Independents Not Always Independent
Mrs. Trish Giles, seven times Mayor of Pittwater Council is the CDP Candidate for the Pittwater Electorate in the next election. Extremely popular with voters, she has a good chance to topple independent Alex McTaggart as he is seen as a ‘do-nothing’ politician and there is still a strong anti-Liberal feeling about the way John Brogden was treated.
Many mayors are standing for election to Parliament this time. All four Lord Mayors will stand: Newcastle, Parramatta, Wollongong, and Sydney. This week in Coff’s Harbour Mayor Keith Rhodes told me he would stand also as an independent as will Paul Stephenson, the Mayor of Goulburn. The Mayor of Maitland, Peter Blackmore, is considering standing as an independent.
If they win, these mayors will join independents like Richard Torbay from the Northern Tablelands, Robert Oakeshott from Coff’s Harbour and David Marr in Manly.
Because most independent MPs are in traditional Coalition seats, the Liberals and Nationals need to win a further 16 seats to govern in their own right, a feat that could require a pro-Coalition swing of up to 12 per cent. But voters are resentful at Labors many failures, each new Labor candidate has a lesser profile than their independent rivals, and Labor branch memberships are angry because several were denied the right to choose their own candidates.
In 1988 Labor lost government by losing 18 seats to the Liberals, three to the Nationals and four to independents.
But this time the Coalition has so far failed to capitalize on the state’s long list of woes or give the electorate a vision of a future Coalition Government. Time is running out for them to convince voters to give them the 12.3 per cent swing they need.
The independents in the Legislative Assembly make a lot of noise about themselves in their local papers, but the reality is that they achieve very little. The Government’s majority ensure that.
But with a limp Labor vote and more elected, they could hold the balance of power, a fate worse than death of a party! They would then simply exert their power to get preferable treatment and secret deals.
While most journalists believe true independents are better than most of the major parties endorsed candidates and the media generally think independents give unaligned votes in the Parliament, the fact is that some independents are Labor Party stooges.
One of our CDP candidates with a high local profile was approached by key Labor men to accept ALP funding for all advertising and “How to Vote” cards, prior to the election, with the promise of ALP workers to man every CDP booth. We refused to do that secret deal. I was personally told, “The Government does not need to win this seat, but only needs to keep the Coalition from winning it. Any independent will do.” I have noted that certain so-called independents go their own way most of the time, but on all crucial votes, vote with the party that funded them.
Voters in any electorate that does not have an endorsed ALP candidate or has one that seems to be “running dead”, would be well advised to place their vote elsewhere. That independent may not be really “independent.”
At least, those who vote Christian Democratic Party have no worries – their candidates are all committed Christians, people of integrity, and a commitment to Biblical and family values. They will not sell their vote to any other party.
GORDON MOYES
