When do nominations close?

Former Education Minister and later Liberal Premier Lindsay Thompson stood in about a dozen preselections before he was endorsed as a Liberal candidate. Persistence and ability often pay off in the end. So stick with it Ms Staley

Thompson we remember offered to trade places with the children involved in the Faraday State School hostage incident and took the ransom money personally for the hostage taker to collect and who was arrested. He was a great Liberal but only a short lived Premier following on from Sir Henry Bolte and Rupert Hamer long stints running Victoria for over 25 years

Ahem! Nominations, Dark Horse, closed LAST Friday, 23rd October at midday. At the close, there were (I understand) three candidates – Ms. Louise Staley, from Willaura, Mr. Vic Dunn from Clunes, and Mr. John van Beveren from Talbot.

“She’s up against two local and conservative members in Ballarat West who reputedly aren’t that keen on her.”. Neither Dunn nor van Beveren are from Ballarat West, as shown above. They both live in the northern region of the Ripon electorate, whereas Staley lives JUST in Ripon at the southernmost end. I don’t know how you determine that either or both of Dunn and van Beveren are “conservatives”. Dunn is the District Inspector of the Central Goldfields Police Region, and van Beveren is a very highly qualified international academic educationalist. How you determined that they are “not keen on her (Staley, I presume)” I have no idea.

Dunn was the previously endorsed Liberal candidate for Ripon in 2006, and secured a 3%+ plus swing towards the Liberals at that election. van beveren was a candidate for a seat in the Local Government Ballarat Council at the last election, and narrowly lost out. To the best of my knowledge, Staley has never contested an actual election (at any level), and her performance at Wannon preselection was by all reports pretty ordinary.

The seat of Ripon is now under 5% and sitting member Minister Helper (often referred to as “helpless” in the electorate) is actually vulnerable to a good candidate. A swing of 4.4% will unseat Minister Helper.

Hope that answers some questions.

Cheers,
Observer.

Who the hell are you Observer?

You are obviously on the Ripon Electorate executive?

You seem to know alot about Ripon…

Louise deserves to win – she has the smarts to make a big contribution

Joe Helper is a great Minister and a great MP.

Louise staley is a loser.

It is refreshing to see Louise running for a marginal ALP seat. If she is preselected, she will experience first hand politics in the raw where each new article in every newspaper causes delirium or apoplexy from the date she is endorsed to the date she is no longer the member or candidate. Marginal seat candidates and members are the front line of the political fire storm that obsesses only the most fanatical where trivialities get promoted to momentous struggles for the hearts and minds of the disengaged voters. Given that most Victorians would rather have John Brumby as Premier than Ted Baillieu, it is going to be interesting to see if the Liberals manage to pick up many seats at all.

Didn’t Ripon used to be a safe liberal seat? According to observer a 4.4% swing is needed. Can anyone achieve that against a cabinet minister, given the amount of money that will be thrown at the seat?

“Dark Horse”. Some responses to you:-

“Who the hell are you Observer?”
That’s for me to know and you to find out! The joys of pseudonym blog sites!

“You are obviously on the Ripon Electorate executive?”
No. And NOT obvious at all.

“You seem to know alot about Ripon.”
Yes. I’ve lived in Ripon a long, long time.

By the way, most if not all of the information included in my previous note is available on public record.

Hope that assists, Dark Horse.

Cheers,
Observer.

Thanks Laurie.

Laurie??????????

Good luck!

Cheers,
Observer

Its a castle quote…

Another Labor Minister who deserves to lose is Bob Cameron. It would be good to have a decent candidate against him.