LIBERAL DEMOCRATS SURGE
This monkey congratulates Liberal Democrat John Ruddick on his appointment to the NSW Upper House. This will see a re-balancing of ideas and common sense so badly needed in Australia. I include the full report of this significant win from The Hon Ross Cameron below.
Enjoy the weekend, hope to see you at Taronga!
Gibber! Gibber!
Chugley
| Chugley — The NSW Electoral Commission held its “final distribution of preferences” confirming this week that Liberal Democrats candidate John Ruddick has been elected to the NSW Legislative Council for an eight year term with 162,755 votes, 3.53% of the statewide vote. This is the first time the Liberal Democrats have won a seat in the NSW Upper House, Australia’s oldest legislative chamber and gives the party elected representation in the two most populous Australian states after the success of David Limbrick in Victoria. We are not blind to the immediate, material benefit to the NSW Liberal Democrats of a member in the chamber, an office and two full-time staff and, by the rorts of incumbency, an annual cash allowance for party administration costs. For some perspective, the result represents a 62% increase on the party’s result in the 2022 NSW Senate race and an even greater advance on the NSW State Election in 2019. Ironically, after securing both Liberal and National Party preferences at #2 statewide for the first time, we have been comfortably elected without the benefit of any preference flows because of the way the quotas filled, securing victory at #19 out of 21 vacant spots (with Shooters, Fishers and Farmers winning #20 and Rachel Merton scraping over the line just ahead of Animal Justice to give the Liberal Party #21 and seven in total. One of the great things about the result for John Ruddick and the Party is that the Upper House is now evenly split 21:21 between the Left (ALP, Greens, Animal Justice, Cannabis) and the non-Left (Liberal/Nationals, One Nation, Liberal Democrats and Shooters), before election of the President which will deprive (probably the ALP) of another vote, meaning the Government will have to negotiate with the cross bench to pass every piece of legislation. We may indulge a little speculation on how the Liberal Democrats managed such a startling rise in the statewide vote, as the thieves gather after the heist to divide the spoils. There may be some benefit, however, beyond self-gratification, in learning from what worked and didn’t work, so that we may build electoral momentum for the NSW Division’s next major contests, which are the Senate race (probably late 2024 but possibly early 2025) and the next State election in four year’s time. The factors were a mix of candidate, luck, strategy and execution and the weight of each factor clearly contestable, with well informed and thoughtful people having different views but my own rough list of key factors would include: We ran a clear, bold, unapologetic libertarian candidate and policy, which was right in principal and gave us the best chance of retaining our base and harvesting the homeless and disaffected Freedom Movement votes. The failure of the UAP to register as a political party in NSW left 160,000 votes as drifting refugees looking for a new port (note to self – we gotta’ get the basics right). The poor result for One Nation (achieving 5% and only one seat against expectation of 10%+) followed failure to allocate preferences or engage with other freedom parties and internal tension neutralising Pauline Hanson’s electoral appeal. Turning Point helped deliver 17 candidates in the Lower House and 17 in the Upper House, including Millie Fontana (PHON) at #2 and Natalie Dumer (UAP) at #3, which acted as glue and permission for UAP, PHON, IMOP etc to vote LibDems. The preference deal with Liberals and Nationals meant we had over a million how to vote cards, endorsing LibDems at #2, handed out by Liberal and National volunteers, creating an explicit permission for Liberals and Nationals to vote LibDems. In the limited time available after our internal spasm on Boxing Day 2022, the new State Executive, Campaign Director Rob Cribb, donors, volunteers and the Party as a whole united and mobilised around the candidate as one credible, vote-winning machine. I don’t think anyone should under-estimate the importance of John Ruddick’s individual merits as a candidate, including his 10 years of work as a democratic reformer building alliances within and beyond the Liberal Party and then on SMH, Sky News, the Spectator and elsewhere. There is no substitute for conviction. For a candidate to succeed, however, he or she must also have the ability to attract talent, build a team, reach beyond the usual suspects to create something new and bigger, more than the sum of the parts. In the end, the voter must mark a box, on a piece of paper, next to an individual name – 162,755 voters selected “John Ruddick” and as a party, we can be thankful for John’s willingness to run, for Kelly’s instinct to support him so completely and for Mamma BooBoo Ruddick’s amazing individual effort as a volunteer, worthy of the best traditions of the cadres of the Chinese Communist Party. Most minor party MPs disappear without trace – I think possible Ruddick could emerge as a significant figure on the rational right. The decision of Turning Point (Joel Jammal and Millie Fontana) to commit early to the Liberal Democrats campaign delivered a range of benefits not immediately visible from outside. Turning Point’s “How to vote Freedom” card, with John Ruddick at the very top, was downloaded over 60,000 times (interestingly, almost exactly the number of new votes the party won beyond the 2022 Senate result). Millie Fontana was the first advocate of Craig Kelly running at #2 on a LibDems freedom movement ticket and we only went to Millie when Craig declined, where Millie executed the strategy she had largely conceived. Both Joel and Millie did fantastic work in recruiting candidates from across the Freedom Movement and there is no doubt in my mind, beyond the benefits of luck, that Turning Point was our “winged keel”, with the right strategy at the right time and backed up with very solid execution. I am therefor grateful to the Liberal Democrats rank and file membership, the long term party members and candidates, for the grace, wisdom and street smarts, to support the Lead Candidate, State Executive and Campaign Director in allowing “foreigners” onto our ticket, in order to maximise the total LibDems vote. The NSW Division is benefiting from a very cohesive and skilled State Executive, who are a happy band of brothers, and I would acknowledge the outstanding individual efforts of Rob Cribb as Campaign Director, who worked himself to near hospitalisation and to Victor Tey, who completed the excellent Candidate website and corflute design as his wife was going into labour. I would also (excuse the nepotism) like to thank my son Dougal, who played the key role, along with Rob Cribb and Nathan Thomason, in recruiting both Ruddick and me to the Liberal Democrats, which Dougal described accurately, “as the only real libertarian party on The Australian political landscape.” You may recall, my first and only myopic goal as your president, was to get Ruddick elected to parliament. The question now happily arising is “What next?” On that subject, the most obvious thing that stands out in my mind, from an organisational standpoint, is that over 160,000 people voted LibDems but close to only 400 of them are party general members. We must add them to the rolls. Secondly, I am keen to see the Liberal Democrats continue to play a leadership role in welding together disparate elements of the freedom loving, rational non-Left and finally, I want to see the Party deliver to John Ruddick the level of support and resources that his vision clearly merits and deserves. On those matters, the State Executive and I will detain you further in due course but for the time being, thanks for your terrific support throughout the campaign, congratulations to John Ruddick and every Liberal Democrat – you are the true believers, this victory is deservedly yours, broad sunlit uplands await. With kind regards, Onward!  The Hon Ross CameronPresidentNSW Liberal Democrats Fundraising Chair #JohnRuddick4NSWUpperHouse E: presidentnsw@ldp.org.au M: 0419 444 989 T: @rosscameron4 R: https://tntradio.live/shows/ross-cameron/ |