there in what should be the safe-ish Liberal seat of Bega, on the South Coast. Just as Labor's head office so disgustingly rorted its choice of candidate for the seat of Parramatta, so has the Liberal machine in Bega. The official starter there is a 29-year-old "public affairs consultant" named Andrew Constance. No, I haven't clue what a public affairs consultant is either, but Constance has all the neat white teeth you would expect in a former president of the Young Liberals and he is a protege of John Brogden. By all reports the locals loathe him. He is seen as a wimpy blow-in from Sydney. A former shire president, Chris Vardon, has resigned from the Liberal Party to stand as an independent, and the local party powerbrokers are said to be quietly backing him. For two weeks I have urged the voters of Parramatta to stick one up the smug noses of the ALP apparatchiks by putting Labor last. Bega might like to do the same with its Liberal candidate.