POTENTIAL members of Parliament don’t just appear at election time.

Those considered to have a reasonable chance of election generally go through a selection process known as pre-selection.

This process is run by the political party of the aspirant’s ideology and the candidate is normally a member of that party for a predetermined period of time – usually being one year or more.

The process should be of great interest locally because our current Federal Member of Parliament Dr David Gillespie has announced his pending retirement.

He will not recontest the coming Federal Election, expected early next year, opening the door for new faces in the political game.

Over my lifetime the pre-selection process has provided political parties a great opportunity to display their potential candidates while generating considerable free publicity.

The National Party is currently undertaking a pre-selection process to find its preferred candidate to take over from Dr Gillespie MP, but has anyone heard a whisper of who the candidates are or how that process is travelling?

This silence is a great loss of publicity for the Nationals.

The party is missing a public opportunity to instil confidence in non-aligned voters that people of quality are being considered to represent them.

The usual process is that each branch of a political party within a federal electorate meets to determine its choice from available candidates.

Each of those branch selections then go on to a decision-making vote, where they decide on nominating one candidate to contest the election under their party’s banner.

As the Lyne federal electorate is large in area, this chance to display the character and achievements of individual candidates vying for the role is a missed opportunity.

Letting this opportunity, to take the voters along for the ride in the selection process, pass without a word of publicity, is highly unusual and must have people asking ‘why?’.

By John BLACKBOURN