• Melissa Parke reads from the Herald published after Labor’s 2009 loss, full of reference to lost love, lust and shacking up with new partners. Who knew! Photo by Roel Loopers

And Libs preference out Carles

ADELE CARLES now concedes she has virtually no chance of re-election, with both the Greens and Liberals directing preferences away from her.

Elected as a Green at a 2009 by-election following Jim McGinty’s retirement, Ms Carles quit the party to sit as an independent after falling out with party mandarins over her extra-marital affair with senior Liberal Troy Buswell.

With analysts predicting her primary vote likely to hit the low to mid teens in two weeks, which would see her eliminated after Jan Ter Horst and the Socialist Alliance, it’s unlikely preferences would have made much difference anyway. But her hopes have been cruelled altogether with the Greens advising supporters to preference Labor first.

Play politics

“I am the only MP in the lower house who has stood against the Kimberley gas hub and logging our native forests, so it is disappointing that the Greens have chosen to play politics over policy,” Ms Carles says of her former colleagues.

Greens candidate Andrew Sullivan says the party’s local rank and file decided on the preference flow.

“There was no pressure,” he says.

“The party came to the conclusion to look at the candidate with the best policy, combined with the best ability.”

Mr Sullivan said members backed Labor’s Simone McGurk as she seemed unlikely to toe the party line on issues dear to the Greens such as uranium.

The Liberals meanwhile are asking supporters to preference the Greens ahead of Ms Carles. While some Liberal voters might twitch at the prospect of putting the Greens so high up on their ballots, the party brains trust is no doubt keen to boot Ms Carles out of the parliament and away from her estranged ex-paramour.

Ms Carles says voters should be “very aware of hidden agendas”.

“To be crystal clear,” she says, “a vote for the Liberal or the Greens candidate will simply see a Labor union secretary elected in Fremantle.”

For Labor’s Simone McGurk to be elected, the Greens’ Andrew Sullivan must be eliminated before Liberal Matthew Hanssen, allowing Ms McGurk to sail in on Greens preferences. Analysts suggest that’s the most likely scenario, but this is Freo after all.

Assuming Ms Carles is eliminated early and her preferences flow solidly to the Greens, it’s possible for Mr Hanssen to end up behind Mr Sullivan. Liberal preferences could then very possibly make Mr Sullivan Fremantle’s second Greens MP.

Meanwhile, federal Fremantle Labor MP Melissa Parke showed a penchant for theatrics at Labor’s election launch Tuesday night at the Freo Workers’ Club.

She had in her hands a copy of the Herald published the week after Labor lost the seat in 2009, and read from the paper’s front-page editorial column, which sounded pretty funny given subsequent events.

“For too long WA Labor, like a partner from whom both lust and love has long been lost, took the port for granted,” she read out, smiling knowingly to the 100-strong crowd which lapped it up.

To guffaws she added: “Last Saturday the port said ‘enough’, showed Labor the door and shacked up with a new partner promising love and attention.”

Ms Parke then said Labor had never taken the seat for granted, drawing cheers from folk hopeful of regaining a seat they regard as the jewel in their crown.

by BRENDAN FOSTER