business Graham Watt. He’s armed with a reference from the President of the Burwood Liberal branch, which we assume will be very helpful to him. Insiders say Watt has been preparing to run for some time and is a local with strong community connections, through family and his business. While most outside observers will assume Kennett’s reference to shock and awe local branch members into voting for the footballer, that’s not necessarily how it will work.
Party members who spoke with VEXNEWS this morning are keen to weigh the individual merits of each candidate and most seemed more open to Watt’s candidacy than anyone else at this point. So Watt could surprise that flashy former state Premier.
Lawrence walks into the contest favourite but as we’ve said there are local mutterings about it. Lawrence is a newbie to party membership, apparently plans to spend four months of the campaign in Rome. That’d be enough to get ‘Burwood’ Bob Stensholt very happy indeed if he’s up against the big man in absentia.
In addition to Kennett, Lawrence also has as a referee Alan ‘Yabby’ Jeans who coached Hawthorn during their two Premiership losses to Essendon in 1984 and 1985 and later during Lawrence’s time with the club.
Please email us at editor@vexnews.com if you want a full copy of their CVs for your reading pleasure.
Discussion
27 comments for “SWOOP: Kennett backs ex-Hawthorn tall for Burwood state seat”
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Lawrence lives in Burwood and has done so for the best part of 20 years. He works in Fitzroy.
He’s also POSSIBLY a young man with a large family.
Glowing words.
I’m going to beat that field in a canter
Who’s the catholic?
Besides this year, Essendon hadn’t beaten Hawthorn since 20005, would hardly call that “the club that so often loses to Essendon it is a laughing matter”. You are our bitches Landeryou, you only did us this year because we were fielding our u/12s.
As for Lawrence he is a big time bible basher.
I was there when the hawks won in 91 out at Waverley, spent most of the game playing with a balloon.
To this day it’s the best and only GF i’ve ever seen.
“Some locals are not laughing about the Hawthorn play though, feeling that Kennett might be trying to strong-arm them by imposing an outsider who lives in Fitzroy.”
This is false. The man has lived in Burwood since about 88.
Burwood takes in large chunks of public housing, especially Chadstone and Jordanville. The Libs, regardless of who the candidate is, have absolutely no hope. Just ask Andrew Rule what it was like door knocking in those areas on behalf of Di back in 2002.
I dont care where he is from but rather what he can offer.
Its just ridiculous for any party to limit its choices of candidates to people who live in the area. The gene pool is to weak at 30,00 or so members nationally to begin with.
Nice reference and Kennett would not provide a reference for a dickhead. He would have to be an improvement on ex-sportsman Dustman Madden or ex Toorak resident Thirsty Marshall (the baby in parliament).
Any candidate of Jeffrey’s has my 100% support, now that I’m part of Team Jeff.
the Kennet reference letter is very much the letter you give when you don’t want to give one. I have never seen such a bland, non- comittal letter of support for a candidate before.
There is only one candidate that my mate Burwood is worried about and that is the Watt! Watt is young, with a young family,lives in the Labor heart of the electorate and is known in Monash, Whitehorse and Boroondara. He has been giving Burwood absolute curry over many local issues, not the least the loss of 10 police at Asburton.
Burwood is considering his options as soon as he knows who the libs preselect. Word is if it is Watt he may play the retirement card and not face the next election, this is one of the reasons that Burwood was preselected unopposed, because even labor hopes he retires before the election!
how come there are no staffers in the field?
Everyone here knows Jeff. He is hardly a person who can be pushed around or forced into doing something that he doesn’t want to do.
Had he not wanted to give a reference to Lawrence, he wouldn’t have given him one, plain and simple.
The fact is, he did give a reference, and he meant it.
Any news on Bradfield?
Kennett!
If Lawrence is the Tedista candidate he has my support. I must support my new faction.
OK, so having had a read through these candidate’s CVs (thanks Andy!):
Lawrence’s is terrible. Talks about combining his religious views with undefined “Liberal values” and the need to “tackle these issues head on”, yet never does so. How on earth does he reconcile his need for Liberal freedoms with his Catholic views on abortion and stem cell research?
He’s been a member of the Party for 2 months, yet has “always been a supporter of Liberal values” (so why not join? I’m sure as an AFL footballer, you’d be on decent enough coin to fork over a year’s party dues, that until recently were tax deductible anyway?) To put this in perspective, he hasn’t been in the Party long enough to vote for himself at the preselection.
The references are terrible. Kennett’s seems obliged by his role as Hawthorn president, and says very little about his abilities or what he can bring to the party. Allan Jeans is able to inform us that he was a great footballer and not much else. Terrible choice, and all things considered, far from the favourite.
David Solley is an inoffensive one, but hardly an impressive one. Far too much emphasis on his Melb Uni union days….16 years ago. What has he done since? Very little it seems, but at least has been in the party for longer than two minutes.
By default, that leaves Graham Watt as the candidate of choice for mine, and as such, at the risk of bagging the party, will be fairly light in my criticisms of him. From what I understand, Graham not only has the backing of Petro, but Josh Frydenberg as well (Watt being on the Kooyong executive would probably do a bit to help this). That in itself is a monumental effort in diplomacy and should be applauded.
Whilst Rudd-esque in his narrative, it is consistent, and does enough to confirm that he’s the closest to the grass-roots candidate of the bunch, which is generally what I hear from most patriots as being what is required to have a chance against Bob.
So Graham, you go by the name of C-Train now do you?
Incorect.
Hopefully I’m similarly incorrect in suspecting Kelly O’Dwyer’s involvement on this page.
If there is a swing on, any candidate can win burwood.
I’d like to see Madden go for essendon and lose!
The member for Burwood lives in the Hawthorn Electorate, he shall hence forth be known as Hawthorn Bob
Did you know that Hawthorn Bob lives 20% closer to Camberwell Police Station than he does to Ashburton Police station?
I would nominate for Burwood but it isn’t safe enough for me. I need a really safe seat in case people start to work me out. Also, it is a state seat and I am federal material or so I have been telling the media.
No wonder Burwood sleeps comfortably at night, he lives 20% closer to the camberwell police station than the poor old Ashburton police station.
The Burwood electorate needs a member who will put their needs before his political parties.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izoMJou7WDM