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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-07-30 Daily Xml
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St Clair Reserve

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon) (17:35): This is the third instalment in my survey of the last Charles Sturt council election, which began with my assertion that David Winderlich, Kirsten Alexander and Sandy Biar combined to make allegations under parliamentary privilege on 3 December 2009 that they knew to be false or made them recklessly indifferent to their truth or falsity. In the social media flurry that followed my first two instalments, there has been no denial of the material facts or my conclusions by those people.

In Grange ward Rachele Tullio was a runaway winner at her first attempt to be elected to the Charles Sturt council by door knocking for many months before the poll and learning from those to whom she spoke about the issues that were on the mind of Grange ward voters. Incumbent councillor, Tom Scheffler, continued to poll solidly and make quota on primaries, while the other incumbent, Team Kirsten's Raelene Hanley, who ran on a ticket with Greens candidate, Rebecca Galdies, was clearly going to lose weeks out from polling day.

Hanley and Kirsten Alexander's support for stopping the coastal bike path going past the homes of beachfront householders endeared them to those who had excavated the dunes to build their houses, and wanted to keep the public off a beach they regarded as their private front yard. But it did not play so well with the cyclists who lived in the hinterland or the families whose bicycling children would have to mix it with Military Road traffic until the bike track could return to the beachfront in the northern part of Semaphore Park. Some beachfront householders issued unlawful anonymous campaign literature under the non de plume Grange & Tennyson South Group of Residents. They gambled and lost.

In Henley Ward, Mayor Alexander made the odd choice of putting Charlie-Helen Robinson of Baker Marketing on top of her ticket, though Robinson lived far away from Henley Ward in Flinders Park, in my electorate. Ms Robinson largely campaigned through social media, in which she styles herself an expert. She was not successful, drawing only 17 per cent of the vote. Charlie Robinson claims on social media to have polled 839 votes and that an LGA study shows the Charles Sturt turnout went up 179 per cent, making team Kirsten's efforts worthwhile.

The truth is that Charlie-Helen Robinson polled 518 votes and the turnout was a fraction above 2010, about 30 per cent in all. I am mystified as to why a person who otherwise seems intelligent would, in a paroxysm of self pity, publish such demonstrably false figures. Political party veterans, Jassmine Wood and Bob Randall, won easily. They were well known as Liberal and Family First members respectively, and they made no attempt to disguise their political party affiliation. Bob had once been the Liberal MP for the area. Jassmine Wood contrasted the rates in Charles Sturt with the much lower rates in all categories in the neighbouring city of West Torrens.

Both these councillors will be much needed in the austerity budgeting that has been necessitated by the profligacy of the save St Clair era on Charles Sturt council. Jassmine Wood topped the poll with 1,011 votes, and I wonder if our state's political history might have been different if Christopher Pyne's faction had not intervened to withdraw Jassmine Wood's Liberal preselection for the state district of Colton at this year's general election and transfer it to Joe Barry, who went on to lose to the member for Colton.

In Findon Ward, former councillor Paul Sykes made a comeback, topping the poll on a back-to-basics theme, and Kidman Park's George Turelli doorknocked his way to a quota. Mr Turelli's understanding of the true state of Charles Sturt's finances will, I think, be an asset to the new council. Incumbent councillor Joe Ienco lost again after only one term, repeating his record in the 1990s. Joe Ienco described himself as truly Independent, despite being the ALP candidate for Colton in 1993, a candidate for Liberal preselection in the federal division of Hindmarsh, and a Motor Sport candidate for the Legislative Council, running on Mayor Alexander's council-wide ticket that sought to win 17 of the 17 positions on Charles Sturt council, and other activities inconsistent with describing oneself as an Independent that I do not have time to mention.

Kirsten Alexander in 2010 became the only candidate in the history of the Charles Sturt council to run a complete ticket for the entire municipality, and in 2014 she became only the second candidate to do so, yet all this was done against a background of stridently claiming to be Independent. Joe Ienco's misdescription of himself makes a compelling case for changing the Local Government (Elections) Act 1999 to define an Independent candidacy and punish bogus claims to the status. Young Liberal state president Alex Hyde described himself as an Independent in Tea Tree Gully Ward, and got away with it on the basis that the Electoral Commission regarded claims to the status as a mere puff.

Finally, in Beverley Ward incumbent Councillor Edgar Agius, who is struggling with ill-health, topped the poll, partly as a reward for his strong advocacy for reopening Barton Road and also his fronting Saturday morning street corner meetings with me. Luke Westenberg of Flinders Park concentrated on rate increases, the proposal to have more outdoor concerts at Hindmarsh Stadium in March, and parking problems around the Sikh temple in Allenby Gardens. Margaret Herczeg, also Flinders Park, started her campaign six days after the ballot papers had been issued, because she was in the throes of moving house, but she letterboxed suburb-specific letters into every corner of the ward and came home strongly to fail by only 36 votes to incumbent Councillor Mick Harley, who was well known in the area through Findon Skid Kids.

The lessons I draw from the campaigns are that preference deals do not mean much in local government, because few voters follow a recommendation. It's the primaries, stupid! There is no substitute for being well known and well regarded in the neighbourhood. Doorknocking should start months out from polling day, and campaigns should be incremental and sustained rather than blitzkrieg.


At 17:45 the house adjourned until Tuesday 8 September 2015 at 11:00.


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