Janet is not from Inner Melbourne, but from footscray. But I was advocating her more as an excellent member who I’d like to see in parliament, which probably wont happen at state level unless the local members are displeased with Colleen.

My last sentence was why I wasn’t going to vote them into the lead senate position, so that they can run at state level.

There’s nothing to stop anyone who doesn’t get preselected for the Senate running for a different state or federal seat, and I’d be surprised if most of the unsuccessful Victorian Senate candidates didn’t do exactly that.

I dont think its healthy to keep running males for the same position time after time, and it doesn’t help(in my eyes) that we always run someone from inner Melbourne.

Also I think Peter, Jim and Jennifer should run for state instead.

Candidates who are confident they will pass probity can announce they’re standing and obviously some have done so. Any that haven’t may be worried they won’t pass, but more likely just haven’t got round to telling Ben or setting up a blog.

Aside from the probity panel the process is pretty straight-forward. Candidates need four nominators who must all be financial members of the party. The candidate writes a spiel of up to 1000 words, and the nominators up to 200 words each on why they are endorsing this person. There is a postal ballot of all members with a standard preferential count to select the top position. Lower positions will be selected later by a different method. There will be five Meet-The-Candidates meetings around the state, which I hope will be better attended than last time.

As RO I can’t comment on policy differences etc, but I will stretch the bounds of my position to say that last time you couldn’t get a wafer between 6 of the 7 candidates on a policy basis. All those outsiders hoping for huge splits in the Greens between “realos” and “fundis”, or the “red-greens” versus the “leafy greens” would have been very disappointed, although we have seen some of those divisions in previous Vic preselections, and maybe we will again.

Having said that, I’d be curious to know of any existing or lingering political divisions within the Vic Greens as to whether there are some ‘face-offs’ or if this is going to be fought n policy and personality rather than factional lines (which greens of course don’t have…). And of course, the Greens NSW LC preselection is later in the year (which should yield a bumper crop of candidates – including Cate F maybe given I think she would be the underdog in NSW).

I believe that the Victorian Greens have a process, after nominations close, where they check nominations for things like criminal record, eligibility to fill the office, etc. I don’t think it’s a question of vetting candidates for political suitability.

This page indicates that he has Green views regarding drugs and this page shows that Ted B. the officer and Ted B. the FDS chair are the same person.