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The people of Kiama must be sighing with relief that after the turbulent reign of former MP and convicted rapist Gareth Ward, so far the biggest stink in the byelection triggered by his resignation is good old-fashioned corflute wars.
Do spare a thought, though, for teal candidate Kate Dezarnaulds. Independents have a rough trot running campaigns without the financial backing of the major parties to fund their T-shirts, stickers, Facebook ads and dog bandanas.
Independent candidate Kate Dezarnaulds.Credit: Janie Barrett
Sure, she has the backing of Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200, but CBD spies tell us her campaign’s dollar figure isn’t coming close to the spend on big ticket federal fights.
Penny-pinching Dezarnaulds decided to dust off her election material from her unsuccessful federal bid for Gilmore this year for her byelection campaign and save some cash on printing.
A thrifty way to recycle old tat, or something more sinister? Some were asking if there are potential breaches of NSW election funding rules here.
An electoral commission spokesman told us it is not an offence to reuse election material if it is properly authorised.
Dezarnaulds says her campaign is fully compliant with the rules. She said she’s had a good chat with the pencil-pushers of the NSW Electoral Commission and that she has restickered and reauthorised her bright yellow posters.
“We spent a lot of money on disgusting plastic things that were a necessary evil, so we will proudly reuse them to get the most out of it,” she told CBD.
We’re not going to point fingers as to who’s stirring up trouble, but let’s just say the Liberals are always triggered by a teal.
Meanwhile, we’re told the Liberals were furious when Dezarnaulds revealed her list of preferences had the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers one spot ahead of Liberal candidate Serena Copley.
Tim’s title fight
It’s been four months since the vicious battle where Liberal Tim Wilson pulled off the seemingly impossible and won back the one-time teal enclave of Goldstein – and his presence in Canberra continues to rub salt in the wounds of supporters of his predecessor Zoe Daniel.
In sheer coincidence — or the height of pettiness — Wilson has taken the name of the e-newsletter of his teal predecessor as his own. The Voices of Goldstein campaign, which had launched Daniel’s political career, came up with the Goldstein Gazette as part of its newsletter, a name Daniel then carried on as her official e-newsletter as an MP.
When Wilson sent out the first edition of his own e-newsletter recently, can you guess the name?
Now, CBD isn’t sure who owns the copyright for the Goldstein Gazette but surely there are other options: Goldstein Chronicle? The Brighton Beacon? The Voices of Goldstein campaign has now tweaked their newsletter name to “The Community’s Goldstein Gazette”.
“The original is always better than the remake,” said their spokeswoman.
When asked for comment, Wilson professed ignorance of the original title.
“I am not on the local Australian Greens pretending-to-be teals mailing list,” he said.
Wilson also raised eyebrows last week when he used his allotted speaking time during the reading of the Appropriation Bill to read out scripts for what will presumably become social media clips of his spruiking local projects.
In a feat of startling efficiency, Wilson gave his multiple duplicate speeches, each starting with the line, “Thank you, Deputy Speaker. Bayside, Glen Eira and Kingston residents should have decent infrastructure. Labor ripped $100 million out of our community, and we are still living with the consequences.” He went on to list gripes about local parks and footy grounds. Each of his 13 versions ended with a brazen call to action for people to sign a petition on his website.
When asked whether this was an appropriate use of parliamentary time, Wilson said he was putting his “community first” and was advocating for infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the behaviour of some of Wilson’s campaign volunteers has attracted the attention of others in the House. Labor’s Mark Dreyfus, in a recent speech to his Isaacs electorate, launched a broadside, saying there were repeated incidents involving Wilson campaign volunteers that “fell well short of the standard of behaviour Australians expect”.
Dreyfus specifically called out incidents involving verbal abuse, threats of violence, and a death threat directed at Daniel’s staff.
Wilson hit back with his own allegations: “Sadly, prior to the election, I had to register a complaint with Bayside Police about a teal supporter stalking and filming me without my knowledge, and since the election, we have had to lodge two different complaints with the AFP about teal volunteers filming myself and staff.”
If only it were just about a newsletter.
Time in loo
This might just take the gong for the strangest use of Australia’s freedom of information laws we’ve seen.
One brave defender of the public’s right to know has flushed out the truth inside the Department of Health and the goings on in the most private rooms of the Canberra headquarters – the bog.
Aptly titled “toilet paper correspondence”, the dossier reveals what we’re sure this poor staffer was hoping would remain uncommitted to paper.
“Could we trial a very low ply toilet paper for a week on L4 men’s,” the property services officer requested.
“We have had an ongoing issue with a staff member blocking the toilets on a regular basis.”
Yikes.
Being government, of course, not even a request as simple as new loo roll can escape the bureaucratic process. Somehow, it took six whole months to confirm the new toilet paper.
We’re not sure who this bastion of truth-telling is – perhaps a disgruntled employee dissatisfied with the low ply mandate.
If Attorney-General Michelle Rowland gets her way with proposed changes to freedom of information laws, stories like this may never have seen the light.
She wants the government to be able to blanket refuse requests that would take more than 40 hours to collate to weed out “frivolous” requests.
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