FORMER Merredin man Tony Crook has been pre-selected as the Nationals’ candidate for the seat of O’Connor at the next Federal election.
Mr Crook, who now lives in Kalgoorlie, will need to campaign hard to prize the seat from long-serving Liberal member Wilson Tuckey.
The next Federal election must be called between August 2010 and May 2011 and electoral boundaries will be significantly different from the last Federal election in 2007.
At the last election, the O’Connor seat consisted of a band stretching from Geraldton and Morawa in the north, through the central and southern Wheatbelt down to Albany and Denmark on the south coast.
Everything east and north of O’Connor, including Merredin, Southern Cross, the Goldfields, Esperance and north to Kununurra and east to the border were in the electorate of Kalgoorlie, which was won by Liberal Barry Haase.
At the next election there will no longer be a seat of Kalgoorlie as the goldfields and everything east to the border, including Esperance, will be taken in by the O’Connor electorate.
The new boundary of O’Connor will pass below Merredin, and the area from Kellerberrin through to Geraldton and the rest of the State north to Kununnurra will be referred to as the electorate of Durack.
Mr Haase has announced he plans to nominate for Durack.
Mr Crook said he grew up in Merredin and his parents Paddy and Joan and cousins Stephen and Andrew still lived there.
“I left Merredin after finishing high school in 1976 to work on the family sheep station in Kalgoorlie, but I sold the station three years ago and now I run a pastoral consultant and management business with my brother,” he said.
He has been the State chairperson of the Royal Flying Doctor Service for 10 years and the national RFDS president for three years.
He was approached by the National Party four years ago and ran for a Senate seat at the last Federal election.
He also contested the last State election and finished second to John Bowler.
Mr Crook said he would be campaigning throughout the new O’Connor electorate in the coming year, and visiting towns in his old stomping ground to renew old friendships.
“The Crook name is well known through that area, mainly through sport, but my family has been in the Merredin area for three generations now so clearly I’ll be looking to get down there and talk to as many people as possible, renew old school friendships and so on,” he said.
However he said Merredin had been cut out of the O’Connor electorate and he would have to campaign hard to make himself known in the southern areas of the state.
Mr Crook said his campaign would focus on introducing the WA Nationals’ Royalties for Regions project at a national level.
“The simple fact is that regional WA provides a massive input into the Australian economy and we should definitely be keeping some of that in return,” he said.
Mr Crook said it would be a challenge to take on Mr Tuckey, who has held the seat for 29 years, but he believed people had faith in the National party after its State success.
“There’s always the beauty of incumbency – they’ve got the resources to work with, but I think the electorate has changed, and I think people are going to the ballot box now understanding that what the Nationals put up at the last election has been successful, and Brendon Grylls and the Nationals have been delivering what they promised,” he said.
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