Mr BALCH - 1997-12-01
Can he confirm that ALP headquarters showed its lack of faith by cutting back its financial support for the local branch in the recent Territory election?
Mr Stirling: Goodness me! These are top order questions!
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, these are good questions because they expose certain things the Labor Party was telling Territorians which turned out not to be true. The Labor Party in the Territory would have Territorians believe that the party is Territory Labor when it is nothing of the sort. It still takes its instructions from Canberra, it still obtains its funding from Canberra, and it is even working from a campaign manual that was prepared in Canberra ...
Mr Reed: Surprise, surprise!
Mr STONE: What a surprise indeed! What was really interesting was the final admission of truth: ‘We need your help’. They certainly did. This is the document the Labor Party issued. It is marked: ‘Confidential - Internal ALP Use Only’. I ask any Labor Party members listening to this broadcast to please stop sending me copies of this document. I have enough. I do not need any more. I have got the message. Their membership thinks members opposite are the biggest bunch of losers who ever walked. They received $56 000 from the secretariat. For the benefit of Territorians, let me read this little gem of a paragraph.
Mrs Hickey interjecting.
Mr STONE: I know it is embarrassing, but I am wondering why you are still sitting in here. In fact, many of the notes that come in with this document ask why you are still sitting in here. I quote:
The Western Australian branch provided Holly Butler to assist with the bush campaign [Thank you, Holly]. She has excellent organisational skills and
already had some experience of bush mobile polling [Thank you again, Holly]. Lisa Jackson came from the national secretariat and was equally of
enormous value in organising a wide range of activity.
Who are they trying to fool here? They lost the seat of MacDonnell and they came within 80 votes of losing Stuart. The member for Arnhem only just scraped back in and they are writing this sort of diatribe to their own membership who keep sending it to me and clogging up my mailbox. The report went on: ‘The national secretariat contributed $56 000 to the cost of our advertising placement’. I thought the best gem of information contained in this document - this is in November with the election all over - was:
Lost and found. Borrowed or strayed and now needed: Mike Smith’s copies of the very useful and valuable campaigning guides All’s Fair by Carville and
Barton and The New Machine Men by Mills. Which campaign has them? Ring the ALP office with clues. We need help.
They sure do. I suggest that, as a starting point, they go to the Katherine pub. That is where the last batch of documents that the ALP lost was left, after its members went on a big binge there. Confidential material was left lying around in the pub. ‘Lost and found’! ‘We need help’! You lot are just a joke.
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Mr Stirling: Goodness me! These are top order questions!
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, these are good questions because they expose certain things the Labor Party was telling Territorians which turned out not to be true. The Labor Party in the Territory would have Territorians believe that the party is Territory Labor when it is nothing of the sort. It still takes its instructions from Canberra, it still obtains its funding from Canberra, and it is even working from a campaign manual that was prepared in Canberra ...
Mr Reed: Surprise, surprise!
Mr STONE: What a surprise indeed! What was really interesting was the final admission of truth: ‘We need your help’. They certainly did. This is the document the Labor Party issued. It is marked: ‘Confidential - Internal ALP Use Only’. I ask any Labor Party members listening to this broadcast to please stop sending me copies of this document. I have enough. I do not need any more. I have got the message. Their membership thinks members opposite are the biggest bunch of losers who ever walked. They received $56 000 from the secretariat. For the benefit of Territorians, let me read this little gem of a paragraph.
Mrs Hickey interjecting.
Mr STONE: I know it is embarrassing, but I am wondering why you are still sitting in here. In fact, many of the notes that come in with this document ask why you are still sitting in here. I quote:
The Western Australian branch provided Holly Butler to assist with the bush campaign [Thank you, Holly]. She has excellent organisational skills and
already had some experience of bush mobile polling [Thank you again, Holly]. Lisa Jackson came from the national secretariat and was equally of
enormous value in organising a wide range of activity.
Who are they trying to fool here? They lost the seat of MacDonnell and they came within 80 votes of losing Stuart. The member for Arnhem only just scraped back in and they are writing this sort of diatribe to their own membership who keep sending it to me and clogging up my mailbox. The report went on: ‘The national secretariat contributed $56 000 to the cost of our advertising placement’. I thought the best gem of information contained in this document - this is in November with the election all over - was:
Lost and found. Borrowed or strayed and now needed: Mike Smith’s copies of the very useful and valuable campaigning guides All’s Fair by Carville and
Barton and The New Machine Men by Mills. Which campaign has them? Ring the ALP office with clues. We need help.
They sure do. I suggest that, as a starting point, they go to the Katherine pub. That is where the last batch of documents that the ALP lost was left, after its members went on a big binge there. Confidential material was left lying around in the pub. ‘Lost and found’! ‘We need help’! You lot are just a joke.
Page 39
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016