McGinty: Failure on all front or deliberate deliverance of Fremantle to the Greens?
Tomorrow is the unwanted by-election for Fremantle. Jim McGinty politically odouriferous stench has ensured he has remained invisible during the campaign which presents most Fremantle voters with Hobson's choice. A Green, no Liberal candidate and a Liberal standing as a Labor candidate and nondescript independents.
Jim McGinty's legacy is an embarrassment, he controlled the biggest Left union, and therefore the Left Wing of the ALP and therefore the State Executive of the ALP, which in turn has endorsed all ALP candidates for seats in parliament; McGinty effectively controls the Parliamentary Labor Party for the last 19 years. This power gave him defacto control of the WA Parliament and the Government of WA for the 7 years of the Gallop and Carpenter Ministries.
Despite this power and influence, he always failed to plan for the future and in 19 years put Left Faction types into Parliament of insufficient ability, to be ministerial material, let alone leadership material - the goons gig - the star recruit being Fran "Do you want a threesome" Logan.
McGinty failed to groom people to be able to take on the Left leadership. Perhaps he thought it would never be necessary once the self appointed Emperor assumed the Kim Jong Il mantle.
The result was that after the 2008 election, the cupboard was so bare he had to desperately move to slot Roger Cook (who was elected by the skin of his teeth in Kwinana) into the position as deputy leader of Labor, even before he had taken a seat in the house. Other obvious talent with parliamentary experience such as Aboriginal Victoria Park MLA Ben Wyatt were passed by because they were not paid up obedient members of the McGinty controlled Left Faction.
The net result has been a talentless group of Left members who McGinty could herd and bring to heel and a policy bankrupt ALP Left Caucus of voting fodder.
When McGinty resigned from the state seat of Fremantle, he left the ALP in a hole because there was no-one with an ALP pedigree with any local credibility, to slot into Fremantle. The result is a card carrying Liberal Peter Tagliaferri who contested the 1990 election against McGinty, who recently donated to the Liberal Party. Remember Julian Grill was expelled from the ALP for forwarding a cheque to the National Party from one of his clients. Bare-faced hypocrisy again!
The Desert Rat reckons Tagliaferri could well be an Independent either shortly after (or before if he gets a chance) he locks in his pension.
McGinty has achieved all this with one vote, one value and increased the malapportionment in the Upper House which was supposed to entrench Labor in the Lower House and the Greens in the Upper House.
One can only think about missed opportunities to consolidate Labor with good like-minded people. All they have got from poaching outside the Party are rent-a-politicians Alan Carpenter, St Carmen Lawrence and now Peter Tagliaferri, perhaps.
The Desert Rats wonders if Jim McGinty would actually prefer a Green elected in Fremantle, as he has done his level best to achieve that end by (unwitting or deliberate?) stealth.
At least McGinty has that in common with the Liberals in this by-election.
The whole sorry saga reflects McGinty's pre-occupation with short term thinking and action - today's quick fix is tomorrows f f...failure.
Unfortunately the State ALP will contnue to pay for McGinty's legacy for at least the next 8 years.
ReplyDeleteThe McGinty chief pre-selection qualification of factional loyalty (ie toadying to him) guarantees that a large number of Labor MPs have no real connection to the community they represent and whose responses to major policy issues are unimaginative are best.
Someone like Wyatt or Papalia would be good leaders but the whole rotten factional State ALP culture weighs against them getting the top spot.
State and Federal Election results would show that since 1990 WA has become the most hostile anti-Labor state in the Federation. That is McGinty's true legacy.