January 28, 2015
by Dafyd Martindale
Election exhaustion was clearly in evidence on Wednesday night when a pre-election “Meet The Candidates” forum held at the Nanango Darts Club was only able to attract about 50 attendees.
The meeting was addressed by the five candidates running against Member for Nanango Deb Frecklington in Saturday’s State election: Dean Love (Independent), Jason Ford (PUP), Grant Newson (Greens), Liz Hollens-Riley (ALP) and Ray Hopper (KAP).
The audience was made up of friends and supporters of the individual candidates, the forum’s organisers and local media plus about 30 members of the public.
Proceedings began at 7:00pm when moderator Dr Judith Grimes explained the rules of the forum.
Each candidate would be given seven minutes to speak, she said, and the order of the speakers would be determined by their position on the Nanango electorate ballot paper.
After this the audience would be allowed to ask questions.
Before the speakers began, though, Dr Grimes passed on an apology from Mrs Frecklington who was unable to attend due to a prior engagement in Kilcoy.
Dr Grimes said Mrs Frecklington had asked her to tell the meeting she would be at the Nanango polling station in Drayton Street on Thursday morning, and would be happy to answer anyone’s questions there.
The five candidates present then quickly outlined their backgrounds, their reasons for running in the election, and gave a brief overview of what they hoped to achieve if elected.
As to be expected, their views on the relative importance of different issues varied but they were united in the view that they were unhappy with the current State Government and wanted to offer voters an alternative.
This was followed by questions from the floor, which covered a number of topics ranging from the spread of unlicensed tattoo parlours and small business red tape to whether or not the candidates supported Citizens Initiated Referenda and the “Recall” process followed by some US states.
The shortcomings of the region’s health facilities were raised as an issue by several audience members, as was public transport and the gradual privatisation of vocational education.
New laws which allow National Parks to be opened up for commercial ventures, the VLAD laws, the true size of the State’s debt, asset sales, CSG mining and government waste were also aired as matters of concern.
So was the willingness of candidates to sign “on the dotted line” for their election promises and to resign from office if they failed to meet them.
In the end, Dr Grimes was forced to call an end to the meeting about 8:30pm, half an hour later than originally planned.
After this, guests were invited to raise matters individually with the candidates over coffee and snacks.
- Related article: All The Candidates … In Their Own Words
FOOTNOTE: The forum held at the Darts Club was organised by the South Burnett Residents Action Group (S-BRAG)
[UPDATED with correction, and an apology to Dr Grimes for not using her correct title]
