LIBERAL MP for McMillan Russell Broadbent was one of four candidates to ignore a community-focused election forum in Warragul last month.
Listen to the forum: click the YouTube play button above to hear the full forum.
Image (L-R): Top: Gary Patton, David Amor, Matt Sherry, Norman Baker, Paul Strickland. Bottom: Malcolm McKelvie, John Parker, Anthony Naus.
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Seven of 13 candidates for the seat responded to questions from the public at the GetUp!-run event: David Amor of Katter’s Australian Party, Gary Patton of Senator Online, Greens candidate Malcolm McKelvie, independent candidate John Parker, the Palmer United Party’s Matthew Sherry, Norman Baker of Rise Up Australia and the Australian Labor Party’s Anthony Naus.
Event organiser Paul Strickland said Mr Broadbent, independent candidate Leigh Gatt, Country Alliance candidate Ross Fisher and Family First Party’s Luke Conlon did not respond to invitations to attend.
The Sex Party’s Benjamin Staggard and the Democratic Labour Party’s Andrew Kis-Rigo were registered apologies.
Candidates were asked questions on foreign ownership of local businesses, coal seam gas, asylum seeker policy, pokies regulation, climate change policy, education, healthcare, media regulation and other issues.
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Over 50 people attended the forum at Wesley of Warragul, joined by another 21 listening online though The Warragul Citizen’s live stream.
You can hear the 105-minute forum using the player at the top of this article.
I was most disappointed that the sitting member for our electorate, MP Russell Broadbent,failed to attend this public, online forum. It was an excellent and very genuine effort to inform our voters accurately, to assist us with choosing a GOOD parliamentary member to represent us all wisely.
As a citizen of a political Democracy supposedly I feel that MP Broadbent insulted us all…his constituents. Whether he wanted to or not, he should have moved ALL other engagements to be available for us on this well-publicized event. In 3 years at least I have never seen our MP in my hometown Yallourn North. Instead we get expensive but lazy LNP letters from Russell Broadbent, that say nothing!
I will be placing the LNP Number 13 and I hope that a LOT of others do so also. We deserve a committed representative. This election is WAY too important for us to take on blind trust. The huge number of closed shops and crashing local businesses in Morwell and surrounds, that are being put down to the MidValley shopping centre competition, is ludicrous!
Morwell also has our highest number of blood-sucking poker machines that are stripping us of vital spending dollars in our shops. I would have asked MP Broadbent about that issue…but sadly he did not front or apologize for his absence it seems….and all I can say is that any party who allows that bad behaviour from MP’s deserves censure and Opposition status!
whilst you might be disappointed by Broadbent’s no show may I point out that this is a traditional approach by the LNP following the attack (by lemons WTF?) on John Hewson, by an enraged member of the ALP some time ago. Pre 1996? As a result? we don’t see LNP unless security is present.
Of course had it been me I would simply have thrown them lemons back at the bird in question. but I digress.
If you really hate Poker machines as much as your post suggest may I also suggest that you ban all Safeway or woolworths products. Shop at Coles Audi IGA instead. Safeway own over 50 percent of the Poker machines in Victoria. The best way to hurt them is in their hip pocket. don’t shop equals no profit. they will soon unload their core business
Thank you Angela for explaining why the LNP policy is to not attend public pre-election meetings. Perhaps the party could organize its own security then, if it is so afraid of citizen attack? The responsibility to attend should have been more valued and citizen rights should have been more respected by the LNP sitting member I believe.
Yes I do hate the harms that poker machines bring to our community, especially to our retailers and small business traders. These groups are suffering badly from a drop in sales.
Coles also owns poker machines, just less than Woolworth’s, which is in fact our largest poker machine owner in Australia. Thank you for highlighting that point Angella. It is quite tragic that such large companies should be involved in the seedy poker machine gambling industry, when they also portray their ‘fresh, healthy’ company images. I sincerely hope that a lot of people will now shop at Aldi! 😉