From the Oral History collection: Hon. Michael MacKellar
Audio transcript
Michael:
It's all about numbers, as you know, in politics. As Fred Daley said to me, "You only
need 50% plus one, Mike." Don't worry about the margin. In the Liberal Party, they
had a preselection committee of 50, and they were drawn from the local branches.
The numbers from the local branches depended upon the size of the local
branches.
Then there was a component from the head office, from the State Council
members. There were two sections of them really. There was the local branch
representatives, and the State Council representatives. I think when I was involved
in it, the ratio was about 30 from the State branches, and 20 from the State Council.
It was heavily in favour of the local branches, so they would select who they
wanted for their preselectors.
The individual branches would have a meeting and say, “We're entitled to three,
two, one, four preselectors,” and they would select who their preselectors were.
Then the State Council decided who their representatives were. You went and
addressed them. It was a “trial by ordeal” really [laughs]. You all were given a short
period of time, I think it was about ten minutes, from memory. Then they had a
system whereby the ballots started, and you were dropped off the bottom until one
person had over 50% of the votes. If one person say, had 26 votes on the first
count, well then there wasn't any need to go any further. But most frequently,
particularly with big preselections like the one I was involved in, you would have a
series of ballots, until they got down to the last six candidates. Then the last six
candidates were given two minutes to come in and make a final address and
answer questions, and come into this process again.
With a big one, you used to start early in the morning and finish late in the
afternoon. You were all sequestered. You'd go in, do your thing, come out and all
the candidates would be together in a separate room. People would be wandering
around, “What did they ask you?” “What did they ask you?”
Barry:
Presumably there's lobbying and …?
Michael:
Ah, now initially, in the 60s, it was considered very poor form for a candidate to talk
to a preselector. In fact, if you did that it usually counted against you. You had to
influence the candidates by getting other people to speak to them on your behalf.
I went through a few preselections, because they tried to get rid of me a few times.
By the end of it, the last one I think I was challenged in was in 1988. By that stage,
it was expected that the candidate would get in touch with the preselectors before
the actual preselection, so that they could ask them any questions.
You would try to work out how the numbers were going, and if somebody told you
they were going to vote for you, you were always very suspicious.
That was exactly the same in the party room as well. There was one famous
occasion of the ballad in the party room. One member just stood for a seat, and his
great mate said, “Look, you can my vote of course,” and he only got one vote; his
own [Laughs].