UnionsWA secretary Simone McGurk and former television journalist Reece Whitby are among 33 WA Labor Party candidates announced last night who will stand for Lower House seats at the 2013 state election.
Ms McGurk, who has also worked as a radio producer and has a long association with the union movement, will run for the seat of Fremantle, and ex-Channel 7 reporter Mr Whitby will run for Morley, where he stood unsuccessfully in the last state election in 2008.
WA secretary of United Voice (formerly known as the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union) Dave Kelly, who is considered a powerbroker in the Left faction, will run for the safe seat of Bassendean, from which current ALP member Martin Whitely is set to retire.
Other prominent faces for Labor as it gears up for the election include Hannah Beazley, the daughter of former Federal Labor leader and current United States ambassador Kim Beazley, who will contest in Riverton, and Bob Kucera, who will vie for the seat of Mount Lawley.
Mr Kucera is a former Gallop government minister who retired in 2008 after his seat of Yokine was abolished in an electoral redistribution and was largely split between Mount Lawley and Nollamara.
Meanwhile, WA Labor member for Balcatta John Kobelke has announced that he will retire from his seat at the 2013 WA state election, after serving in parliament for 23 years.
Mr Kobelke was Minister for Industrial Relations, Consumer Protection, Training and Employment and Indigenous Affairs under the Gallop government, and Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Community Safety, Water Resources, Sport and Recreation under the Carpenter government.
