I have spent the last two nights trying to persuade my friend that he is the best candidate to represent the State and his party in the Australian Senate.
It’s lucky he is a Green Party member and a current State politician. As opportunities to move from one house to another are rare, this is a chance for him to use his skills for the Nation.
This good man has been judged by many pundits to be best and most successful of all current Tasmanian State politicians; indeed his two scalps of Deputy Premiers Green and Kons makes the Liberal successes of the past ten years pale in comparison.
I refer to of course, Kim Booth, Green member for Bass, former sawmiller, local politician and now one of the few brains in State parliament that you could trust to apply any rigour to his thinking and activities.
Kim has just completed 10 years in the State Parliament, his apprenticeship is long over, his command and gravitas in this arena is dominant and his ability to form an argument is well honed.
Kim is, unlike most other politicians, a truth seeker, an evidence-based researcher and investigator, a thinker with analytical abilities. Kim is the best attuned politician to succeed Bob Brown and like both Christine Milne and Bob, Booth has put in his years in State Parliament developing skills that do not come easily.
Kim looks upon the world of politics with a humble humour, he can cross from the banal to intensity with ease and still remain astute, acute and in control of the situation.
Kim in fact has served his apprenticeship with all eyes on him; you know what you are getting, you know it’s steady and well thought out when Kim starts a campaign. There is no other person in the state with his CV, he more than satisfies the job description for a Tasmanian in the Senate.
I have not been successful so far in trying to persuade Kim that it is a good thing for him, yet when I look at the comparisons of the other Senators, amongst them bankrupts. Party Royalty and Princes and Princesses and self serving mendicants, I can understand his reluctance to join them.
Imagine spending a week with Senators Brown, Polley, Abetz and Bushby and then having to wonder would you do it again! And pondering … did any one of them have an idea that week or even that year.
So unlike Bob Carr, who answered the call of his Prime Minister, I am asking Kim to answer the call of his potential constituents.
Please contact Kim Booth by e-mail and tell him you want him to be your Senator:
One last thought; if Kim is selected as the next Green Senator, then Peter Whish-Wilson will on count-back of the last State Poll – take Kim’s State seat, thus energising the Greens in Parliament, creating a future State leader and a succession plan within the seat of Bass.
If you would rather send your message through me then email:
• The state of play:
