Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Ah, the sweet irony of politics. Independent candidate James Purcell, having tried his darnedest to edge Liberal Roma Britnell out of her seat, ended up being the one who kept her in it.

Remember a few weeks ago we talked about the importance of potatoes, aka preferences? (If you missed that explainer, you can find it here).

Having had a good close look at the numbers now that the state election result for the south-west has been finally declared, it all came down to James Purcell’s bag of potatoes as to whether Labor won, or Liberal.

It was that close.

To win, Roma Britnell needed every single potato/preference she could get her hands on.

Unlike in other years, the Liberals didn’t start with a huge truckload of first-preference votes: Labor’s Kylie Gaston started with 10,074 and Roma received 13,296. James Purcell was next in line with 6763.

In a big old blue-ribbon Liberal seat like the south-west, this is extraordinary and a sign of just how on-the-nose the Liberal Party is right now. (Keep it up, south-west! We have a federal election next year.)

As the distribution of the preferences began, it really was neck-and-neck the whole way between Kylie and Roma, as you can see by this image:

After the distribution of all the preferences from Terry Riggs (Socialist), Mike McCluskey (Independent), Joseph Purtill (DLP), Thomas Campbell (the Greens), Jim Doukas (Country Liberal Party) and even right down to Michael Neoh (Independent), the two main candidates were still only a couple of thousand votes apart.

All that remained to be distributed was James Purcell’s preferences.

Oh the tension, the drama! Which way would it go?

Would the south-west defy every single prediction before the poll and elect a new member?

Would we have an ALP local member for the first time in 2000 years? (I exaggerate, but you get the picture).

You can see by the numbers that, in the end, James’s preferences were split almost 50-50, but MORE went to Kylie than to Roma… just not quite enough to get her past Roma.

If another 1000 of Purcell’s potatoes had dropped into Kylie’s bag, she would now be sitting in Parliament House at the top of Spring St.

It was that close.

James did not quite do what he set out to do, which was to win the seat, but he achieved what we all hoped he would do, and that was to help make this seat marginal.

As predicted by the ABC’s number cruncher Antony Green on election night, the south-west is now on a margin of less than 4% at 3.8%. (Until November 24, it was on a margin of 11%).

What are we going to do with this gorgeous little margin next time around, in 2022?

Are we going to relax back into the easy chair and put all of our potatoes back into one big blue bag with “Liberal safe seat” written across the front?

Or are we going to push it even further and go for a real change?

We might never get the same chance for another 20 years.

One thing is for sure, there will be a swag of candidates all lining up to try and drag that margin back even further and I suspect James Purcell will be among them.

By Carol Altmann

For a few weeks there, I really thought the impact of the independents might see a changing of the guard in the south-west at the state election on November 24, but, no, the Liberals are on track to win yet again.

How I would love to see our seat change hands – just this once – or at least become marginal, just so we know what that feels like.

But as former south-west candidate and self-confessed political junkie Roy Reekie sets out in detail in his blog, it all comes down to simple maths and the maths is firmly on the side of a victory for Roma Britnell and the Liberal Party.

There are two reasons for this:

1) As a safe Liberal seat, the Liberal Party already starts miles ahead of everyone else. At the 2015 by-election, with few people even knowing who Roma Britnell was, she was still the first choice of 40% of voters. Remember, she only needs 50.1% of votes to win.

2) Former Moyne Shire mayor Jim Doukas, who apparently doesn’t like independent candidate, Upper House MP and fellow former mayor James Purcell very much, is set to be the queen maker via his preferences.

Just a quick primer on preferences, for those who are not political junkies and find the whole thing totally confusing.

In a nutshell, who you vote for first is critical, but also who you put second, third, fourth, fifth etc is just as important because these votes can decide who actually wins.

How? Well, imagine the election as a foot race where each candidate starts with a sack of golden potatoes (aka first-preference votes) and the person holding the majority of potatoes at the end, wins.

The person with the least amount of golden potatoes drops out of the race first, but their potatoes don’t go to waste. No! They are instead distributed to the others who are still in the race.

This dropping out of candidates and distributing of their potatoes/preferences goes on until there is one winner with a big fat sack of spuds (aka a majority).

Using this analogy, Roma Britnell, as the sitting Liberal candidate in a safe seat, will start on November 24 with a hefty bag of potatoes – she had 15,486 of them as a newcomer in 2015 and only needed another 4000 or so to have a majority.

Country Party candidate Jim Doukas last time started with around 4000, which is substantial, so you can see why where he decides to direct his preferences really matters: everyone wants his potatoes!

Unfortunately for James Purcell and Labor’s Kylie Gaston and the Greens’ Thomas Campbell, Mr Doukas has decided to direct his spuds first to Michael Neoh and Roma Britnell, in that order. James Purcell is a lowly fifth on his preference list.

Just remember, Roma doesn’t need that many extra spuds to crack that magical 5o%-plus-one mark and Jim is now her greengrocer.

James Purcell must be spitting chips. This was not how it was supposed to play out when he decided to take the leap from the Upper House to run for the Lower House.

It was always going to be a tough haul for James to get close to beating Roma, but if all of the “others” banded together and agreed to share their votes via preference deals, then maybe he at least had a half chance as a “I’m-not-Liberal-but-I-am-conservative” candidate.

At least independent and former Warrnambool mayor Michael Neoh has done his bit to try and shake the south-west from its slumber and, in so doing, has performed a 360-degree twist in allegiances that would leave any head spinning.

In 2015, Michael ran for the National Party after failing to win preselection for the Liberals, and it was his preferences that helped get Roma Britnell safely over the line (ahead of the aforementioned Roy Reekie).

This time, however, Michael is running his own race and Roma has been dropped to 7th on his preference list behind the ALP’s Kylie Gaston – ouch! – you can see why they say there are no friends in politics!

So what does this all mean?

Well, I think the most we can hope for is that the influence of the independents sees the south-west shift from being safe to not-so-safe and maybe even a tiny bit marginal.

This would be a victory for all of us, even Liberal voters, because we all know that it is the marginal seats that have better roads than ours, better trains than ours, more funding for projects like hospitals and schools and libraries, and – above all – a genuine sense that our vote can never be taken for granted, and that, dare I say, is no small potatoes.

If you haven’t voted yet and want to help make this seat marginal, vote for one of the independents, the Greens or the ALP. For a much more detailed analysis of how things could play out, please read Roy’s blog here (written before the preference deals were announced). Roy crunches the numbers like nobody can.

By Carol Altmann

If Warrnambool City councillor and ALP candidate Kylie Gaston had one job to do this week, it was to make sure she pushed the vote to have racehorse training back on Levy’s Beach by December.

I have seen Cr Gaston move fast, but never quite as fast as on Monday night when – amidst roars of protest from the council gallery and dissent from three council colleagues* – she cracked the whip and moved the motion to allow the council to again issue beach permits to the Warrnambool Racing Club.

At that moment, Cr Gaston shifted from being an environmentalist, to an ALP candidate with an agenda.

It was a very public shift that shocked many of her long-time supporters, some of whom were in the gallery and who left the meeting visibly upset by the sense of betrayal.

Cr Gaston knew that the council was most likely breaking its own laws by allowing dozens of racehorses to be trained on what is a public coastal reserve.

Despite this, and rather than wait a day or two to confirm the legal advice, Cr Gaston galloped on as if there was no more vital issue than making sure the WRC has seamless access to our beaches once summer closes off Lady Bay to trainers from December 1.

The racing industry was so desperate to get back on the beaches that it even offered the WCC what was probably one step short of a bribe: they would fund most of a $400,000 new carpark at Lady Bay, for its own use, of course, and adding even more bitumen to our beach. Sorry, I forgot to mention it was a “bespoke” carpark.

Warrnambool Racing Club CEO Peter Downs, who also sits on the council’s Visitor Advisory Committee, must have been thrilled by Cr Gaston’s form.

Even more importantly, State Labor Government and Racing Minister Martin Pakula would have been delighted with the performance of the party’s candidate for the south-west.

As we know, Minister Pakula and our own independent Upper House MP and racehorse owner James Purcell have been pushing the whole racehorses-on-beaches issue like there is no tomorrow, such is the might and power of the billion-dollar racing industry.

Unfortunately for Minister Pakula, Mr Purcell and the WRC, however, the tomorrows were running out rapidly.

In just two weeks time, on October 30, the State Government goes into caretaker mode in preparation for the state election on November 24.

During “caretaker mode”, a government is discouraged from making any major decisions.

And also in just two weeks time, on October 30, Cr Gaston – and Cr Michael Neoh – take leave from the council to focus entirely on their election campaigns.

The clock was ticking.

 

Monday night’s urgent meeting, called at the behest of Minster Pakula, was a last chance for Cr Gaston – and Labor – to tidy up some very untidy business by hurrying the decision on the beach permits.

After all, if the legal advice came back to say that the council wasn’t breaking the law, then the racehorses were home and hosed.

And if the legal advice came back to say that it was breaking the law, then Minister Pakula still had two weeks to cook up a plan B.

(The council confirmed yesterday that it was breaking the law. Plan B – watch this space – could now see the Minster for Planning intervene.)

Of course Cr Gaston has denied her head-of-steam had anything to do with the State Government (“nothing to see here!”) getting in her ear.

No, for the once-committed environmentalist who says she loves Levy’s Beach, it was all about “compromise”. You know, give and take: we give the WRC our wild beach, and they take away the wildness, that sort of thing.

If it wasn’t so transparent and ugly, it would be darkly humorous.

Bu then, in the final act, things became even weirder.

Having pushed the vote, without time to properly consider the legalities, Cr Gaston told the local paper yesterday that it would have been better if the vote had not gone ahead.

I have read Cr Gaston’s quotes to the paper several times now, and they still don’t make sense:

“We didn’t really have time to think about it. It would have been great if that vote did not proceed.

“Waiting would have been best, but that was the position we faced at that time”, she said.

“There were a lot of people emotional, it was difficult, but I also knew that if the motion approved something that was illegal, the situation would resolve itself.”

 

What?

Back-pedalling often follows a backlash, but if Cr Gaston hoped to regain the respect of those who saw her as a genuine alternative to the old players, well, that horse has already bolted.

* Cr Gaston’s motion was passed with the support of Mayor Robert Anderson, Cr Sue Cassidy and Cr Tony Herbert. Crs Cassidy and Herbert are both angling to be the next mayor. Crs Peter Hulin, Michael Neoh and David Owen voted against it.

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By Carol Altmann

The full power of the horse racing industry in Victoria has been laid bare.

In 118 pages, the Belfast Coastal Reserve Management Plan released this week ties itself in knots to justify the unjustifiable: allowing full-scale racehorse training along one of the few, accessible wild beaches in our area.

At no time, unlike with the dirt-bike riders or off-road drivers, did the State Government consider banning racehorse training on the stretch of beach between east Killarney and Levy’s Beach, which is home to a breathtaking array of endangered birdlife and indigenous cultural heritage.

No, from day one, it has been a case of the government working out how to accommodate racehorses, as if they have been on our beaches for thousands of years and have wings and feathers, or gills and scales.

Let’s do the maths on what is now going to happen:

Up to 40 racehorses a day, five days a week, all year round, will be allowed to train on ‘Hoon Hill’, a long sand dune area west of Levy’s Beach. This equals up to 200 horses a week.

Up to 120 horses a day can train on Levy’s Beach foreshore, five days a week, all year round. This equals up to 600 horses a week.

This means up to 800 horses a month will be running up the dunes and 2400 running along the beach.

In one year, this is the equivalent of up to 9600 horses on the dunes and 28,800 on the beach.

In two years time, when the government plans to assess the impact, there will have been – potentially – a combined total of 76,800 horse movements along Levy’s Beach and up the dunes at Hoon Hill.

Up to 76,800 horse movements in just two years of a 15-year plan.

Will it have an impact on the beach? Hmm, let me think about that for one nano second.

This entire “problem” of what to do about professional racehorse trainers has been created by the sheer power of an industry that has huge clout well beyond our little patch in south-west Victoria.

You only have to see the cosying up that goes on between politicians and the Victorian Racing Club.

Free passes. Memberships. Tickets to the Cup. Heck, some of them even own racehorses themselves, like our local MPs Dan Tehan and James Purcell who, in an Orwellian twist, receives lavish praise for looking after his own interests and that of his son, Aaron, a professional racehorse trainer.

And if anyone dares to mention that racehorses can be trained in purpose-built facilities, that they don’t actually need to be trained on our wild beaches, they are whacked with a thinly-veiled form of blackmail: the trainers will go “elsewhere” (although I am not sure where “elsewhere” is), all the jobs will dry up and the local racing industry will collapse.

What a load of bullshite.

The Warrnambool Racing Club would not be investing millions into the Warrnambool racecourse if its whole survival depended on continued access to a stretch of coastline.

Let’s not forget that these professional racehorse trainers just started showing up at Levy’s one day, using the beach without permits or permission, and when one of those horses won a Melbourne Cup in 2015, they began to arrive by the truckload.

But instead of telling these trainers to pack up and leave a coastal reserve, it was decided there was no option but to bend the rules around them. Not only that, carparks and tracks will now be added to give them better access!

The motorcross riders and off-road drivers must be feeling hard done by.

They have been tearing around the dunes at Levy’s Beach for years and – quite rightly – have been given notice that they will no longer be tolerated.

So as one form of horsepower moves out, another much stronger horsepower is moving in.

Don’t be fooled for one second by the romantic images of horses wading into the surf to soothe their weary muscles, or swimming gently behind a row boat as they swim out their strains. They can do that now at Lady Bay.

This is not horse riding, this is racehorse training, on a massive scale.

This is about conditioning, this is about pace and strength: the hard, powerful stuff, up dunes and down dunes and along long stretches of beach, dodging the walkers and birdwatchers and startled birds, and squashing the starfish and worms and bugs and shellfish and little pids and pods that make up the full and brilliant ecosystem of a wild coastline.

It makes me want to weep, this sort of destruction, all for no other reason than convenience, ease and greed.

And nobody else, nobody, but the powerful racing industry would ever get away with it.

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