Australia’s Queen of the Unflushables is ready to take another swirl around the bowl.
Kristina Keneally is the left-wing quota queen that we just can’t seem to get rid of. No matter how hard and often voters pull the chain, she keeps bobbing up from the s-bend of electoral oblivion.
Kristina Keneally is considering a tilt at a safe lower house seat as key union leaders in NSW prepare to back Deb O’Neill for the party’s top spot on the Senate ticket.
Senator Keneally is weighing up running for preselection in the western Sydney seat of Fowler, which is being vacated by veteran Labor MP Chris Hayes.
Sources say NSW Labor general secretary Bob Nanva has been pushing the proposal as a way to keep Senator Keneally in parliament, given the growing likelihood that Senator O’Neill will gain backing for the winnable spot on the ticket for the Right faction.
Keneally’s entire political career has been based on being repeatedly saved by faceless factional bosses and failing upwards.
Keneally’s electoral debut was in Heffron, the Sydney seat held by the Labor Party since it was created in 1973. Keneally was parachuted into the ultra-safe seat when the power-brokers unceremoniously shoved out Deirdre Grusovin, who’d held the seat for 13 years.
In time, the Labor-Right faction staged a leadership coup and installed Keneally as NSW premier. Under her leadership, Labor copped a 17% swing at the next state election — the worst defeat of a sitting government in NSW history. Keneally personally suffered a 15% swing in her own seat, becoming the first Labor candidate in Heffron to need preferences to win. It was the closest Labor ever came to losing one of their safest seats.
Keneally moved on to a series of comfy sinecures in sports bureaucracy in media. When she put her head up in politics again, she was for once forced to contest a tough seat: John Howard’s old seat of Bennelong. She lost.
Within months, though, Labor installed her in another safe political job, selecting her to replace the disgraced Sam Dastyari.
Now, even that safe job is in jeopardy. Senate voting is usually a by-the-numbers affair, where votes are cast by party rather than candidate, similar to list MPs. So position on a party ticket is crucial to Senate chances.
Sources said it had become increasingly likely that Senator Keneally would be forced into the No. 3 spot, which Labor has not won since 2007.
Senator O’Neill is a member of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, which has refused to back down to demands that it support Senator Keneally taking the top spot on the ticket.
Once again, the men in power are coming to her rescue.
If Senator Keneally decides to run for the Senate and fails to get the top spot, Anthony Albanese can override the state party’s decision through the national executive.
The Opposition Leader is a close ally of Senator Keneally and he would be unlikely to allow her to be put in a position where she would be forced out of parliament.
The Australian
Moving to the lower house is going to be a tough gig for a ballot-box loser like Kenneally after elbowing out a popular local candidate; especially as she will be the wealthy elitist who lives in a multi-million-dollar house on an exclusive island in Sydney Harbour. She will also lose her spot on Labor’s leadership team because she would no longer be deputy leader in the Senate.
Kenneally is the quintessence of the left-wing Emily’s Lister: all feminism and girl-power posturing, but the first one to run to factional daddy when the voters try, in vain, to flush her into oblivion yet again.
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