MALCOLM BRUCE DUNCAN
INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE FOR WENTWORTH
MEDIA RELEASE
Date: 16 August 2010
CONTACT DETAILS: 0415 495 214
duncanmalcolmb@gmail.com
Topic: GETUP SHOULD GETUP AND GO
What exactly is our democratic process about?
If you are interested in this story (and why wouldn’t you be?) Duncan is available for comment on his mobile. His policy manifest is attached.
As if this election campaign were not banal enough, last weekend took the cake in Wentworth. With the result balanced on a knife-edge, the children involved in organising the Getup campaign’s “Candidates’ Debate” at Paddington Town Hall last Saturday afternoon perpetrated one of the most subversive exercises in democracy this country has seen since Federation.
There are 7 candidates for the seat but only the Liberals, the Labor Party and the excuse for a Green Candidate were invited, let alone allowed to speak, to the Green-stacked audience. Barrister, and Independent Candidate for the seat, Malcolm Duncan was specifically refused his democratic right to address the meeting and threatened with the intervention of the Police to remove him if he tried.
While it could truly be said that most of the other minor candidates are a joke, at least Duncan has serious articulated written policies (published by The Australian newspaper last week: http://blogs.news.com.au/theaustralian/breakingnews/) and is engaged in a debate with his electors about whether they should be pursued in Parliament. Neither Mr Duncan nor other Candidates were invited to speak at the Getup forum.
In fact, they were specifically excluded from doing so
“You wouldn’t bloody well let me speak would you you bastard?” Mr Duncan interjected during the closing address of the convenor, a dimwit by the name of Oliver Maccoll [oliver@getup.org.au] at the end of a desultory meeting in which the invited candidates spoke for over two hours without actually saying anything of substance.
“Quite simply, this is not to be tolerated,” Mr Duncan said today. “Who do these people from Getup think they are that they can dictate the agenda for the most crucial election in our Federation’s history? All I was asking was a fair opportunity to present a series of reasoned policies ranging from Climate Change, Defence, Foreign Policy and Infrastructure to voters in my electorate. I was denied that opportunity and, despite my invitation to the organisers to call the Police and try to have me ejected (raising a constitutional issue clearly beyond their intellect) they simply denied the voting public the opportunity to consider the issues that face them. Getup should bugger off” Mr Duncan added.
I am still really interested in your no-cat-strangling policy. Would you care to elaborate?
Get up do that to many candidates, in SA last election they advertised forums for “All the Senate candidates” yet denied some minors and the Liberals, whats with that?
I was excited when GetUp first started up. The more I hear about them now, the more it saddens me. They seem to be nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Greens and Left faction of the ALP.
hey mark, did you ever ask them that question your self?
Actually, I believe that – being what I assume to be a privately organised event – there is nothing unconstitutional about not inviting someone to speak. If it were, the media would be constantly sued for not covering minor parties, Bob Brown would have been allowed in the leaders’ debate, etc.