Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to take a sweep through country and regional Victoria. I want, as the time allows, to talk about the seats of Corio, Corangamite, Ballarat and Bendigo, as it is interesting to look at them. I will start with Corio because it is one of the patron seat areas. The Liberal Party candidate is Angelo Kakouros, a very successful small business man, and one of the ALP candidates is Richard Marles. Richard is an assistant secretary of the ACTU, so he joins other imports from the ACTU that are coming into the Australian Labor Party. Of course the other player in that is the sitting Labor Party member, Gavan O’Connor. Mr O’Connor and Mr Marles have been having a ding-dong battle for about two years. I have not got time to go through all of the clips from the Geelong Advertiser and the Geelong Independent tonight, because they are far too numerous, but they indicate the unworthiness of Mr Marles to represent the people of Corio. He has been accused by branch members of being a branch stacker. He has been accused by his former girlfriend of being a branch stacker. Indeed, in the Geelong Advertiser on 26 January 2006, under the heading ‘Former lovers in stack spat’, Roxanne Bennett and Richard Marles were going at it hammer and tongs in the paper in relation to whether he had or had not branch stacked. I want to go back to the Geelong Advertiser of 12 March 2005. It reports:

Disenchanted Labor Party members yesterday labelled as farce an inquiry into allegations of branch stacking in Corio after news its findings would be kept from the public.

The inquiry will be completed by the end of April after members within the federal seat of Corio petitioned the state administrative committee with claims of branch stacking.

The allegations came after speculation ACTU assistant secretary and Labor Unity member Richard Marles would challenge incumbent non-aligned Corio MP Gavan O’Connor for the seat before the next election. Mr Marles says the speculation is unfounded.

So Mr Marles was out busily branch stacking, denying he was going to try to unseat Gavan O’Connor, the member for Corio. Gavan O’Connor, quite rightly, has significant support from people such as Simon Crean—indeed, strong support from Simon Crean—and there are other Labor luminaries who support him, whereas Mr Marles is supported by Dean Mighell from the ETU. Dean Mighell of all people supports Mr Marles; a colleague of Mr Marles is Dean Mighell—with friends like that who needs enemies?

I will sweep through to Corangamite. In Corangamite we have a gentleman whom I know from Ballarat by the name of Darren Cheeseman. In 15 or 20 years time this young man might possibly make a member of parliament. The best I can say is that he is toilet trained but I think he probably still wears a night nappy.