The Federal executive of the ALP has blocked an attempt by backbencher Duncan Kerr to move from Federal to state politics. Mr Kerr was elected to the fairly safe Labor seat of Denison at the federal election in November. It was such a short time ago. He stood to represent the people of Denison in the Federal Parliament for three years. Nothing has changed in his personal circumstances that makes him less capable of representing them. He has not suddenly got ill or had some family crisis.
Rather Mr Kerr has decided that he does not like the idea of serving in Opposition. He wants to be part of a Government team. He saw that there was a Tasmanian state election coming up sometime this year, probably in November, but perhaps earlier. The Tasmania state Labor Government is likely to be re-elected.
The Hobart-based federal seat of Denison which he now holds has exactly the same boundaries as the Tasmanian state of Denison because the Tasmanian state parliament uses the federal boundaries of the five Tasmanian seats combined with the multi-member Hare-Clark system which provides for six members in each of the five electorates to make a lower house of 30. Mr Kerr would be appealing to exactly the same people he appealed to federally in 2001 to elect him to the state Parliament. He would hope to be elected and become a Minister in the new state Government.
Too bad that he had already put his hand up to be their federal representative a few months ago. Too bad that the Australian people would have to fork out for the costs of an utterly unjustified and unnecessary by-election. Mr Kerr – once a Minister in the Keating Government — wants to be a Minister. He would prefer to be a big fish in a small pond rather than a small fish in a big pond.
Labor Leader Simon Crean called on the National Executive to insist that Mr Kerr serve his full term. Moreover, Mr Crean wants it to be a general Labor position that people serve their full terms, unless there is the unanimous support of the National Executive to the contrary – presumably that would only be granted where there were very good reasons for doing so.
That move very wisely follows the popular view that elected members should serve their full term. The history of by-elections show swings against the party of the retiring sitting member.
In the most recent federal Parliament there was a huge swing in March 2001 against the party of the retiring sitting member for the Queensland seat Ryan – the Liberals’ John Moore – so the Liberals lost the seat. On the other hand, when a member dies, his or her political party is not punished because the by-election is caused by necessity, not by some selfish whim of the retiring sitting member. And so it was with the by-election in the Victorian seat of Aston caused by the untimely death of the Liberals’ Peter Nugent. The Liberals retained the seat.
Mr Crean has read the public mood correctly.
True, Mr Kerr has copped the double blow of being a member of the losing party and of not being invited on to the party’s frontbench in Parliament, but that is no excuse for taking his bat and ball and going home (literally) to Tasmania and hang the expense and inconvenience of a by-election.
There have been far too many by-elections caused by the resignation of MPs from both sides of politics for selfish reasons of pursuing a career elsewhere, and worse in Mr Kerr’s case of pursuing a political career elsewhere.