Politics

WHO DARES WINS: THE BATTLE FOR CANNING

The political editor of The Australian, Dennis Shanahan, really needs to check his facts before asserting that the late Don Randall MP held the federal seat of Canning ‘from 1998 to his death last month.’

Randall held the WA seat of Canning  from 2001, until July 21, 2015, the day he died. He was previously the Member for Swan, 1996-1998, before being beaten in that seat by Labor’s Kim Wilkie, who in turn was defeated by Steve Irons, a Liberal, who has held that seat since 2007.

Still Shanahan is no stranger to the faux pas? He was the one who kept writing down Kim Beazley’s second stint at ALP leadership, in Opposition, and fuelled the rise, and subsequent two terms of the Rudd –Gillard Labor years of government. Remember how that turned out Dennis?

Randall will be missed. He was a grassroots operator par excellence, fearless, pro-family and a raconteur- another success story from the WA wheatbelt. The debates in ‘the other place’ between him and Labor’s Peter Walsh (1935-2015) would be worth reading but it is beyond the capacity of Hansard to record them!

The by- election, some 13 months before the next federal election, is a good guide to how the Abbott Government is performing.

Randall’s near 12 per cent margin will be reduced, probably by about half, because he is no longer there and there is usually a swing against an incumbent government, the-kick-in-the-pants theory at work. However, it will not be like Bass (Tas) of 1975 fame and nor will it be like Ryan (Qld) in 2001-both seats that had huge swings that led to departing ministerial members, Lance Barnard (ALP) and John Moore (Lib), respectively, having their 'safe seats,' captured by the other major party.

Labor has history against it in winning the seat. The last time a deceased Member was replaced by the candidate of another party was in Dawson (Qld) when Labor’s Dr Rex Paterson won the seat in a 1966 by-election. It had previously been held by George Shaw of the Country Party.

While Labor has endorsed lawyer, Matt Keogh (33), for Canning, the Liberal representative is a former member of the Australian Army elite. SAS Captain, Andrew Hastie, who at 32 has life experience normally associated with someone twice his age. With combat experience in Afghanistan and the Middle East, the ex-Digger was inspired to join the fight against Islamic terrorism after the attacks on the USA in September 2001.

While some of the usual couch potatoes, from academia, blamed US foreign policy for the murderous strikes at the American homeland, for Hastie it was a case of “the lights being turned out.”

His decision, and determination, to accept the challenge from terrorism, was anything but hasty, or passing. Instead, a career in the Australian Army, was commenced two years later, and his involvement with the internationally renowned SAS, including three tours of Afghanistan, was the result of Hastie ‘maintaining the rage,’……. with all due apologies to Gough.

In the best traditions of the SAS, Hastie was quickly on the attack. A day after resigning his commission he addressed the WA Liberal Party Conference, on August 22, and went after The Age beat-up that had attempted to link him to a story related to the hands being cut off a few Taliban fighters, for identification purposes.

For a start, most Australians are more concerned about live Christians, workers, academics, and young women who are being beheaded, crucified, tortured and raped by criminal Islamist scum in various middle-eastern hell holes. Cutting heads off live people simply trumps concerns about dead terrorists losing their digits.

Secondly, the guilt by association, for those who think our Defence personnel are guilty, fell rather flat. It transpired that Captain Hastie was not one of those involved, being overhead  in a chopper at the time but, when told, he relayed the information through the chain of command. (Perhaps the ‘Choppergate Affair’ of former Speaker, Bronwyn Bishop, has inspired some of the more feverish members of the fourth estate to continue to press their luck, (pun intended), with all things to do with helicopters!).

Thirdly, and very effectively, Hastie showed his concern for a fellow soldier in the tradition of elite forces that goes back to Rogers Rangers in the French and Indian War, in Colonial America (1754-63). That tradition refers to ensuring that no one is left behind in a war zone. However, Hastie, in his address to the Conference, used it in the sense that it was time to cease investigating one particular soldier, after a two and half year inquiry into the cutting-off- their-hands affair.

Hastie was not only engaged in Afghanistan but also had taken part in operations against the rapist-murderers of Daesh, in the Middle East, and he has also been an adviser on Operation Sovereign Borders-the Abbott Government’s highly successful border protection policy to prevent illegal boat arrivals accessing Australia.

Another Fairfax publication, The Australian Financial Review, quotes an Eastern States Liberal disparagingly referring to the Canning electorate as having a lot of ‘bogans’ within its borders. This same exalted creature, clearly a legend in his own mind, also wondered if Western Australians even used the word? (“Well shuck your sweet cheeks, thanks for asking, Massa.”)

However, the more polite answer is this: generally only when we are discussing elitists from the Eastern States - although ‘pooh bahs’ is generally the preferred term for them!

There is perhaps an irony in all of this. While many political and media elitists eschew freedom of expression, in favour of political correctness; and denigrate Western traditions, customs and religion, including true marriage, the standard bearer for Middle Australian views comes from a former officer, from an army regiment consisting of the finest of the military class.

Hastie now has his chance to show a concerned Silent Majority, during the battle for Canning, up to September 19,  that he is listening and will fight for long held values and traditions. Early indications are that he will.

Who dares wins.

 Indeed.