Wow. Thank you for putting these disturbing election elements together so articulately. I felt the Libs & their associates side, in their desperation, were desperate & disregarding the cost to the community of the seriously bad behaviour. I did contact the AEC as I wanted to know who would be receiving any information I sent. It didn’t look like an AEC office address. I was told it was allowed but my question was more about who am I posting information to. The AEC was also missing problems at the pre- polling site I attended. If the tactics which marred this overwrought blue Goldstein campaign are not recognised & better handled, democracy suffers. And there was already an ‘American flavour’ to some of the poor behaviour. We need a healthy, fair minded Lib party to be an effective opposition, not a divided party split between traditional and raw hard right wing MAGA leaning nonsense. Thank you so much for writing clearly on these problems.
You write so well Sue. Yes it’s good when things emerge just as you need them to. You are helping me to pull together the bits & pieces I observed & puzzled over. And to see Zoe’s strategies appropriated then followed by boastful self- congratulation- so very irritating & worrying too. Acting badly then trying to push a concocted narrative without acknowledging the facts. So very MAGA. And fear should not be addressed through divisive strategies but by pulling people together as Zoe did. I’m wondering who’s put their stamp on t’other side’s distasteful backroom manoeuvres? The use of trolling to spread disinformation raises questions of libel & meddling with voters too, imo- & I was surprised & disappointed to see who in Goldstein & the greater Melbourne was doing it (let alone the interstate stuff). This is a very very important topic. More please!
The one encouraging thing is that all that money, effort and deceit scraped in only a very marginal win.
It's much the same as the fury AD Vance launched on the Greens: vote down 0.05 percent and the actual losses mainly to do with unlucky electorate redistributions, a collapsing Liberal vote in three-cornered competitions and Labor deviousness around the EPBC Act and the Woodside decision.
In other words, they took their absolute best shots and the results were at best Luke warm. While it's all a shame, the silver lining is that they're not that good and voters are mostly not that gullible.
The tactics are not new, but replicating those of Wilson's former employer's IPA in Atlas Koch Network.
Faux grass roots activism of GOP related groups harassing schools, libraries, candidates and voters, a la Koch's 'Tea Party' grass roots astroturf.
The latter, one guesses, was inspired by the John Birch Society (which competed with the KKK for members) of whom Fred Koch Snr. was a founder and Fred Trump a member.
Another excellent article Sue and I have additional comments.
We cannot forget the 2022 election episode of the reporting and subsequent fining of households with ZD's corflutes launched by Wilson. I find it distasteful that the re-elected Bayside Mayor Hannah El Mouallem was photographed with Wilson and Ley in close to election propaganda shots. Wasn’t he mayor during that fiasco?
Wilson has repeatedly displayed histrionics and insinuated that events like defacing of his posters was her action. The morning of the 2022 election someone had ripped out my ZD sign, which was one of many in my street as an election booth is at the end of it.
What of the reporting of ZD to the NACC in February, and using that discredited accusation as propaganda for their campaign of lies?
Wilson’s wearing of a yarmulke to one of the few debates he turned up to (the only one?) with the Jewish community was so off I can not believe that it wasn’t called out by both Jewish folks AND gentiles.
But the real showing of Wilson’s character is his placing Family First as 2nd on his how to vote card in the senate. William Shirer’s The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich account of homosexuality flourishing within the Nazi ranks even as these same vicious and gutless officials condemned thousands of homosexuals to concentration camps and death in WWII is worth reflecting upon here.
Has he declared who his donors are yet?
That someone with Zoe’s integrity and let’s face it higher IQ, has been voted out for the likes of Wilson – and by such a slim vote - is sad in and of itself. Given your report however, it is a travesty.
Thank you for your comments here. He has no interest in working with the broader Goldstein community. This was purely a job-securing strategy given he was unemployed for 3 years. His tactics and motives are unedifying to say the least. However, re job performance, he is on notice now. Using the 8 mechanisms of Moral Disengagement as a key filter will be useful in holding him to account and exposing his tracing paper thin intentions as 'our' representative. Onward we press.
Thankyou. A very interesting article and good read. I have always found "McGuinness’ lazy journalism" in her articles and now only scan the first two paragraphs of one of her articles, if at all.
1. Many of the coordinating members of these groups started years ago with attendance at public events with scripted (gotcha) questions, filming answers and leaking them to media outlets.
2. The coordinated mass push
3. The NACC referrals.
4. Council stacking & Pork barrelling
5. Coordinated online trolling/abuse.
6. HUGE online spending (millions) by the groups mentioned.
7. Field testing^ with the voice referendum
^ This was the first time I witnessed a serious ramp up in abusive behaviour (digital and physical).
Thanks for the article Sue. The disinformation certainly sounded like it was on another level. I understand Alex Fein said in a podcast (was it the shot's podcast?) that Melbourne people have are higher level of disengagement than others in Australia, and that this is likely due to ongoing impacts from covid. This sounds like a reasonable issue for why Melbourne-based independents didn't perform as well this election as independents elsewhere.
While I'd love to see action on all the recommendations you raise, I'm not sure that'll happen. Certainly the JSCEM needs to address these problems, so we'll see if anything might come of that.
More broadly, I hope that the experience of Wentworth might help in Goldstein. It's possible to turn things around.
Wow. Thank you for putting these disturbing election elements together so articulately. I felt the Libs & their associates side, in their desperation, were desperate & disregarding the cost to the community of the seriously bad behaviour. I did contact the AEC as I wanted to know who would be receiving any information I sent. It didn’t look like an AEC office address. I was told it was allowed but my question was more about who am I posting information to. The AEC was also missing problems at the pre- polling site I attended. If the tactics which marred this overwrought blue Goldstein campaign are not recognised & better handled, democracy suffers. And there was already an ‘American flavour’ to some of the poor behaviour. We need a healthy, fair minded Lib party to be an effective opposition, not a divided party split between traditional and raw hard right wing MAGA leaning nonsense. Thank you so much for writing clearly on these problems.
Thank you Robyn.
I've been preparing this for a while. Parnell's puff piece gave it extra vim.
You write so well Sue. Yes it’s good when things emerge just as you need them to. You are helping me to pull together the bits & pieces I observed & puzzled over. And to see Zoe’s strategies appropriated then followed by boastful self- congratulation- so very irritating & worrying too. Acting badly then trying to push a concocted narrative without acknowledging the facts. So very MAGA. And fear should not be addressed through divisive strategies but by pulling people together as Zoe did. I’m wondering who’s put their stamp on t’other side’s distasteful backroom manoeuvres? The use of trolling to spread disinformation raises questions of libel & meddling with voters too, imo- & I was surprised & disappointed to see who in Goldstein & the greater Melbourne was doing it (let alone the interstate stuff). This is a very very important topic. More please!
This was the worst result imaginable.
Daniel: Community focused.
Wilson: A snake in the grass.
The one encouraging thing is that all that money, effort and deceit scraped in only a very marginal win.
It's much the same as the fury AD Vance launched on the Greens: vote down 0.05 percent and the actual losses mainly to do with unlucky electorate redistributions, a collapsing Liberal vote in three-cornered competitions and Labor deviousness around the EPBC Act and the Woodside decision.
In other words, they took their absolute best shots and the results were at best Luke warm. While it's all a shame, the silver lining is that they're not that good and voters are mostly not that gullible.
The tactics are not new, but replicating those of Wilson's former employer's IPA in Atlas Koch Network.
Faux grass roots activism of GOP related groups harassing schools, libraries, candidates and voters, a la Koch's 'Tea Party' grass roots astroturf.
The latter, one guesses, was inspired by the John Birch Society (which competed with the KKK for members) of whom Fred Koch Snr. was a founder and Fred Trump a member.
Another excellent article Sue and I have additional comments.
We cannot forget the 2022 election episode of the reporting and subsequent fining of households with ZD's corflutes launched by Wilson. I find it distasteful that the re-elected Bayside Mayor Hannah El Mouallem was photographed with Wilson and Ley in close to election propaganda shots. Wasn’t he mayor during that fiasco?
Wilson has repeatedly displayed histrionics and insinuated that events like defacing of his posters was her action. The morning of the 2022 election someone had ripped out my ZD sign, which was one of many in my street as an election booth is at the end of it.
What of the reporting of ZD to the NACC in February, and using that discredited accusation as propaganda for their campaign of lies?
Wilson’s wearing of a yarmulke to one of the few debates he turned up to (the only one?) with the Jewish community was so off I can not believe that it wasn’t called out by both Jewish folks AND gentiles.
But the real showing of Wilson’s character is his placing Family First as 2nd on his how to vote card in the senate. William Shirer’s The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich account of homosexuality flourishing within the Nazi ranks even as these same vicious and gutless officials condemned thousands of homosexuals to concentration camps and death in WWII is worth reflecting upon here.
Has he declared who his donors are yet?
That someone with Zoe’s integrity and let’s face it higher IQ, has been voted out for the likes of Wilson – and by such a slim vote - is sad in and of itself. Given your report however, it is a travesty.
Thank you for your comments here. He has no interest in working with the broader Goldstein community. This was purely a job-securing strategy given he was unemployed for 3 years. His tactics and motives are unedifying to say the least. However, re job performance, he is on notice now. Using the 8 mechanisms of Moral Disengagement as a key filter will be useful in holding him to account and exposing his tracing paper thin intentions as 'our' representative. Onward we press.
Thankyou. A very interesting article and good read. I have always found "McGuinness’ lazy journalism" in her articles and now only scan the first two paragraphs of one of her articles, if at all.
Good piece Sue. A few other observations.
1. Many of the coordinating members of these groups started years ago with attendance at public events with scripted (gotcha) questions, filming answers and leaking them to media outlets.
2. The coordinated mass push
3. The NACC referrals.
4. Council stacking & Pork barrelling
5. Coordinated online trolling/abuse.
6. HUGE online spending (millions) by the groups mentioned.
7. Field testing^ with the voice referendum
^ This was the first time I witnessed a serious ramp up in abusive behaviour (digital and physical).
Thanks for the article Sue. The disinformation certainly sounded like it was on another level. I understand Alex Fein said in a podcast (was it the shot's podcast?) that Melbourne people have are higher level of disengagement than others in Australia, and that this is likely due to ongoing impacts from covid. This sounds like a reasonable issue for why Melbourne-based independents didn't perform as well this election as independents elsewhere.
While I'd love to see action on all the recommendations you raise, I'm not sure that'll happen. Certainly the JSCEM needs to address these problems, so we'll see if anything might come of that.
More broadly, I hope that the experience of Wentworth might help in Goldstein. It's possible to turn things around.