The Bulletin's candidate for Herbert

The Bulletin’s campaign to have Tony Mooney installed as the ALP candidate for Herbert (see here and here) seems to have hit a bit of a speed bump.

"Mooney seat shock" and "Union powerbroker intervenes in Herbert" screams the front page headlines in the hard copy version of the story.

This assertion, and that in the opening para the article today, that AWU and Labor Forum faction boss, Bill Ludwig, had “intervened in the pre-selection battle for Herbert” is of course not supported by any evidence in the article - none what-se-ever.

In fact, later they report ALP state secretary Anthony Chisholm as saying that “the candidacy would be determined by a local branch vote” as is the “…standard practice”.

Doesn’t sound much like a backroom intervention to me.

The article get’s a bit weird from there – in fact Mooney himself indicates later that “his biggest hurdle would be convincing local members”, and presumably not the union and factional leaders in Brisbane (including Ludwig) that will have a 50% vote in the preselection. And, if the unsourced “…internal Labor poll (showing) members thought Mr Mooney was twice as likely to win the seat over Cr Hill” is true, the Bully’s candidate surely has nothing to worry about in a local plebiscite.

The article goes on to enshrine as fact that Mooney has PM Rudd’s endorsement for the seat. Mooney himself seems to now believe this beat-up by the Bully.

In an attempt to keep their campaign for Mooney alive the Bully goes on to raise the spectre of Jenny Hill continuing to pull a Councillor’s salary while campaigning (if she were to win the preselection) or ratepayers having to foot a $100K bill for by-election. All a bit premature it seems to me.
And in one final effort to support their candidate, the Bully is running an online poll asking “Who do you prefer as Labor’s candidate for Herbert”. I can see tomorrow’s headline already – that is of course assuming the poll goes according to the Bully’s plan. At the time of writing Jenny Hill is well ahead with 41% of the vote – almost double Mooney’s 21% (results here)