Torbay or not Torbay

High drama in NSW parliament today.

The big story from a legislative point of view is the passing of the right to silence and case statement legislation - but I'm going to put off that blogpost until the Hansard is released (and, to be honest, until I'm a little less furious about what happened).

The shock news today was Richard Torbay suddenly announcing that he was resigning as the member for the Norther Tablelands seat.

In order to appreciate what is going on, it is necessary to step back and look at the history. Therefore, timeline:

1991: Appointed Chief Executive of University of New England Union

1991: Elected Councillor in Armidale

1996: Elected Mayor of Armidale

1998: Surrenders Labor Party membership and, allegedly on advice from Eddie Obeid, decides to run as an Independent in the seat Northern Tablelands

1999: Elected as Independent for Northern Tablelands, defeating the sitting Nationals member

2007: Appointed speaker by Morris Iemma

2009: Offered/is asked to become Premier (depends who you believe). Either way, it doesn't happen, and Kristina Keneally is elected by the Labor caucus.

2011: Upon the election of the Coalition government, is deposed as speaker

2013: Pre-selected to contest the Federal Seat of New England for the Nationals. That seat is held by Tony Windsor. Becomes a member of the National Party

20 March 2013: Asked to resign membership of the National Party after allegations surface that the Labor Party helped fund his 1999 campaign

Later on 20 March 2013: Resigns as member for Northern Tablelands saying "given the events of recent days and the toll it has taken on my family I feel the time has come to consider other options"

It was also revealed that the Nationals themselves had passed information relating to the Obeid connection onto ICAC.

It remains unclear what has happened, and why it has happened. No doubt in the days to come all parties will be speaking to journalists both off and on the record to try and ensure that history comes down on their side.

Precisely why these matters have been referred to ICAC is unclear. The fact that this has been done by the Nationals when the person in question is a member of the National Party is particularly surprising. No doubt many will be wondering whether Barnaby Joyce, the person tipped to seize the nomination, had anything to do with it.

It is equally unclear what may happen in the Northern Tablelands seat, although that is a blogpost for another day.

What is clear, in my view, is that there is a lot more to this story that we presently know. It should be fund seeing it unravel in the days to come.

A New (England) Beginning

It's hard to know what to make of Richard Torbay's recruitment into the Nationals.

In the Speacker's chair. Photo from here

On one hand, the "traditional" direction is the reverse - Robert Oakeshott and Tony Windsor were both Nationals before defecting.

Tony Windsor was elected as an independent in the state seat of Tamworth in 1991, having orignally sought pre-selection as a National. He eventually ran against the National candidate in the 2001 Federal election and was successful.

Rob Oakeshott was actually endorsed as a Nationals candidate and elected in 1998 in Port Macquarie. After disagreements on policy he resigned from the Nationals (thus losing a shadow-ministry) in 2002. When Mark Vaile resigned his Federal seat of Lyne in 2008 he ran as an Independant and won convincingly.

So Torbay certainly wouldn't be the first. But what chance does he have of suceeding?

Mumbletwits has written a great piece on that issue, and I'm not going to repeat what he has said. Read it.

The really interesting part (for me) is going to be the result of the consequent by-election in Torbay's seat of Northern Tablelands.

At the 2011 election, the results were as follows:

From Wikipedia

Those results were hardly an outlier:

Also Wikipedia

So we can rest assured that the Nationals should quite easily gain the seat. Given the general damage being done (rightly or wrongly) to the independent brand, there seems to be little prospect that some unknown independent could come from nowhere to take the seat.

It will be interesting to see what is made of the results. Given that the past results were skewed by an independant who had been sitting as a speaker from 2007 to 2011, Labor's vote (3.4%) could hardly be seen to be a fair reflection of their support in the region.

That said, if the ALP thinks they have a chance of winning the seat then they are hopelessly delusional. According to every poll since the election, their vote is still abysmally low. Labor's woes Federally are not going to do the State party any favours, and the Nationals will win the seat at a cantor.

Is there any way the Labor party can sell a result as a win? Sure. Their vote will increase to (at least) double figures - a farily pathetic achievement, but one that may wash with the less observant among us.

That said, one has to wonder whether any Labor members are starting to grumble about the astonishing lack of impact that Robertson is making on the electorate. Labor's numbers are not moving, he has zero profile, and despite O'Farrell making a number of unpopular decisions, no one seem to be moving out of the Coalition column.

Opposition Leader. No, seriously! Photo from here

I wonder whether the by-election (whenever that eventuates) may just be a momentum that is needed to replace Robertson with someone who can actually start winning back some voters from O'Farrell.