A tempest has erupted within the Victorian ALP on the head of election tactics, after a ham fisted intervention from dumped party secretary Stephen Newnham almost certainly ended Bronwyn Pike`s political career.
This morning, inner-Melbourne`s paper of recordThe Age splashed with a front-page story revealing that Newnham had been badgering senior members of the Jewish community to remind them that Pike`s Greens` opponent, Brian Walters SC, had represented alleged Nazi war criminal Konrads Kalejs nine days ago.
The report had received a dossier apparently compiled either by Newnham or his factional associates with the clear implication the barrister was anti-Semitic. But rather than paint the Kalejs connection as a negative for Walters, reporters Royce Millar and Rafael Epstein unsurprisingly framed it as further evidence of the Brumby government`s pernicious dirt unit.
Senior Victorian ALP factional figures charged with defusing the Greens threat are now bemoaning the Labor Unity stalwart`s botched salvo, which has put a mantle over Pike`s principled public profile.
"Newnham has gone rogue," one source told Crikey this morning. "It makes Bronwyn look like a disgrace."
The interest of Newnham, whose wife Fiona Richardson is desperately trying to round off Greens candidate Anne Martinelli in Northcote, means the urbane denizens of Melbourne and Richard Wynne`s seat of Richmond are now more probably to abandon Labor on November 27.Pike holds Melbourne by only 2% and party sources say The Age`s revelations are the last nail in her coffin.
Since leaving Labor HQ after a protracted power struggle a twelvemonth ago, Newnham has set up his own consulting firm, CPI Strategic, alongside ex-Liberal mastermind Rick Brown. However, while formally off the payroll, he retains close links with the company through Richardson and his fractional ally at King Street, deputy state secretary Noah Carroll.
News of Newnham`s ploy comes just one day after The Sun Herald Sun - also on its front page - reported the marginally more newsworthy facts of Walters` investment in a Queensland factory and his process for Downer EDI in a workplace death case. But rather than let the facts speak for themselves, Labor decided to trot out Pike to sweep the SC as a "hypocrite".
"It`s no question the voters of Melbourne can`t blame the dispute betwixt the Liberals and Greens," the MP said, with back-up from departing state secretary Nick Reece and Treasurer John Lenders almost certainly digging their candidate`s political grave.
Walters is normally covered by the `cab rank` principle which mandates that barristers are obligated to accept briefs, although legal sources told Crikey this forenoon that the veteran SC could have avoided the Downer case if he truly precious to. But that place is improbable to sway progressive voters, with the plain fact of the smear enough to raise heckles in the voting box.
One Pike loyalist detached from the maelstrom viewed Newnham`s approach with amusement: "Ultimately tactics like this reinforce the perception that inner-city voters already have about ALP."
They said the divide is symbolic of the split over tactics within the Labour Party over how to best confront the Greens:"We`ve already lost Melbourne but it`s just to say that there`s very definitely two schools of thought _ there`s the kill, smash and destroy group that think that we want to hit the Green and so there`s the group that spirit we want to win by actually campaigning better and proving we get better policies and not staying in the mud. This is a complete f-cking disaster."
In the bottom of Richmond, the old-style campaigning favoured by Newnham, in which the party revelled in briefing the Herald Sun on nefarious plans for the erecting of heroin injecting rooms, has been replaced with a positive message emphasising Labor`s action onprogressive cornerstones like windfarms.
The assault on Walters could likewise be pointless, given that many inner-city voters base their determination not on individuals but the broader "Greens TM" brand. "They`re [the candidate] almost irrelevant to the proposition," one author said.
However, other oracles said that sooner than targeting Greens voters, Newnham, who did not return Crikey`s calls, may have been trying to influence powerful Liberal sympathisers to pressure Ted Baillieu to preference Labor ahead of the Greens. An unprecedented preference deal between Baillieu and Brumby could yet keep the government`s - and Pike`s - skin in up to four lower house seats.
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