Is Labor’s shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus about to leave parliament for a gig at the Victorian Supreme Court? If you believe the Financial Review, yes he is.
A detailed report today from gun gossip columnist (and Fairfax stable’s best writer) Joe Aston suggested Dreyfus had met with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews about an appointment to the Court of Appeal down in the jurisdiction where it rains suppression orders. Given Dreyfus’ stolid silence on the government’s harassment of Witness K and Bernard Collaery, it seems he’d fit right in.
Even prior to the election, there was speculation Dreyfus wouldn’t be around long as attorney-general if Labor won, so it all makes sense. Only… this exact issue actually came up just a few weeks ago, and Dreyfus issued a clear-cut denial that he was interested in changing jobs for a judicial gig. “I am absolutely committed to serving out this term of parliament and that’s the end of the matter,” he said, “and I don’t know where those ridiculous suggestions come from.”
The source of these “ridiculous suggestions” is within a Victorian ALP with too many candidates and too few seats. Potential prestige spots like Dreyfus’ Isaacs (a margin of 6.4% after Vic Labor’s good-but-not-good-enough effort in May) are trailed to keep the talent interested, regardless of plausibility.
Of course, many a politician is absolutely committed to serving a full term right up until they announce their mid-term departure, and Dreyfus’ statement in late August was clear, but not quite Shermanesque. Helpfully, this morning he made his intentions clear: “I’ll be staying and fighting the next election,” he tweeted. So that’s Isaacs occupied until 2025, presumably.
Who cares whether he comes or goes.
The only substantive point in this article is the observation that he retains a “stolid silence” on the fate of the two whistleblowers. It is the Labor Party’s profoundly doubtful commitment to the public’s right to know about ministerial misdeeds that is of real concern. How is it that Australian troops can be sent to fight in sundry illegal wars and nary a word about holding the politicians accountable. With great respect, that is profoundly more important than whether a particular politician (silent on these issues) comes or goes.
Welcome back BK. So, who is behind this push? You didn’t get to that bit.
The better solution to having more candidates than seats is to win more seats. I’d suggest better candidates and better policies as a starting philosophy. The electorate keeps telling the majors it’s sick of insider hacks, be they staff or unionists, getting the inside run on preselections.
Reinvigorate membership and votes by wholesale reforms. It would take the current bunch of insiders to vote it up though.
Labor are fucked .The sooner they get worse the sooner they’ll get elected…
Oh thank heavens! A scribbler who isn’t put off by investigating gossip. Now how about you dig into the PM and his links to QAnon bloggers as close to home as his own office and of course the Hillsong embarrassment where those still under an active NSW cop investigation are asked O/S to represent Australia.
Dreyfus is not a vert effective shadow attornry general by any stretch of the imagination, when speaking on an issue he gives the impression hes just reading a script, no passion, just a flat monologue, surely there are other qualified and more passionate shadow ministers or aspiring shadow ministers that can fill this role more effectively, after all the election bullshit dies down the fact is Morrison is clinging onto to government by only one seat and may not go full term especially when the full force of the coming recession hits and the dumbed down fools who elected him start living on his very generous newstart, you know, the one his ministers says is being spent on drugs and the one he says is enough to live on while you search desperately for that non existant job and the one (if you`re lucky enought to get a bit of casual work) robo debt can hit you with a bill for thousands to fund frydebrains cherished surplus,