Who won’t we miss?: Last week the Australian Electoral Commission announced
NSW will lose a Reps seat at the next redistribution. So who won’t we
miss? Let’s help the AEC on this one. Who’s the most useless NSW safe
seat member who should have their electorate redistributed out of
existence? Suggestions to christian@crikey.com.au.

Success story: Apart from being a prime opportunity to publicly bag
with the PM in the full glare of the media spotlight, the recent
Liberal Party Convention also allowed Queensland Liberal Leader
Bob Quinn to once again produce his usual round of delusional
chest-beating. This time Quinn proclaimed that he would soon be
conservative leader as the Liberals were also set to become the largest
yuppie in the Opposition fish-bowl because they were going to contest
more seats than The Nationals. What Quinn forgot to tell his sea of
loyal supporters is that this has been the case ever since 1992. In
fact the State Liberals have in fact contested more seats than the Nats
in every State election since 1992, but haven’t yet won one more than
half the number of seats held by the Nats at any of these elections.

Family’s always difficult: “Family” is a word with mixed meanings
in South Australia, but we’d better give you a brief on some of the
dynastic doings within the local Libs following former premier Dean
Brown’s announcement that he’ll retire at the next election. Brown
inherited his seat of Finniss from one Ted Chapman. Chapman’s daughter
Vickie holds the seat of Bragg. She would like to be leader. One of her
staff is now running for Finniss. So is a local mayor, Michael
Pengilly, a key figure in the branches recruited by Ted Chapman. Vickie
Chapman was defeated in a bid to replace Brown as deputy leader
yesterday by Iain Evans. Iain’s dad Stan knocked Brown out of
Parliament in the eighties when he ran against him as an independent
after redistribution – and he’d been deselected after a little bit of
scandal. The junior Evans and Chapman are expected to fight it out for
the leadership when the Libs lose the state election, scheduled for
March next year. But guess who turned up at the Finniss Family Day on
Sunday, two days after Brown announced he was going? Stan.