Gippsland by-election #3

Posted by on May 5, 2008, 5:48pm, 246 views

The date of the Gippsland by-election has been set for June 28.

The polling date was announced today by federal parliamentary Speaker Harry Jenkins.

Brendan Nelson and Warren Truss have launched campaigns for the Liberal and National Parties respectively.

I’m guessing that local candidates Rohan Fitzgerald and Darren Chester just wanted that out of the way as a necessary but unwelcome formality.

By all accounts Nelson was uncomfortable when asked why Coalition supporters should select the Liberal ahead of Chester. There’s not much in Nelson’s speech to inspire.

Nelson has failed to strike a chord with voters and most people in Gippsland probably don’t know who Warren Truss is.

They’d most likely mistake him for the local RSL sub-branch president, rather than the potential Deputy Prime Minister, if they saw him on the street.

Chester will be relying on the three Peters to boost his campaign: McGauran, Ryan and Hall.

It will be interesting to see how much time Kevin Rudd and senior ministers spend in the electorate. That will indicate if Labor is taking the seat seriously.

I’ve got a hunch that Julia Gillard could be a vote winner in Traralgon, Morwell and Orbost if Labor choose to roll her out. She’s a fairly earthy type as well as being Australia’s second most sexy woman.

I’m still feeling warm and fuzzy about picking the Nationals to win Morwell at the last state election when nobody else had them in the frame.

At this stage I think the Nats will retain Gippsland, but a big Labor effort could cause an upset.

Follow the tag Gippsland for news on this campaign as it comes to hand. Anyone who would like to email news tips can do so to ozcomments@gmail.com (anonymous is fine).

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