Local links should be state election must | dailytelegraph.com.au
3/08/2015 2:53 pm
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Local links should be state election must by: Editorial From: The Daily Telegraph March 17, 2015 12:00AM
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Share this story Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google Email 6 6 In the Queensland election, the Greens fielded a candidate for the seat of Mt Isa who had never in his life visited the area. Candidate Marcus Foth, a Brisbane-based professor in interactive and visual design at the Queensland University of Technology, tried to present his lack of local knowledge as a positive. “I think again it is an advantage to ... come with a fresh view and not having any kind of local vested interest,” he told the ABC. It didn’t work. Foth received only 2 per cent of the vote, making him one of the Greens’ worst-performed candidates. But the Mt Isa loser may have sparked a political trend. Now a small but ambitious party is fielding many candidates across NSW who don’t live anywhere near their prospective seats. The No Land Tax Party, led by former trade unionist Peter Jones, might be more accurately known as the Out-of-Towners Party. For example, the party’s candidate for Newcastle is a salsa dancer who lives in the inner city. Among other out-of-towners, the party’s candidate for Cootamundra lives in Balmain, and the Lake Macquarie candidate lives in Vaucluse. It might strike readers as strange that a political party would field so many candidates who have never met anyone in their electorates, but it turns out the party leader hasn’t met many of his candidates either. “Not personally,” Jones said yesterday. “We’re a small party. By the time of the next election we’ll have a much more robust organisation. I don’t think Clive Palmer met all his candidates at the first election.”
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/local-links-should-be-state-election-must/story-fni0cwl5-1227265309776
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