The Queen’s tour, the Victorian Liberal conference, the preselection battle for Wentworth and moves to unseat SA Premier John Olsem are just some of the offerings from Crikey’s political insider Hillary Bray this week.

WORD ASSOCIATION

Constant rain couldn’t dampen Tony Abbott’s enthusiasm for our gracious sovereign lady as she toured Sydney.

The Mad Monk waxed about Her Majesty’s presence with a lyricism and outpouring of emotion unseen since Menzies’ poetry recital in 1954, saying: “There was a touch of magic about the occasion”.

It was a fascinating insight into how the human mind works. Mention the word “Queen”, and Abbott immediately starts thinking of the hit off their 1986 album of the same name: “It’s a kind of magic – magic – magic”.

Coming soon: “I did but see her passing by – The Millennium Remix”.

MORE WORD ASSOCIATION

The Mad Monk’s royal rantings continued when he told reporters that the Queen’s visit “was a marvelous chance for all of us to repledge our commitment to Australia”.

Of course, when we think of Australia, we all think of the British Royal Family, don’t we? How did that old ad go: “Football, meat pies, kangaroos and monarchies”?

LOOKING AFTER THE CONSTITUENTS

Hillary hears that a Queensland Liberal member of the Reps has taken looking after constituents to a whole new level – he is paying a staffer overtime to babysit his kids.

Good to see that the Howard Government finally has a childcare policy.

CURRICULUM VERIFIABLE

Paranoia reigned supreme in the lead up to the Victorian Liberal Party Annual General Meeting. There were mumblings through Melbourne that State Director Peter Pogiolli was busy calling associates and former employers of several candidates for State Executive to verify the details on their CVs.

Exhibition Street has little luck – but two days before the AGM, the party HQ knocked out one Policy Assembly candidate on a technicality.

The Victorian Liberal constitution says that a candidate for Policy Assembly must be “a member for three months at date of nomination”. Our non starter was a member of the Brighton Young Liberals for six years and recently moved into a senior party branch in another electorate following the, er, controversies over last year’s Kennett v Costello preselection proxy war.

Now, Liberal HQ has now ruled that the Constitution requires a PA candidate to be a member of their current branch for three months, not just the party – despite the technicality being waved for a candidate last year.

FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF JOHN HEWSON

Want a glorious political career? Then join the high flyers reputed to be queuing up for the seat of Wentworth in Sydney’s glamorous eastern suburbs.

Wentworth is seen as one of the bluest of blue ribbon seats – not that that’s helped the last two members much. John Hewson served two and a bit unhappy terms as the local MP, while the incumbent, Andrew Thompson, was spectacularly dumped from the ministry after 12 short months.

Thompson’s run of bad luck is continuing, and he now finds himself at the epicentre of an increasingly bitter preselection battle which goes right to the PM himself. He faces formidable challenges from two MP wannabes – former New South Wales Liberal Party president, Peter King, and ex Young Libs boss, Jason Falinski.

A strong rumour is already doing the rounds of the Liberal sherry set in Darling Point and Bellevue Hill that the PM’s enforcer, Senator Bill Heffernan, has done a deal with King whereby King promises to support Howard in any future leadership battle in exchange for Howard not intervening in the preselection battle to support Thompson.

At the same time, the Falinski – King stoush has become very nasty indeed even by the grubby standards of personality based tory machine politics. Falinski’s republican leanings are being used by King as he seeks to woo the local Libs to cast doubts on young Jason’s loyalty to the leader – a not uncommon tactic in Howard’s home state. Falinski’s supporters on the other hand are pointing out that King, who has already lost at least three previous preselection battles – including the one that saw the preselection of Thompson – would simply be a time server in a seat that should be kept for potential frontbenchers.

Now, just to add a bit of fun to the proceedings, there is a third man – the PM’s long time staffer and former press sec, Anthony Benscher, who has just left Howard’s office.

Benscher is a favourite courtier of Howard and Heffernan and was brought up in the heart of Wentworth – Bellevue Hill. If he stands – and he is certainly politically ambitious – Benscher would outshine the rather dull King. At the same time, Heffernan and the PM would find easy ways to contrast Benscher against Falinski, rather than King – both are thirtiesh and articulate.

Mind you what someone should tell all two – or three of them – is that Wentworth is looking less and less attractive on its new boundaries. Back in 1991, John Hewson was lucky – the boundaries originally proposed in the draft redistribution were altered.

At the next election, Wentworth will be on a marginal of three per cent or less. On a bad day, that means that the hopeful new Liberal member could have a career that makes Hewson’s look positively blessed.

FEDERAL INTERVENTIONS

Hillary’s remarks on the role Canberra may just play in the future career of South Australian Premier John Olsen last week have caused some local interest.

First, they were taken up on ABC Radio in Adelaide by afternoon host Neil Weise and local political commentator Randall Ashborne. Then, just after the Weise – Ashborne chat, an email with the following header appeared from a Peter Green, who signs himself “Media and Communications Manager, Office of the Premier”:

The last bit of the email read as follows:

Wiese says he’s been getting a couple of interesting phone calls. Ashborne says all over halls of Fed Parl about what to do about SA. Within 2 years Australia could be all Labor.

Rumour Premier to be offered Consular General’s job in New York. People doing sums behind scenes. Olsen’s out of favour with Federal Right of his Party.

Kerin looking good. No baggage, not aligned to Brown/Olsen camps, highly respected in bush. SA backbenchers don’t think it’s a silly idea – the more they seem to hear it the more they seem to love it.

Hillary hears Federal Liberal Director Lynton Crosby was in Adelaide during the week. Bet his discussions were interesting.

DISAPPOINTED

Hillary is very pleased to see that Ros Reines, the legendary gossip columnist in the Sydney Sunday Telegraph is reading Crikey – but very disappointed that she can’t help out with names.

A fortnight ago, Hillary reported that that full time failure and former New South Wales opposition leader Peter Collins graced a soiree at New York’s Harvard Club with a mystery female friend – and expressed the hope that Reines could help out with a name.

Hillary had no luck. All Reines could offer last weekend was a vague report of Collins being sighted “with a mystery woman” in NYC. Indeed, it could even be thought that Ros was unaware of the story until she saw Crikey.

Now, there might be an explanation for her ignorance. Talk from the Big Apple suggests that the second News Ltd NYC bureau chief Michael Cameron – a former Telegraph state political reporter known to have had the odd run in with Collins – appeared, the leader in exile instructed his partner not to speak to him.