Geoff Payne, Newcastle
The long sharpened axe for Bryce Gaudry, the ALP's MP for the state seat of Newcastle, has fallen. Labor's national executive dropped the 15-year incumbent in favour of businessperson and former TV newsreader Jodi McKay, who applied to join the ALP on the last day of August.
McKay was a certainty for preselection when NSW Premier Morris Iemma endorsed her publicly on September 1. The Newcastle Herald, the city's monopoly Fairfax daily, seconded Iemma with a front-page, large typeface proclamation: "Chosen one".
McKay had been asked to run for the Liberals as well, but "after speaking with the premier I believed [standing for Labor] would be a good thing for Newcastle", she told the media on September 1. Her home run was smoothed by unanimous endorsement by the ALP state executive with the knowledge that the ALP right faction had the numbers on the national executive.
McKay's views are not clear on key local issues like the closure of the Sydney-to-Newcastle rail line. McKay runs her own media and corporate relations company, and has honorary directorships with the Hunter Medical Research Institute; the local university's commercial unit, TUNRA; and the Hunter Manufacturers Association.
In an interview with the Herald, McKay said she wanted to be in a party that talks to business without being suspicious of them. She "expected" this would result in growth and jobs for the Hunter region.
Gaudry said he won't stand as an independent. Many Labor Party members have indicated they will boycott working for the ALP on election day. Gaudry has urged them not to leave the party.
The Herald has been campaigning for years to make Newcastle a "swinging" seat, and recognises the potential of the McKay campaign to further local business interests. It editorialised that it would support more port investment, removal of the "rail barrier", and more spending on roads. It bluntly suggested that these be McKay's campaign policies.
In a September 15 media release, Save Our Rail secretary George Paris expressed "alarm" that the NSW Labor government had "clearly abandoned all pretence of respect for the democratic process. In casting aside their own candidate with decades of loyal service and strong city-wide support, in favour of what can only be seen as a Iemma sycophant, the ALP Right's ambitions can only fill any conscientious person with dread."
He argued that NSW voters should seek "representation elsewhere, and they will be driven to the left parties and independents to re-establish some balance in the political landscape".