Real Change learns Realpolitik

Stephen Pallaras concedes he is a newcomer to the dark arts of preferencing, but says he has no regrets about doing a deal with the Liberals to run Real Change SA candidates in four marginal Government-held seats and direct preferences to the incumbents – because the arrangement maximises his own chances of election to the state’s Upper House.

That’s despite earlier meeting with senior Labor party figures about the prospect of running on the ALP Legislative Council ticket, only to be told that their candidates had already been chosen.

“I went to see Peter Malinauskas to discuss what options might be available with them, but by the time I was able to do that every party had finished its preselections,” a remarkably candid Pallaras tells Campaign Diary, conceding his plan was to shop around amongst potential parties.

“I was going to go and see what was available everywhere [but] I was told ‘thank-you but we’ve chosen our preselected candidates’… it was the same situation around the other parties.”

He insists he “wasn’t seeking specifically to deal with the Labor Party”, and had the Libs on his to-do list as well.

He also had preliminary discussions with the likes of SA Best and crossbench MLC John Darley.

“I wouldn’t have just gone to the Labor Party,” he insists.

“I was just sounding things out – what I was doing was investigating what options were around.

“I wasn’t suggesting that I’d be prepared to sign up with any particular party [but] I was disappointed I’d left the approach to the parties so late that there were no options available.

“I felt that I’d missed the boat with everybody… I wanted to know what the options were [and] there weren’t any, effectively.”

In the end, he opted to start his own party, Real Change SA, and “ultimately got there with five minutes to spare”.

A message Pallaras sent to a senior Labor adviser, obtained by InDaily, spells out his disappointment.

“Thanks to you and Peter for the time the other day,” it begins.

“I’m still amazed at my own stupidity at not knowing or realising that pre-selections would be over. It was extremely disappointing to find that out and that my ambitions to join up and contribute had suddenly come to nought.

“Anyway, enough of the spilt milk… Peter did say to keep in touch, especially in terms of policy.

“I could understand if that was out of politeness rather than any pressing desire to see what Pallaras thinks but in case I’m wrong, I recently wrote a short piece on the parole system.”

He then outlines his view that the parole system should be abolished and offers to send a more detailed explanation, “but I won’t be offended if there are more pressing issues”.

Pallaras has since put himself on the LegCo ballot paper, along with running mate Tony Tonkin, who was previously the founder of the Child Protection Party.

“He’s left Child Protection and joined Real Change as a candidate with me for the Upper House,” the former DPP tells InDaily.

He concedes his party put together a last-minute preference deal with the Liberals to run candidates in Newland, Elder, King and Adelaide in return for the Liberals’ first preference in the Upper House.

But he says he would have preferred to get the same deal done with Labor.

“The first party I went to was the Labor Party [because] probably if I put myself on the political spectrum I’d be much closer to the Labor Party than the Liberal Party,” he says.

Which may be somewhat surprising to readers with long memories, who may recall that Pallaras’s tenure as DPP was marked by high-octane spats with the Rann Government of the day.

However, he said the ALP “wasn’t interested” in doing preference deals with a party that, at that stage, wasn’t running in the Lower House.

“I left that meeting with nothing,” he says.

“But since then the strategy committee – which is basically our family – said ‘perhaps we should be looking at running people in the lower house’, the principal reason that it then relates to preferences we get back from those people we’re running in the lower house.”

He said Real Change then looked “for the best deal we could get coming back to us, and the best deal we could get was from the Liberals”.

“The Liberals put us at number two on every ticket in the state,” he said.

“We think we’ve done the best deal available – for a small party like us we thought that’s too good to refuse.

“All we’re concerned about is getting the maximum opportunity to win a position in parliament.”

He concedes he was “struggling” with the concept of dealing with a party he is not particularly ideologically aligned with, “until I came to the point of saying ‘what’s the main goal here?’

“And the main goal here is to get into parliament.

“I’ll not be told by either Liberal or Labor how to vote if I get in – I took the view that the discomfort perhaps of those preferences arrangements [had to be weighed against] maximising our chances of getting in and being effective as an independent”.

“I understand I’ve got to do deals – I never thought this deal would eventuate, but it has,” he says.

“I don’t have second thoughts about it.”

SA Best MLC Frank Pangallo says the Liberals offered his party the same deal “and we rejected it”.

“They’re pretty desperate to sandbag those key marginals,” he said.

Friends in high places

Former Liberal up-and-comer turned Independent Speaker Dan Cregan got some local support recently from an unexpected quarter.

A letter in the local Mount Barker Courier that enthusiastically sung his praises was signed by former Labor Party veteran Murray de Laine.

“Dan Cregan’s decision to become an independent has created a real focus on the significant issues in our community,” de Laine enthused.

“We are now witnessing the major parties make commitments to improve local healthcare and transport needs… previous governments of both persuasions have largely ignored us.”

He said Cregan’s decision to quit the Libs “has put his community first” as “he will also have considerably more influence if he is re-elected as an independent”.

“I intend to vote for him,” said the former MP for what is now Cheltenham.

“As a former long-standing MP, I feel qualified to emphasise these points and their significance.”

Indeed – and de Laine has some experience himself about leaving a major party to run as an independent.

When he lost preselection in 2001 he contested the next election against the endorsed Labor candidate – one Jay Weatherill.

But de Laine is not the only major party veteran showing up for a high profile independent.

Ex-Liberal Fraser Ellis brought in some Liberal clout recently, with the keynote speaker at his campaign launch none other than former SA party president, and later long-serving senator and senate president Alan Ferguson.