People who think they are ‘governing classes’

Kevin Rudd MP Minister for Foreign Affairs spoke to a huge and very receptive crowd at Woodford Folk Festival about global issues facing Australia.

At one point he used a phrase which set my alarm bells ringing:
‘governing class in Australia’. Wow! Now there’s an elitist phrase if ever there was one. This is Australia we’re talking about.

I’ve seen the idea of ‘governing class’ before in The Australian and it is getting talked about a bit. How do people get preselection for safe seats? Not by being hard working long-serving members of the local branch of their party. Possibly by doing a politics degree at university and working as an electoral assistant in a Members’ office but even more likely if they come from a family with a political lineage.

Well that wasn’t how we were taught to think a democracy worked.

Who are the people getting nominated by parties locally and how are these nominations coming about?

I’ve heard of one local nomination and you’d have to say it is a good one – a local who has worked very hard in this area for many years and is highly respected. If all nominations for seats in this area have such local input we could rest easy.

It is also important that candidates are genuinely representative of our local area. It is a problem in the case of Ryan that the electorate is so large and the electorate office so far away well across a mountain range in another catchment. We need to be on the ball to keep our candidates local.