Have A Seat: Cook

As support for the Howard Government crumbles in his home state of New South Wales, a bitter factional preselection in the safe seat of Cook is going to ensure a bigger swing against the Liberal Party than the more marginal seats.

There’s the retiring member, Bruce Baird, who carried more clout than the usual backbencher. The former state minister for Transport was due for a frontbench position, but the Costello-backing moderate wasn’t John Howard’s cup of tea.

Despite this, Howard dispatched lapdog/attack dog Bill Heffernan to throw weight behind the more moderate candidates vying for Baird’s seat. Despite the influence of some Liberal heavyweights, right-winger Michael Towke came out with the most votes. Baird was reportedly furious with the outcome.

Michael Towke proves to be a rather divisive character, shunning the idea of party unity by taking his opponents to court during the preselection. Towke changed his name from the less Anglo-Saxon sounding Taouk two months ago. Perhaps a rather cynical attempt to woo the voters of Cronulla, in the centre of the seat?

But the bad blood in Cook is hardly fresh. When Baird was endorsed in 1998, it was at the expense of the right’s Stephen Mutch. To many, the seat was simply being taken back.

Still, it is an inconvenient time for the Libs to have preselection fights. A dispute like this puts the party and the candidate in a bad light, and throws what would otherwise be a safe seat into question.