In Tanner's wake, a big Green obstacle

CATH Bowtell has been the Labor candidate for Melbourne for only a few days, but she could take a leaf or two out of Julia Gillard's book

The party may hope the new Prime Minister will help Bowtell's campaign to hold the marginal federal seat and stave off the Greens, but the first problem for Labor's newest candidate is to work out how to be positive and stay on message like her new leader

Instead of distancing herself from Kevin Rudd and his government's policy decisions, conceding that they have gone off track and looking to the future like Gillard has been doing since her dramatic coup two weeks ago, Bowtell comes out firing in defence of her party

The former union negotiator -- who won preselection unopposed this week as Labor's replacement for retiring Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner -- steadfastly argues Labor has not failed on delivering a reform agenda that it was elected on in 2007

She believes it is the fault of the Greens and Liberals that we do not have an emissions trading scheme in place; the concerns of voters in western Sydney on asylum-seekers are not well founded; and an onshore processing centre needs to be considered in a long-term conversation

There is no doubt Bowtell would have been a good negotiator during her long career with the ACTU and the National Tertiary Education Union. She was in charge of negotiations with the federal government over the passage of the Fair Work Act and has driven union policy on women and work

This skill is apparent when Bowtell disputes most points put to her by Inquirer during a 40-minute interview about the challenges facing her in the struggle to keep the seat Tanner has occupied since 1993, and which Labor has held for a century

She argues passionately on everything from Labor's handling of climate change to the Rudd government's record of delivering basic services, to what will happen to her core values if she is elected

But whether Bowtell's arguments can win over voters in the seat of Melbourne is the more significant question

She faces a tough battle for the electorate

The Greens need only a 4.7 per cent swing to secure the seat. Many commentators see the loss of Tanner as the first real shot the country's third party has had in getting a candidate elected to the House of Representatives

Greens candidate Adam Brandt, who contested the last election, and Liberal candidate Simon Olsen are Bowtell's rivals in what she calls the "complex seat" of Melbourne

Taking in the progressive suburbs of Carlton, Fitzroy and Parkville, the electorate has an interesting mix of wealth, intellect, social activism and disadvantage. Apart from inner-city dwelling professionals, there are students, public housing estates and a significant proportion of newly arrived migrants and asylum-seekers

That is Bowtell's first hurdle: the issue of refugees. To put it simply and rather bluntly, she is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The fears of residents in a number of western Sydney marginal seats about border protection were clearly at the forefront of the new asylum-seeker policy Gillard launched this week

This was obvious when Gillard chose to take backbencher and western Sydney MP David Bradbury with her to inspect an intimidating navy patrol boat in Darwin on Thursday while selling her new policy

But there is a long way between what people in Bradbury's electorate think about refugees compared with views that voters in Melbourne hold on the issue. As Greens federal leader Bob Brown says, Melbourne is the most progressive electorate in the most progressive city in the most progressive state in Australia

"I think that the anxieties are not well founded," Bowtell says of the concerns of western Sydney residents about refugees. "I think the people in Melbourne are not anxious because they are better informed, because we have such a large number of people in this electorate who are people that have been resettled in Australia."

Bowtell has stated she wants a more compassionate and humane approach to asylum-seekers and insists Gillard's East Timor approach does meet the country's international requirements

But she does admit there are people in her electorate who believe that Australia is a rich nation and the best solution is onshore processing

"They will continue to advocate that and I understand that is their view and why they have that view," Bowtell says. "I think that if, again, we are talking about long-term reform, that is the conversation we have to have."

Another issue set to cause Bowtell, 46, grief is climate change. Brandt, who also ran as the Greens candidate in the 2007 election, believes this will be critical for a number of voters

"People in the area are very concerned about a lack of action globally and nationally on climate change," the former industrial lawyer tells Inquirer

But Bowtell denies Labor has failed to do anything significant on climate change, saying voters should blame the Greens and the Liberals for the deferral of the emissions trading scheme

"Labor got an ETS scheme that had broad support across the community, that had broad support from climate change advocates -- not with everything they wanted, but they were prepared to see that architecture that they could live with and build on. It had broad support from business," she says. "There are two reasons why we don't have that in place; the Liberal Party changed its view and walked away from [the] negotiated agreement, [and even when the Liberals were prepared to cross the floor, the Greens did not vote for it."

Bowtell hopes Gillard's concession that the country needs a price on carbon will help her deal with the issue in Melbourne."I am going to have to convince them that I am convinced that we need a carbon trading scheme," she says

Bowtell argues that while these two issues are important for her electorate, voters will make their decision on big-ticket items such as health, education and other government service provision. Want more information regarding IT Support Sydney?

She insists that Labor has delivered on those areas and has a good record of long-term reform, which she says is not a perfect process and does take time

"That's the choice people will have to make at the end of the day," Bowtell says. "You don't vote for aspiration, you vote for someone who can take that aspiration and turn it into something real and deliver on it."