Good intentions are not enough Paul Keating backs Keneally as the MP Fowler needs
Former prime minister Paul Keating has weighed into a Labor dispute over the selection of Kristina Keneally for a key seat in the lower house, declaring her a âhuge executive talentâ who will fight for those who deserve a bigger share of the nationâs wealth.
Mr Keating backed Senator Keneally as the best candidate for the electorate of Fowler in western Sydney, saying she had proven her ability to advocate for working people and defend Labor values.
Kristina Keneally has received the backing of Paul Keating to run in the seat of Fowler.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen/Peter Braig
âWhat western Sydney needs is someone with this ability â" an ability to garner or eke out a bigger share of the national income, because people in western Sydney live on the ebb and flow of the economy,â he said.
âBroadly, they donât have capital, they have nothing to sell but their time, and therefore public policy â" whether it be in wages, in health, in education â" materially matter to their quality of life, particularly now with COVID.
âLocal candidates may be genuine and well-meaning but they would take years to scramble to her level of executive ability â" if they can ever get there at all.
âAnd on the diversity point, sheâs a migrant herself â" she got off the plane and scrambled her way to the NSW premiership, which is a pretty big effort, a pretty good effort.â
Mr Keatingâs intervention carries the weight of a Labor hero who was raised in Bankstown in south-western Sydney and represented some districts within the electorate of Fowler during his 26 years in Federal Parliament as the member for the adjacent seat of Blaxland.
âI can tell you the people of western Sydney need one thing â" they need the national government to pull a share of national income more their way,â he said.
âThis takes more than good intentions. Good intentions are not enough.â
The comments follow days of calls from some Labor members for action by Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese and others to overturn a decision last week to install Senator Keneally as the partyâs candidate over local lawyer Tu Le.
Ms Le, a Vietnamese-Australian who was backed by sitting Labor member Chris Hayes, told ABC Radio National on Tuesday morning the events had become a âsour debacleâ and meant the community could not choose its Labor candidate.
A Labor councillor on Liverpool Council, Charishma Kaliyanda, said on Tuesday Labor had to âstep upâ and do the right thing in Fowler because the decision to overlook Ms Le damaged the party.
âIt sends a wider message to culturally diverse, educated, aspirational young people that there isnât a place for them in Australian politics,â she wrote.
While some criticism has focused on the fact that Senator Keneally lives on Scotland Island on Pittwater, she lived in her state electorate of Heffron, around southern Sydney and Kensington, during her time in NSW Parliament and as Premier.
Mr Keating said Senator Keneally âabsolutelyâ had the qualities needed to be a cabinet minister in a federal Labor government.
âSheâs in the top handful of people in the party and, as her performance in the Senate shows, sheâs a great advocate for Laborâs value system,â he said.
âAnd she has what a lot of people in the Labor Party do not have, and that is a permanent sense of indignation about those less well-off.â
While Mr Keating said he did not want to comment on Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Coalition government, he said Senator Keneally was needed in Fowler because of what she could bring to a federal Labor government.
The former prime minister said Ms Keneally had shown her calibre as an executive leader as NSW Premier when the Barangaroo project was being developed, with his input into the redesign of the western edges of the city and the wharves previously known as the Hungry Mile.
âThereâs every good and strategic reason why Kristina Keneally should be endorsed as the federal candidate for Fowler,â Mr Keating said.
âKeneally is a huge executive talent and a great proselytiser for her beliefs.
âAnd in her role in the Senate sheâs been a great proselytiser for Labor values.â
Labor leader Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday he had spoken to Ms Le and encouraged her to âhang in thereâ.
âSheâs 30 years old. I think she has a very bright future ahead of her,â he said.
He described Senator Keneally, who was born in the United States, as âanother great Australian success story of a migrant whoâs come here and became the NSW Premierâ.
âThe fact is that Labor is the party of multiculturalism. We have been since the days, at least, of the great Whitlam Government and the advances that weâve made.â
Senior NSW Labor MP, Chris Bowen, a key architect of the deal to move Senator Keneally from the Senate to the lower house, said she could end up Fowlerâs first-ever member of cabinet.
âI think that that is what the community deserves, a member who will be at the very top rank of a Labor government, which Kristina would be,â he said. âSo thatâs why I think itâs a good idea.â
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David Crowe is chief political correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via Twitter or email.
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