LEONARD COLQHOUN
Two ALP candidates announced this week who could hardly be more different, one a knock-about bloke who had real jobs and lived with real people until a few years ago, the other seeming to follow the now-standard CV of degree-political/party job-preselection.
However, both, as far as we can tell, have been selected on the basis of brand-recognition, Webb more for his temporary celeb-status than his work or life experiences, and Bacon Jnr as a son-of-the-father whom much of the public still have a lot of affection for.
BTW, remember, if you are a tennis fan, or just into a lot of sport, how an accomplished Belgian used to be called “Aussie Kim” because of her association with one of our players? Are Bacon pere and fils about to start our own dynasty of Kims, a la that socialist paradise of North Korea? presumably without nukes gulags and compulsory starvation, of course.
One suspects that the former candidate runs the risk of being exploited, chewed up and spat out by the party machine (though he may have more real-life cunning than he is likely to get credited for); as for the other one, a Mercury story last month, claiming something like his having lived and breathed politics and politicking since he was in nappies, ought to make everyone thinking of voting for him very, very wary.
