MP fails first test but Libs expelled

Peter Farago
GEELONG’S two new representatives in Federal Parliament begin a new game of snakes and ladders this week.
Over and done with is the game of ducks and drakes for Richard Marles and Darren Cheeseman, who both got the nod from the electorate to line up for parliamentary pay packets this week.
No more worrying about claims of branch stacking or whether the left or right factions are going to claim a minor victory in preselection.
It’s down to business.
From now on, the real enemy is supposed to be across the floor in Canberra.
It was supposed to be an easy start for the two new MPs this week.
A soda, in fact.
Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd presented his MPs with a great photo opportunity – attend two local schools (one government, one non-government) – to sell Labor’s education revolution, including ensuring all secondary students from year nine have access to personal computers.
Mr Rudd wanted to get moving quickly on his agenda.
And of course it looks great to the public that his MPs appear to be getting on with business before they’ve even been sworn in.
While Mr Marles dutifully attended a couple of schools in Geelong’s northern suburbs, Mr Cheeseman played truant.
It wasn’t a great start.
The Ballarat-based member-elect faced constant jibes during the election campaign that he was an out-of-town union official and wouldn’t understand local issues.
The campaign slur obviously didn’t work on a large portion of the electorate.
But Mr Cheeseman didn’t help allay the others fears when he failed to complete his assignment before heading to Canberra for Labor’s first post-election caucus meeting this week.
He failed to attend two schools in the electorate because, according to him, he had no car.
When the Independent quizzed the debutante about whether he considered using public transport, Mr Cheeseman said he was awaiting his parliamentary car.
Not a great excuse for a government MP.
Residents in Corangamite will hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.
But for Corangamite, the enemy that was supposed to be on the other side of parliament house is gone.
And it could be lost in the ether of political irrelevance and infighting for some time.
The Liberal party had a chance to replace its long-running Member for Corangamite, Stewart McArthur, at preselection with Rod Nockles, a security expert and former government senior adviser.
It would have been a chance to bring some new blood into party, in fact the exact generational change the party now says it needs to present to the community in the wake of the election loss.
But that’s all relegated to that list of great decisions made in hindsight.
What the Liberals have to do now, and what they have failed to do in a state forum for about two terms, is present as a strong opposition in exile.
There’s not much they can learn from their state colleagues.
The Liberals have no standing in Geelong at the moment.
They had a fair crack at the last state election but got nowhere and basically disappeared into the night.
There has been no real opposition to Labor decision-making in the region and, if this continues, the Liberals can’t expect to reclaim Corangamite at the next federal election.