A Greens federal Senate candidate has criticised the party’s preselection process following a damaging leak of official candidate assessments yesterday.

InDaily yesterday revealed leaked candidate interview reports which ranked candidates on a scale of “highly recommended” to “competent” to “needs further development”.

The interview panel wrote that it “did not consider (candidate Lynton Vonow) to demonstrate the full range of qualities expected in the role of a federal senator” and that fellow candidate Sam Taylor “did not give any detail, during his interview, of policy issues affecting the Greens at a national level”.

Rebecca Galdies, who was labelled “competent” in the document, said it was unnecessarily potentially damaging to the two candidates, who were each ranked “needs further development”.

“One of the things that has come up has been an issue of the words used in ratings, and, personally, I believe that both of the people that were rated as ‘needs further development’ are actually exceptionally talented individuals,” said Galdies.

Galdies said she was disappointed the document had been leaked, and said it was more “prescriptive” about candidates than in previous preselections.

“It was unnecessarily potentially damaging to two very talented future politicians,” said Galdies.

“I don’t feel it’s as democratic as it could be.

“I would actually do away with the interview panel altogether.

“I believe that the voters within the party are all very intelligent people and if we stick to the process of having meet the nominee sessions, and allow voters to see those online as well … I think that’s adequate.”

Galdies said that the reports appeared like ‘how to vote’ cards.

“It does look like that,” she said.

Galdies said the preselection for retiring federal Greens Senator Penny Wright’s seat was “the first time that the interview panel has been a little bit more prescriptive than we’re used to, and that’s obviously going to upset some people”.

“Given that it was a panel of five people doing that assessment, I think if you’d have had five different people, you might have come up with a different assessment,” she said.

“We need to review things. And we will – we’re very good at that.”

The interview panel consisted of chair John Wishart, SA Greens Leader Parnell, party director Clare Quinn and former Davenport candidate Jody Moate.

Galdies said she was satisfied with other elements of the process.

However, fellow candidate Matthew Carey, who was also labelled “competent” in the report, said it was important for Greens members to have the benefit of the interview panel’s assessment.

“I think it’s important that members do get an understanding of whether (the interview panel) feel that candidates will be good in the role,” he said.

“We’ve got a group of very strong candidates.

“This is a bit of a different process from what we’ve done the past.

“After any significant pre-selection such as this I think it’s reasonable to expect that there’ll be some kind of review.

“I don’t want to speculate on how any review might go.”

SA Greens MLC Tammy Franks said that her party’s pre-selection processes were “not pleasant”, but that was the way it should be.

“It’s not an easy process, and it’s not a pleasant process for the candidates – but that is how it should be if someone is about to step into the Senate without contesting a general election,” she said.

“There is often a lot of acrimony (during pre selections) but we do have quite robust processes and appeal processes, and there’s been transparency, and democratically approved means of running this.

“This is an election – a pre-selection – for somebody who will go straight into the Senate.

“It should be a tough process.

“These are our party rules … we set a high bar for our candidates.”

Franks argued the process was democratic, and superior to that undertaken by other political parties.

“In other political parties … a faction will decide, a power broker will decide,” Franks said.

“A ballot of all members is a much healthier way to go.

“Our membership decides. … no backroom, faceless man chooses.”

Greens State Secretary Nathan Daniell told InDaily the candidate interview reports were “a normal part of the pre-selection process”.

He said the reports were unanimously endorsed by the party’s Policy and Campaigning Council.

The council consists of party office bearers, branch representatives and elected members.

“There were no concerns at the time of endorsing those reports,” he said.

“Any member has the opportunity (to share concerns) through that body.”

Daniell said the interview reports were only “one aspect of the process”.

He said members were also provided with candidate statements and had access to “meet-the-nominee” meetings.

Voting for the party’s Senate nominee concludes early next month.

Adelaide city councillor Robert Simms – the candidate labelled “highly recommended” in the candidate assessments – told InDaily: “I don’t want to comment – it’s an internal party process”.

Taylor also declined to comment.

InDaily contacted SA Greens Leader Mark Parnell’s office.