The candidate list posted on Wednesday morning quickly went out of date, with Julia Gillard and three of her ministers announcing their retirement despite previous plans to run for re-election: Stephen Smith in Perth, Peter Garrett in Kingsford Smith and Craig Emerson in Rankin.
Despite four Labor candidates dropping out, the total number of candidates has grown from 550 to 563, in part due to another batch of Palmer United Party and Family First candidates.
The PUP is now up to 79 candidates, which is incredible for a new party. I can’t rule out the possibility I have missed other PUP candidates, as they are announcing candidates at breakneck speed.
We are still waiting to hear about what election date Kevin Rudd will choose. In all likelihood the election date will remain hidden until the election is called, as was the tradition prior to this year.
There is speculation that Kevin Rudd will want to wait until after the G20 meets in early September, which points to a late September or early October election.
It still remains a possibility, however, that the election could be held earlier, in August.
If so, it’s possible that some of the political parties that managed to submit their registration papers in time for an election on September 14 may find themselves retrospectively ruled out of time. This could include Clive Palmer’s party, which now has candidates for over 50% of seats and is on track to run a candidate in all 150 seats.
Check out the updated candidate list.
Ben, thank you for all the work you have done and are still doing. It certainly must be a labour of love for you.
It is so obvious the Palmer United Party is being sly. They have a Vietnamese candidate in Kingsford-Smith and a Jewish one in Wentworth!!
Labour tried that once with Wentworth and came a cropper.
Hi Shirl,
I’m certainly not Vietnamese. I was born under the commonwealth and I’m 1/16th English. I guess my surname can be misleading as I’m mostly Chinese.
I was running for the seat of Kingsford Smith, but I unfortunately had a few run-ins with Clive and now I’m no longer part of the party. I agree with your statement about wentworth.
Feel free to ask me out for coffee, I’ve got plenty to say 🙂
Kind Regards
Jimmy
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