The flood of texts and phone calls (not all from supporters of independent Rob Priestly), and the volume of letters to this newspaper indicate that most fair-minded people are happy for a robust debate but reject negative attacks.
Politics, like journalism, is a bit different in the big cities.
Journalism is less personal in the big smoke, and you are much less likely to encounter the subjects of your work (or their friends and relatives) at school drop-off or a community barbecue.
Equally, most city folk wouldn’t be able to tell you who their local member was, let alone attest to working with them on a project, or chatting to them while leaning over the fence at the local footy.
We are a highly connected community, where background, ethnicity, religion and political stripe are irrelevant to community endeavours.
The Nationals’ party machine was responsible for the push-polling and attack ads that link Rob Priestly to Daniel Andrews and Labor.
There’s a clear reason why the link is being made: they don’t want Mr Priestly to be seen as a moderate, or worse, conservative alternative, to their own candidate, Sam Birrell.
The politics is clear, but the link is murky, even laughable.
In Victorian Parliament on May 11, Health Minister Martin Foley was responding to a question from independent Member for Shepparton Suzanna Sheed about how vulnerable communities will be supported to deal with the long tail of the pandemic.
Mr Foley digressed to thank her for her contribution as the chair of the committee charged with independent oversight of the pandemic response.
He then had this to say: “That is why it is so important that our regional communities continue to have independent voices such as those from the Member for Shepparton that are not beholden to, for instance, the likes of Barnaby Joyce, who thinks that supporting Victoria’s healthcare system and infrastructure is somehow another foreign aid.”
That was a crack at the Nationals, who lost the state seat of Shepparton District to Ms Sheed after 47 years, and at Mr Joyce, as part of a continued post-budget attack over the tiny percentage of infrastructure funding that flowed to Victoria.
Mr Foley went on: “I look forward to the people of Nicholls continuing the fine tradition that the honourable Member for Shepparton has established — and seeing that played out in the federal vote — to make sure that her community can have these issues dealt with in the same independent manner in the Federal Parliament as they are in the state parliament.”
Rob Priestly tells me that he can’t recall ever having met Mr Foley, which is perhaps why his name wasn’t mentioned.
Yes, the ALP has a Nicholls candidate, Bill Lodwick, but in seats where the ALP historically has no chance of winning, their political preference is always that it doesn’t count for the Coalition.
In the federal context, an independent in Nicholls would be one less seat for the Coalition, and one less that Labor had to gain somewhere else to win government.
A whiff of support has instead been turned into Daniel Andrews and Labor backing Rob Priestly, along with the inference that the independent has been hiding the truth from voters. The irony in that, given what the Nationals have been texting to voters, is not lost on a lot of people.
Worse, the win-at-any-cost approach ignores the reality that Rob Priestly and Sam Birrell worked together for the community as chair and chief executive respectively of the Committee for Greater Shepparton.
They share a mutual respect and a shared drive to make this community a healthy and prosperous place — which makes the attacks all the more galling.
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