Have a Seat: North Sydney

According to Mike Bailey, it’s a ‘huge challenge’ and an ‘uphill battle’, but the weatherman must be kidding himself if he thinks he will come close to winning. Sure, the polling suggests nothing less than a Coalition annihilation, but Joe Hockey remains in one of the safest Liberal seats in Sydney, and there’s a couple of dozen seats that would fall before North Sydney.

As far as the ALP is concerned, Mike Bailey is doing a rather noble thing for his side of politics. Mike Bailey is either genuinely hopeful of winning the seat, taking one for the team, or devising a rather noble way to retire for the ABC. Regardless, this whole notion of dropping celebrity candidates in seats held by frontbenchers seems to be one of the cleverest political strategies that the ALP has come up with. This is no parachuting Garrett into Kingsford-Smith plot. It’s something more significant.

Who knows whether Bailey would make a good parliamentary MP? He’s been doing the weather for longer than Joe Hockey’s been doing politics, so he’s a familiar face to Sydneysiders, especially those on the North Shore more inclined to be watching the ABC. But aside from anticipating cold fronts and reporting on rainfall, what more is he good for? Tony Abbott remarked that journalists don’t necessarily make good politicians, and I think the same applies to weathermen. Predicting Bailey’s political talent would be like predicting the weather for this day next year.

But if Labor wanted Bailey as a MP, they would have put him someplace safer. They don’t want Bailey as an MP specifically. They just want him as a candidate. Somebody to threaten Joe Hockey enough so the big man is overstretched between spruiking IR laws he didn’t put together, and trying to present himself as a good local member. North Sydney is merely a miniature Bennelong, the odds and the stakes are much lower.

Back to you, Juanita.