A week is a long time in politics.

In in the last few days the Wikileaks party has undergone seismic changes due to a factional split and calls of hypocrisy, lack of democracy and autocratic control.

A third of the party council have quit, along with one of the candidates.

Four of the eleven Wikileaks party council members quit along with one of the candidates, Leslie Cannold. The straw that broke the camels back: the preferences for the senate races.

One would suspect that the lack of democracy and adherence to their own ideals of democracy and party internal rules would have been noticed earlier. So I suspect that what it is really over, is which other parties Wikileaks would align itself with,  and there come the compromises and dealing with other political parties. As a party claiming to wanting to fill an oversight role in the senate they would need to do deals with other parties or just be completely shut out of the game at that level, unless of course they won 30 seats, which is unlikely in the first term at least.

So where does Wikileaks see itself aligned?

Well as a party essentially of protest, the strongest supporters would likely come from the left, third option voters, people who have wavered between ALP and The Greens largely, but have other political affiliations. And her lies the rub, The WA race put them head to head with Scott Ludlum.

If you look at our wonderful supplied info-graphic you will see the lay of the senate table.

The current make up of the senate:

The seats are colour coded to show which party holds it and in a few cases the names of the senators holding seats.

Seats with a dark border are up for reelection this senate cycle.

The first 3 states are where wikileaks party is running candidates.

NSW and VIC

NSW and VIC are quite similar, a reasonably even split between left and right, both have an ALP senator quitting, to run for the lower house. NSW has all  4 ALP senator up for re-election and both have a Wikileaks candidate running, both also have a Greens senator safe for another 2 years. So in both of these senate races Wikileaks will be able to draw support from traditional or wavering ALP voters and not greatly challenge the Greens current standing. Wikileaks might even get a few liberal / nationals voters or even inspire some donkey voters.

The Situation for WA is very different:

Scott Ludlum has his  Greens senate seat on the line, and may lose support due to the new possibility for the third option voter,  the Wikileaks party. The Greens in WA will likely be facing a backlash over The Greens carbon tax and the double whammy of a new third option party might be enough to send Scott Ludlum out of the senate.

And this is what has got the Green leaning faction of  the Wikileaks party upset, along with the way preferences were debated over and then finally selected against the wishes of a significant minority (perhaps even a majority) of the party council and party members. The departing Wikileaks party members are even openly canvassing for Scott Ludlum now against their own former candidates.

TAS and SA

The situation with TAS  is similar to SA , the Greens have 2 senators in each state and  one is up for re -election.

Peter Whish-Wilson is up for re-election in TAS as Bob Brown successor, and no opposition from Wikileaks party.

Sarah Hanson-Young is up for re-election and no opposition from Wikileaks party.

Interestingly both Greens candidates (in SA and TAS) have double barrel surnames, oh yeah, that’s right a hallmark of inherited money, status and detachment from reality.

What is most interesting is the lack of candidates for QLD,  perhaps they are deliberately standing aside.

This reference to the Greens party might make more sense once you consider how close Lesile Cannold is to The Greens. Cannold, the protégée of Peter Singer, a previous Greens candidate who co-wrote a book with Bob Brown the Greens founder and recently retired co-leader. She is effectively one person removed from the founder of The Greens party. Why didn’t she stand for the Greens in the first place?  it’s entirely possible she entered the Wikileaks party to collapse it from the inside to prevent The Greens losing votes from their brainwashed masses. She used the phrase ‘white anted’ to attack the Wikileaks party, and of course this is a way of attacking your opponents, accusing them of using your own tactic.

I would not be surprised to see Leslie Cannold standing for The Greens in the not too distant future.

She has all the credentials; academic, feminist with some odd utilitarian ideals and best of all has helped collapse a third option rival from the inside. She has probably used the experience of the Wikileaks party to give her self a political party education.

http://waca.net.au/resignations-from-the-wikileaks-party-statements/

So for the resigned part staffers and  Party council  members we can only refer you to the experiences people have had with Wikileaks.org  and the whistle blowers who have been badly burnt by Assange; leopards don’t change their spots.

I would say this is the death-blow to the Wikileaks party getting a senate seat, but there are another two long weeks in politics to go.

So our commiserations to those people who put in a lot of effort trying to make a difference by attempting  to enter the political system.

Changing the corruption in the political system from the inside is like preaching for chastity in a brothel.

Sean we can’t wait for the rage quit video, post one online and we’ll give you the slab of XXXX that Kevin Rudd promised us months ago, but still hasn’t delivered.

Politics: the lies, the games, the BS!

Since we mentioned a feminist and we  were critical, we’ll quote another feminist to offer balance.

I hope this makes sense in context.

You can’t use politics to change politics, just like you can’t use your left hand to scratch your left elbow.