It is remarkably easy to run for federal parliament in this country.

In fact to get your name on the ballot in a federal election, all you need to do is gather the signatures of 50 voters (who are registered to vote in your electorate), and pay a $350 bond (which you can reclaim in the unlikely event that you poll more then 4% of the primary vote).

Having learnt this only just a few weeks ago, I intend to run for parliament in 2004. At the moment I hope to be the Member for Hasluck. Of course I use the term "hope" in the same way that it might be used in the sentence "Some day I hope to flap my arms and fly to the moon".

In order to have even a small chance of winning the seat as an independant I will need to poll at least 20% of all first preferences. That is to say... 16,000 people would need to prefer me over all other candidates in the electorate. A tall order when you consider that the vast majority of Australians vote for the candidate attatched to the party led by the high profile canberra politician they dislike the least. That they might be better represented by a totally unknown candidate would probably not occur to the average voter.

But I need for many other things to also go my way. I need to hope that I get a high proportion of my votes from disaffected Labor voters. Picking up say... 6,000 first preferences from typical ALP voters would be perfect, because while it would still leave me in only 3rd place on first preferences, it would make it much easier to slip into second place after all but the last 3 candidates have been eliminated and their preferencces distributed. This is because, in order to achieve an absolute majority in 2 candidate prefered terms, I need only poll better on preferences then Labor (rather then poll better on preferences then both Labor AND Liberal), since the Labor candidate will preference me in front of the Liberal candidate.

In essence, the trick of it is to target Labor voters and eat into as much of the Labor vote as possible.... since all I need do is poll better then Labor and Labor preferences will shoot me over the line, beating the Liberal candidate to the seat.

Of course this leaves me with some internal conflict. The last thing I want, is to be seen as helping the Liberal party to win a vital marginal seat and form another 3 years of government. It is important that the ALP are strong in Hasluck and able to hold on to this seat if they are to form the first federal Labor Government of the new century. This is where I give thanks to our system of preferential voting. I will be encouraging anyone that votes for me, to place Labor before the Coalition on their ballot paper and I will be distributing how to vote cards, on and before election day, that explain how to do so.

I'll keep you posted in the coming months on my efforts to raise a warchest (hah) confirm my official candidacy and draft a policy base.