It’s Just A Bit Me-Too
November 19th, 2007 at 11:05am
The RiotACT have been running a series of email interviews with the ACT’s set of parliamentary candidates for the federal election. They have sent the same ten questions to each candidate, and published their replies “in full and unedited”.
Question two is interesting:
What would you like to see as the first piece of legislative change brought about by your Government? What are your personal goals for your first year representing the ACT?
The incumbent Labor candidate for Fraser, Bob McMullan answered thusly:
The first piece of legislative change I would like to see is the repeal of Workchoices and the restoration of fairness in Australian Workplaces.
At a local level I would like to see a decentralisation of Commonwealth Government departments to Gungahlin, to ease the demand for parking facilities in Civic and reduce the level of traffic to the city centre.
I will also be working for an upgrade of the roads servicing Canberra International Airport.
A mere three days later, ACT Greens senate candidate Kerrie Tucker provided the following answer:
The first piece of legislative change I would like to see is the repeal of Workchoices and the restoration of fairness in Australian Workplaces.
At a local level I would like to see a decentralisation of Commonwealth Government departments to Gungahlin, to ease the demand for parking facilities in Civic and reduce the level of traffic to the city centre.
I will also be working for an upgrade of the roads servicing Canberra International Airport.
If Ms. Tucker had the same policy as Mr. McMullan, but actually took the time to write it herself, I’d be pleased. I wouldn’t agree with her as I am a fan of WorkChoices, but at least I’d know that she is willing to put in the effort as a representative.
This copy and paste effort is the last nail in her coffin for me. There is no way known that she can win my vote now.
And on a semi-related note, one of Ms. Tucker’s radio ads, authorised by Roland Manderson, is spoken by somebody who sounds like they’re pretending they’re elderly, and deliberately talking in a monotone and monopace voice. The best bit is the end, where it is announced that it is “spoken by Noel Simple”.
Even if I ignore the implausibility of the speaker being named Noel Simple, this is the only speaker named, which means that either the Greens aren’t naming the person reading the “spoken and authorised” announcement, or they’re both the same person, and the ad is a sham. I think it might be time to send an email to Ms. Tucker’s office to find out.
Update: A reply from Ms. Tucker’s office, in particular Thomas Burmester, Office Manager.
Mr Gordon-Stewart,
I’d like to at first address your issue with the radio announcement. Noel Semple is indeed an elderly man, in his eighties, and is no actor – his voice could not me more genuine. I know Mr Semple well as I keep all used stamps received in the office for him, which he collects for charity. I intend to address your other issues as soon as I can consult with Kerrie.
Regards,
Thomas Burmester
Office Manager
In that case I would like to apologise to Mr. Semple for any offence my comments may have caused. I suppose some people do sound a bit wooden (for lack of a better description) when reading for radio, and I appreciate Mr. Burmester’s prompt and candid response.
End Update
Further Update: Ms. Tucker’s office won’t confirm it, but the RiotACT administrators have. The copied answer was a mistake at RiotACT’s end. I apologise to Ms. Tucker for any offence caused.
Sadly one of her campaign managers, a certain Ms. Margo Kingston, has managed to convince me that there is no point in voting for the Greens with her ranting in the comments of the previously linked RiotACT article. End Update
Samuel
Entry Filed under: Canberra Stories,Samuel's Editorials
8 Comments
1. Clayton Northcutt | November 20th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Samuel, do you ever think you will get around to answering those question I emailed you?
2. Pen 15 | November 22nd, 2007 at 12:27 am
Yes, Sam, after reading the comments on RiotACT, I must agree with you. Any member of the Green party defending themselves and their beliefs on a public forum must be a loony, mustnt they?
Youve done yourself a real disservice with this post, Sam. Rather than use your common sense to figure out that Labour and the Greens probably don’t have the same copywriter, youve automatically launched a smear against the Greens.
Anybody else would first check with RiotACT to make sure there wasnt a mistake made there.
I bet this wouldnt have happened if the Greens responded first, then a second answer purporting to be from the Liberals made its way onto RiotACT!
Oh, I’m not a Green voter. Nor will I be in the forseeable future.
3. Samuel | November 22nd, 2007 at 12:42 am
You’re wrong Pen. If your scenario of a Greens answer seemingly being copied by the Liberals had occurred, it would have received the same response from me.
I have not done myself a disservice. I posted the information I had at the time, and contact Ms. Tucker’s office for their take on it. They never got back to me about the answer, only the Mr. Semple advertisement.
I have apologised because it is the decent thing to do, and it clarifies the details for anybody who stumbles upon this post, without making it disappear at the cost of confusing regular readers. I have not done anything wrong.
That’s pure speculation. What you should have written is that YOU would have checked with RiotACT first. That may be the way you would choose to go about it, but I don’t.
And if you call Margo Kingston’s angry comments in any direction she could fire them “defending herself” then you have one more screw loose than I thought.
4. Samuel | November 22nd, 2007 at 12:43 am
Clayton, I do. To be honest with you I completely forgot about them…how about I get them done this morning?
5. Samuel | November 22nd, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Or tomorrow morning…
6. Clayton Northcutt | November 22nd, 2007 at 7:47 pm
That would be nice.
7. Samuel | November 22nd, 2007 at 8:35 pm
I feel rather guilty about forgetting to reply to those questions.
I’ll have to stay awake tonight so that I don’t sleep through a meeting in the morning (with the shift I am currently working I would usually be sleeping at 9am), so I might as well do something useful and reply to the questions.
8. Pen 15 | November 23rd, 2007 at 12:08 am
But Sam, you consider yourself a journalist. Isnt it the role of a journalist to check his sources and verify his facts before publishing anything he might heard?
Reprinting an unverified fact you got off a website is like reprinting “All Democrats eat kittens” if you heard someone shouting it in the street, because that would have been the information you had at the time.
And then apologising for it days later, of course.