Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In February this year I rose in the adjournment debate to lament the political demise of the member for Isaacs, Ms Ann Corcoran. Ms Corcoran, as senators will be very well aware, is a diligent and hardworking local member who is well regarded on both sides of the chamber. You will recall that Ms Corcoran fell foul of a factional fix to move on some very decent members of parliament. The move failed in the case of Mr Crean but succeeded against the member for Corio, Mr Gavan O’Connor, and Ms Corcoran. Despite this, I can attest that Ms Corcoran is still working hard. I regularly receive her ‘Corcoran Isaacs News’ and see her at most community functions I attend in Melbourne’s south-east.

The individual who won preselection against Ms Corcoran was Melbourne silk Mr Mark Dreyfus QC. Mr Dreyfus was installed by the ALP central panel despite being heavily defeated in the ballot of local party members. Mr Mark Dreyfus QC may be known by Victorian senators opposite as the author of the 1998 Dreyfus review into the Victorian branch of the ALP. In that report Mr Dreyfus stated:

Membership makes a party, not the other way around. Labor is, or should be, people—not vehicle, not structure, not hierarchy.

Yet it was structure and factional hierarchy, not people, that secured Mr Dreyfus his preselection.