July 13, 2016
Here are some reports from Menzies booth workers on their experience handing out for Stephen Mayne on election day.
Andrew, morning shift at North Ringwood Primary School
Hi Stephen,
Firstly, was great to be involved in the political process.
My experiences were at the Ringwood North Primary School polling
booth from 8am to 11am on Saturday. I found that the Liberal Party volunteers
tried to block where I stood, so that voters couldn't get Mayne's How to Vote
cards as they walked in.
The other trick that the Liberal Party volunteers did was to 'talk
friendly to you' when a cluster of voters approached the polling area in an attempt to distract you at the moment, so
you couldn't hand out voter cards to the cluster of voters.
Noting the above, I used my charm and skill to outsmart the dirty
tricks the Liberal Party volunteers tried on Saturday.... to the point that I
was running out of Mayne's How to Vote Cards by 10.20am and had to call
Campaign HQ for reinforcements.
Also, there was no tea or coffee or BBQ facilities serviced by
volunteers or otherwise. In fact it was the running joke between the volunteers
that morning ("where's the sausage sizzle?"), save for the Liberal volunteers, who only socialised with the
Family First volunteers and kept their distance.
Thanks, Andrew
Leo the journalist at Croydon Hills primary school
Hello Stephen,
First of all, congratulations
on running a vigorous and effective campaign. Your fine effort of 7% shows just
how difficult it is to make inroads against a sitting member from one of the
majors - even when that incumbent is Kevin Andrews.
One of the things that struck
me was the high recognition for your candidacy. Knowing how difficult it is to
achieve cut-through it was very clear from the number of people who were
familiar with you that you managed to make your presence felt in the campaign.
As well as the Liberal and Labor
booth workers, the Greens were represented all day, and Animal Justice and the
Christian Democrats for most of the day.
The booth was busy and there were queues for most of the
day, from 9.30am to about 3.30pm when things started to slow down. There was
one stall present for most of the day, a fund-raiser for the school. One of the
parents on duty told me they sold about 700 sausages; they closed up when they
ran out of things to sell.
There was a good atmosphere at
the school and all the booth workers, except the Liberals, were friendly and
happy to have a chat about their respective campaigns, how they saw the
election panning out, etc - one Labor worker, a union rep, told me the mood
within the party was "pessimistic" and the feeling was that Labor's
campaign had "gone off the rails" in the last week or two. (I'm sure
he got a pleasant surprise that night.)
It was very clear that the Liberals were spoiling to cause maximum
disruption. In the morning the Liberals complained to the AEC supervisor about
Labor's full-size Tony Abbott prop, describing it as "offensive" and
"inappropriate". The supervisor asked Labor to remove it, but the
booth captain pointed out that it carried the required authorisation and
refused. The supervisor accepted that and Tony Abbott stayed.
The Liberal workers were
staring daggers at us all day and were jubilant when late in the day the AEC
officer arrived to order that I cease handing out our flyers because of the
"incorrect" authorisation. The other booth workers were disgusted
with the Libs. When the officer explained the regulation that had been breached
they almost to a party expressed dismay that it was necessary to carry
authorisation on both sides.
Judging by the Lib workers'
high spirits shortly before the AEC officer arrived I can only imagine they had
been informed by campaign HQ of what was about to take place. I voiced my
displeasure to one of the grinning Lib workers, presumably a Young Liberal or
junior staffer, something along the lines of: "You're pathetic. You think
you've struck a blow for democracy by stopping us from handing out our flyers
for the sake of a handful of votes? No wonder people have a had a gutful of the
major parties." To which she replied: "Well, if you didn't know that
you're supposed to have authorisation on both sides that's not our problem.
Next time he might get people who know what they're doing to run his
campaign." She then went on to criticise you for running a "dishonest"
campaign and not being a "real Liberal". I told her I doubted very
much that she would know a real Liberal was.
And there it was. Happily,
Malcolm gets his chance to stamp his authority on the prime ministership, and
hopefully won't let us down. (Thanks for tweeting my piece, by the way; it gave
it a good old push along.) I imagine Andrews will retire some time in the next
three years, in which case I'd say your performance this time sets you up
nicely for the next time around.
Thanks for the experience. I
look forward to our paths crossing again.
Cheers, Leo
Sandy the retired English teacher at St Gregory's
Dear Stephen,
At St Gregory's Manningham, my experiences matched many
others'. There were 4 of us handing out how to vote cards – a cheerful
group: Labor, Green, Andrews' and self. The first two mentioned had been there
all day – as I understood – really heroic in their causes!
They were such pleasant people – and if you're up to your
elbows, all day, in grass-roots politics in a no-win electorate you have
to be idealists. All sorts of ideas knocked around in little gobbets of talk
all afternoon.
And variously
“I'll give out your cards while you grab a coffee/dash to loo”
The young Andrews' guy didn't think much of me. Which is Fair
enough.
But there's no point in telling me that Brexit was partly caused because large sections of English Common Law were being over-ridden by
Brussels' legislation.
There was nothing I could say that wasn't improper, so
conversation lapsed.
Around 3.30 the AEC head of booth came out to see me — and he
couldn't have been more embarrassed and tactful. Drew me aside and told
me the handouts were illegal, and I could no longer distribute them.
He was so concerned for me. We went inside to check by
phone the exact reason, and thereafter I didn't feel it was appropriate
to argue the point. I returned to the hand-out point and the
fellows from Greens and Labor were really indignant. As I tidied up
one of them even offered to walk me over to the car.
Phoned you several times and expected you to be engaged – left
messages – and very sadly left.
This was just one more political trick. What's new? Gillray's cartoons on Regency politics makes the same point 200
years ago. But it's got no better.
As this election has proved – every single vote counts, and
that's how they played it, as if it were a game.
But what those standing for election – of every shape and
size – haven't realised that it is precisely this win at all costs/any cost
that has repelled the electorate.
I think this is the biggest protest vote I've known.
Love Sandy
Rob the ex banker at Onemda in East Doncaster
Hi
Stephen,
Great
effort by you and your team on Saturday and I'm proud to say that I was a part
of it, albeit a very, very small part.
You
have asked for some war stories so I thought I'd contribute the experience I
had at the Onemda booth. With the exception of the Liberal party
supporters, all the representatives of the other parties were cordial,
courteous, helpful and friendly. On the other hand, the Liberal Party
representative, (mainly the one individual) never introduced himself, was
continually on the phone complaining to whoever would listen to him complaining
about whatever he could in relation to us, including our T shirts, our marketing
spiel, and of course our how to vote cards.
He
approached me in a very threatening manner, twice. The first time he parked
himself about an inch from my face and told me to "take my T Shirt off..
it was illegal” he kept repeating this to my face until I politely suggested to
him that he should “F&%k off” and until someone with real authority told me
to take it off and explained why it was illegal, we would continue to wear
them. He then had another crack, this time in the company of a huge guy,
bouncer proportions. They both came up to me and told me my flyers were
illegal and that I had to stop distributing them, not quite as politely as that
though. Since my defence had worked so well the last time, I again
decided to put it to good use and suggested they might both like to go and
“F&^K themselves” and once again told them that until we heard from
someone with real authority, we would continue to ignore them. Very
strange, highly aggressive behaviour.
I
must confess that I did bait them a couple of times. The most obvious was
when Kevin Andrews was being interviewed by a journalist from the Chinese
Liberals, the fellow who kept threatening us/me all day, and speaking in a
very loud voice introduced Mr Andrews to the Journalist as the member for
Menzies. I pointed out that this was the case at the moment but that it was
expected change. You could have cut the air with a knife.
In
relation to the flyers, we adopted a similar strategy to other booths, where we
had one person, Jo, hand writing the authorisation on the back of the flyers
with me continuing to hand them out but asking people to return them when they
were finished with them. After having our stock renewed by Chris, who had copied a number of them with just the side that had been authorised, we
were back in business. The Lib guy then went and got the AEC to try and force
us to stop, distributing the single sided flyer. We pointed out to him that
having just one side authorised and blank on the other was in fact compliant,
he agreed and apologised a number of times and then left us alone for the rest
of the day.
All
in all an interesting day although I did not expect to have to put up with such
aggression and vitriol from thugs protecting Kevin. I don't know where he
got these people from but they are the reason so many people form the view that
politics is way too rough a game for them, certainly not a career path I'd
follow if it meant associating with those types of individuals. I was an
Investment Banker and M&A specialist for many years and as you know, egos
dominate deals, and I've seen pretty much seen all of the big names in
Australian corporate history in the past 30 years, but I've only ever
experienced that type of aggression from one individual and that was David
Aspinall, who was Bond's standover man, although I'd have to say John Elliott
would come close at times.
Anyway
I won't take up more of your time, I was happy to be able to help and sincerely
hope that Menzies can become a swinging seat one day. It's hard to understand
why so many of my fellow Menzies voters think Kevin is the best man of the job,
but then I look at people like Pauline Hanson and Cory Bernadi and wonder how
it is that they are able to cobble together the support bases required to get
themselves elected. I then realise that our electorate is just as easily fooled
as others.
Warmest
regards, Rob
Penny at Donvale Primary School
Hi Stephen
I thought you ran a great campaign and the how to vote card saga
wouldn't have quite swung the final vote sufficiently to have made a material
difference on our booth. I enjoyed the day. We had a very friendly group of
campaigners with only absentees being the Voluntary Euthanasia Party, the
Independent and the Liberals themselves....they were represented by a team of
Indians who I suspect were paid. They were surprised to discover that the
system of voting was not first past the post so I'm sorry I wasn't able to
achieve a bigger percentage swing.... it just goes to show how difficult it is
to shift the diehards.
Vis a vis the how to vote card fiasco....news came through via a
mobile call to the ALP canvasser at around 3.30pm who relayed it to me. He was
not in the least aggressive and I simply said that it sounded very much like a
dirty trick and I would remain unmoved until I heard it from a higher
authority.
At around 4.30pm two AEC officers emerged and told me that I
couldn't hand out our card any longer because it hadn't been properly
authorised and there had been a complaint from the Libs. They were quite
reasonable and told me that it could still be used if I authorised it myself on
the back of the card and re-wrote the numbers down the side in my own hand.
Maybe that's what I should have done but there were only a trickle of voters
and it seemed unlikely, given the general tempo, that it was going to make a
material difference to the final outcome.
Certainly there had been a smattering
of people all day who took your card with gusto and who were enthusiastic about
removing Kevin Andrews but the 'died in the wool Libs' were unfortunately in
the ascendency. I don't know how the Greens did but I think they'd have
out-polled you at our booth. Nevertheless I'm really sorry you didn't make it
because of all the candidates you definitely stood out as savvy and sane!
Thanks for all the hard work you do in promoting democracy...it
is highly admirable!
With very best wishes, Penny
John at Warranwood Primary School for late afternoon shift
Hi Stephen,
My experience was a little strange. When the AEC reps
came out after 3pm, they couldn't find me (they can't have looked too hard - although the
line was still long).
The Getup folks told me once the queues had disappeared and
we had a chance to chat.
I figured it wasn't necessary for me to go in and ask what
was going on, so I kept handing out the flyers until around 5pm when I received
the email from you.
At that stage I figured the game was up (and there were much
fewer voters anyway) so I packed up and headed off.
The other people handing out the cards were generally
pleasant enough. No complaints from me!
All the best for next time.
John
Sally at St Gregory the
Great (Manningham Booth)
Like all 8-11am shifts on Election Morning it was a chilly
start. I had the company of a 3 other booth workers. A youngish Liberal who
lived just over the back fence from the Booth; a young Labor guy who had recently
moved to Lower Templestowe from the inner city and a middle aged Greens guy who
was a Bulleen resident. The voters
initially came in dribs and drabs which allowed plenty of time for banter with
my fellow workers. The Labor guy had been at the first candidates debate and commented on
the quality of the discussions. The Liberal guy (after discovering I grew up in
Templestowe) asked me if my school had been closed/Jeffed as his had been.
Fortunately mine is still open to the Public as a basketball/netball centre. His old school was now a residential estate – not such a good
result!
Now to the voters who were from a range of ethnically
diverse backgrounds and a mix of young families and 70 + older citizens. Plus
there were a number of people clearly part of the St Greg's school community.
Our booth although deemed a smaller one had hot coffee on tap (2 meters behind
us) so we could grab a coffee between voters. The cakes stall and sausages were
a mere 5 metres in front of us, also pretty convenient. One booth worked
commented it was only 8.25am when the first sausage was consumed. By
mid-morning our trickle of voters has increased so there was a 30-40 person
queue outside the voting station. A panicked female voter came through who had
to catch a plane to Sydney and was worried she wouldn't get to vote. The
Liberal guy checked his phone “there's no voting station at the airport, you'd
better join the line here he advised”. All in all a very enjoyable morning
spent with great company at St Greg's booth.
Bernadette at East Doncaster Secondary College
Dear Stephen,
My story about the banned literature
is actually quite positive.
The very civilized Liberal chap at
the front gate of our booth volunteered his view that such a trivial objection
was uncalled for and unsporting and that he didn't agree (he was an older
gentleman and thought that having print too small to read without reading
glasses on both sides rather than one was a bit irrelevant). He thought
that it was not really in the spirit of free enterprise for Liberals to be so
petty.
As the Voluntary Euthanasia ladies
gave out their literature they very helpfully pointed out to voters that their
“how to vote” was quite similar to yours and that people could just change
around the “1” and “2” in the boxes on their ticket if people would prefer to
support you instead (they said you were a very nice man and had met you at the Wonga
Park event).
No one at our booth was intimidated
or harassed (but there was a bit of a crowd of us with the whole family on the
job – a sea of blue Tee shirts). Amy was running up and down the street giving out
literature very enthusiastically (whether or not people had already
voted). I think she even gave one to Kevin Andrews (would have loved a
photo of that).
Kevin Andrews spent a lot of the Day
at our booth, and wasn't exactly the most inspirational person I've ever met –
very reserved. Most of the voters didn't appear to actually recognise him
(even though there were posters), so he mustn't spend much time in the
electorate. I think you would have been a much better choice for
Canberra. He clearly only got in as the representative of the party they
wanted to support – no apparent personal following – and this lack of a party
machinery is clearly the problem with being an independent candidate.
Anyway, maybe he has learnt a
valuable lesson and won't take the electorate for granted as a result of your
efforts.
I think that any system that gets
Pauline Hanson to Canberra but not you is clearly flawed (not to mention
embarrassing). Better luck next time,
Bernadette
Peter at Park Orchards from 8am until midday
Dear Stephen
A fun morning. Those handing out how-to-vote cards: one
Green, one Labor, two-three Liberal. All congenial. We got along quite well.
Voters came steadily for the most part with little queuing, except for 45
minutes or so around 10.30am, when there was a queue that reached 25-35 outside
the entrance. Electoral Office people brought out stacks of used cards which we
sorted and recycled. (I certainly needed them - I had actually thought I was
being a bit greedy on Thursday night.) I started at 7.45am and left - with no
more how-to-vote cards - around midday. I would have stayed on an hour or so if
I'd had enough cards. Also, I confess I'm not very good with phone
communications - I should have called someone around 11am. Voters for the most
part freely took the cards - around 80%. Many Liberal voters swept passed, plus
the odd Labor voter. There was some interest in Stephen by half a dozen - ie,
we had a brief chat. There were a couple who openly agreed with Stephen's
opinion of Andrews. My guess (and this is a guess) is that maybe 25% of voters had heard of Stephen. One or two
suggested that the card may have been a bit deceptive. (The Liberal guy and I
had a bit of a mostly good natured banter on the subject). Note from the AEC
results that Park Orchards got 122 votes for Stephen or 7.85% of
those counted which was (fourth behind Liberal, Labor and the Greens.
Sorry, I had to leave without handing over. Did you have
someone there during the afternoon?
Kind regards, Peter
Dawn at Park Orchards from 3pm
Hi Stephen,
Yes it was a very eventful day! I can only
say that all volunteers at the Park Orchards Community Centre were extremely
friendly and two of them knew more about you than I did, and were extremely
impressed with you at the pre-launch. One lady and her husband who were
handing out the Liberal how to vote cards did not know anything about you at
all and when I told them they said “it's a pity we have already voted”.
However, they were all so helpful especially the Labor volunteer who was going
to put in a complaint about the gentleman who came bounding out of the voting
booths and asked “who is distributing the how to vote cards for Stephen Mayne”?
I answered I was and he told me to I was cease immediately. My
answer was I was helping out and unless I heard it from Stephen Mayne I would
continue. He then started to shout and told me he had been told by his
boss in head office to get me to cease. The gentleman handing out the
Labor information told him that according to law he had to give it to me in
writing and until them I could continue. He also told him he was being
bombastic and rude, as he was 6' 5” and I was 5'. He then
disappeared. I was running out of how to vote card so all the other
volunteers were going through the bins for me and getting more cards.
After I had no access to any more I just kept saying “Vote for Stephen Mayne a
local guy”. I then got through to Gabi who told me to go home. Sad as I thought as each vote would have counted.
What an experience. Count me in for next
time.
Give it to them Stephen.
Regards, Dawn
Paul at Greythorn Bowling Club
They had a BBQ and cakes at a booth which barely attracted 500 voters. Until the arrival of Mrs Andrews, the gate to the north was
closed. She opened it and I promptly shut it and we all said in many different
ways that she wanted it open because she had staff. A Bowls honcho drove through us as though he thought he had the right to run us
down. It was he and six gardeners who acted to ensure the gate stayed
open.
So we had 2 lots of traffic and the Liberals could cover both gates. Kevin's son Stuart was a little put out by his mother's booth manners.
In an effort to handle both gates, I moved to the North entrance which was much busier. I waved the papers to traffic coming
from High St so they could see me and miss the Official gate altogether. Rude Mrs Andrews stayed around there most of the time except when introducing new volunteers. Mrs Andrews said voters could come in to the booth from wherever the
hell they liked. A half hour later I appealed again, pointing to solo distributors.
That's when she bought in the trump card: "the
President of the bowls Club wants that gate open too". I think the booth
was a bloody schmozzle. It was slow and grossly mismanaged and the club, the Libs and the AEC staff did little to hide their favouritism.
That booth should be shut down.
I was ordered off at 4.30pm. I told them I thought it was
appalling and made my feelings about the demand to desist abundantly clear to
Mrs Andrews who shadowed me for a number of hours this morning and this arvo.
Young Stuart was there too. I wasn't rude to any of them especially the AEC woman, who
said "she was acting on orders and I was obliged to comply".
Everyone
got along very well except the incumbent's pouting spouse who played sad sack
all day.
I think the AEC should have to live with an approved card
and challenges should not be allowed once the polls open. It was a bloody
disgrace
Paul
Alastair at Serpell Primary School
Hi Stephen,
Thanks for the opportunity to stick my thumb in Kevin's eye.
While I've traditionally been a Labor man I appreciate that there
is not much difference between myself and "small l" liberals.
I couldn't support anything headed by Shorten and his ilk. Chatting
to a couple of supporters at the Bowls club reminded me that different sorts of
people do the right thing due to vastly different motivations - always a good
thing to keep in the front of mind.
Drawing together the threads of my limited and
late activity I humbly offer the following commentary.
AEC ban - Kate and Ed notified me about this - I
suggested we hold the "authorised" ones on top and distribute the
questionable ones from underneath. Nothing was raised to me by the AEC or
Liberal workers.
I agree with your suggestion that pre-authorisation by the AEC is a sensible
process.
Given your profile you will always pull 5-10% of the votes in this
locale. Given the Howard calls, Kroger's intervention etc the Libs
were obviously concerned that you might have gained a more significant vote.
It would be interesting to get some further commentary from the Libs as
to their true state of mind. Maybe they will be more open in the next few
months!
Booth workers - Get Up were there doing their advocacy
with your ticket on their hand out. The Libs were friendly and generally
well behaved. However their tactics need to be mentioned. On
handing out the Mayne card with a statement like "Stephen Mayne True
Liberal" one of the Liberal's would quietly say to the voter that
Mayne isn't a liberal and that Andrews was the Liberal Party. I asked the
Liberal what his instructions were? Answer - make sure the voter knew
that Andrews is the Liberal Party candidate and that Mayne is an independent.
The strategy of association clearly played to the minds of the
Libs. Learning a phrase or two in Mandarin might of been useful.
Was the play right? Agree that it was - I wasn't
involved at the early stages of the campaign and can't comment on the broader
strategy other than change can happen in two ways, an independent liberal
winning the seat by splitting the Liberal Party vote and stitching up
preferences from the Greens and Labor. Or by preselecting a more moderate
candidate willing to advocate for the constituency. The pissing out -
pissing in dilemma - hopefully generational change will bring a more moderate
and effective representative to Menzies.
Reach out to the Chinese community should be a priority should you
be involved in something like this again.
Let me know if you have a crack at something like this again as I'll
get more involved.
Kind Regards, Alastair
Matthew at Bulleen Heights and Templestowe Uniting Church
It was an early morning wake up at 5am which was a bit earlier
than usual probably due to the anticipation of what the day ahead held. A light
breakfast with a quick meeting down the road with fellow booth volunteer James
to discuss tactics and I was on the road at 7.15am to the Bulleen
Heights booth in Pleasant Road for the opening at 8am. On arrival the realisation of the juggernaut
that we were up against became immediately apparent with the entrances leading
up to the booth covered in blue. There were the large scale head shot signs
lining the driveway to the carpark followed by the big banners and multilingual
signs at the entrance. I had two corflute boards to add for Stephen Mayne and
luckily they weren't large scale as I managed to find a bit of valuable
realestate on the cyclone wire fence next to Kevin. With signs up, how to vote brochures in a strategic
location near the entrance gate, I was ready to rattle off the one liners that
I had practiced in my mind the previous night and no doubt by the end of the
day would have changed with my own flavour added, whilst strictly following
party lines.
The sun was rising over the horizon but struggling to break
through the clouds and the air was crisp. I'm not sure how many mid winter
Federal elections have been held but booth volunteers that have had to endure
rain and wind on Election Day deserve a medal of national service. By nature we
were not allowed within shouting distance of the voting booth and that put us
out in the elements. Fellow booth volunteers broke the ice so to speak with the
only common ground for the day being our wish for some good weather. Would the
election bring out a surprise like Melbourne's weather? It was about now that a
coffee van arrival would have been something of a miracle but not to be and
there was no time to hunt one down at Macedon square as voters were starting to
queue before 8am and we were already practicing our lines on the first
unsuspecting voters. It wasn't long before I realised what one liners were getting
up the goat of my fellow volunteers and as for the "True Liberal" (with an
uppercase L) tee, well that was like a red rag to a bull or should I say blue
rag. The mumbling of that's illegal and out right dishonest could be heard from
the loyal Liberal volunteers followed by direct questioning in front of voters.
Luckily I was able to explain why Steve was the "true liberal' after reading The
Mayne Report blogs and responded by saying something like Steve has more of the
traditional values of the Liberal forefathers and our Electorate's namesake
than the incumbent. The voters who were by this time a captive audience in an
ever growing line seemed to swallow that and that's all that mattered. Someone
had said that Bulleen Heights was going to be quiet but I soon found out that
another booth in the area (St Timothy' Anglican Church) had been closed so the line got longer and so did the
spiel with voters having time to listen to the lines that were now on rotation
like the CD in my car with the family swapped by voters.
The banter amongst the volunteers continued and I think I learnt
a few things or at least now have a new perspective on some pressing
issues all of which now need to be verified by Google. One thing that I was
constantly reminded of was that Stephen may be a supporter of Turnbull but
Turnbull isn't a supporter of Stephen. The party machine appeared to have that
one programmed into the faithful and I backed off on the "Cr Stephen Mayne -
Turnbull supporter" line when in close earshot. Thankfully the voting line grew
and I was able to find space without being harassed and the party lines were
able to flow freely and by this time the spiel had become quite elaborate.
Voters were coming out with that look on their face or a wink that said I voted
for Steve. Others simply came out and said it which was probably the highlight
of the morning as in someway I may have helped to influence that decision and
help to make a change. By this stage the banter amongst volunteers had reached
a pleasant phase and we all mutually respected our differences. As our shifts
came to an end we were able to have a laugh and wish each other the best in
acknowledgement that we had done our best and that it is great to live in a
democracy where we can express ourselves without fear.
Lyn arrived just in time to relieve me at 11am and by this time I
was pumped but the body was in need of some attention. I now had a 4 hour break
before being needed to relieve James for the closing shift at Templestowe
Uniting Church, which is my local booth. Driving away from Bulleen I said to
myself well that was a bit of a buzz and an experience well worth having. A
quick stop at Templestowe to see how James was going and to give him a long
needed coffee ended up being another chance to sway voters with several in the
line being personally known to me. Time was getting away from me and I was
needed over in Bundoora to do a house inspection for a friend so the drive gave
me enough time to get out of character and become building inspector. A quick
toastie at home and a quick walk down the road to the Uniting church and it was
my turn to vote before relieving James at 3pm.
The crowd by this time was dropping off and the volunteers were
keeping to themselves but things were about to get interesting. The Liberal
volunteer was a family friend and although he didn't say it, was disgusted with
where my allegiances lay and for that I will have some explaining to do when
the word gets back to my Mum. The Labor volunteer was a staunch United Firefights Union member and had a go at me thinking that I was a Liberal and that can be understood especially considering my Tee shirt had "True
Liberal" written on it and was blue. Not confusing at all. His focus then
shifted to my family friend whom he called a liar (as in the Liberals)
and after that things got pretty ugly before they quickly agreed not to talk to
each other at all. It's not easy when political decisions put people's
livelihoods at stake and nothing like that to bring out the passion. Then over
to the left was another Liberal volunteer whose role was unclear but did not
want to be engaged with and seemed intent playing with her iPad and possibly
recording our party lines for later use. They appeared rattled.
James leaving seemed to trigger the scenes that were then to
follow. I had literally handed out a few how to vote brochures when an AEC representative rather sternly told me to stop giving them out and to follow him to the side.
Thoughts of my past flooded back and despite not having a police record as far
as I know, my mind wandered and I remember the time as a kid when I tipped
water out of a tree just down the road onto a moving car. It was somewhat a
relief that when AEC rep then said the voting brochures are illegal due to not
having the authorised print on all pages and that I must cease giving them out
immediately. My mind then went into overdrive as I could see our chances
slipping away with each minute. Simply standing there and telling the punters
to Vote 1 Stephen Mayne for the house of reps as they walked into the booth
just wasn't cutting it. It was no surprise that Gabi's phone was engaged and
Steve's wasn't answering either. We were later to find that Steve was
ignorantly blissful to the whole situation as his phone battery had died which was
probably good for his blood pressure.
News got out that brochures were being reprinted back at party
headquarters and by this time James had arrived to relieve the booth. I don't
think I've run that fast in a while to get home and I jumped in my car in a
scene reminiscent of Starsky and Hutch. My wife was home and I think I said
something like "the shit has hit the fan" and I reversed out the
drive at the speed of a thousand arrows. A few locally known shortcuts and I
arrived at party headquarters to get the new brochures. I didn't think the
term party headquarters was meant to be taken literally and I wasn't expecting
to find a kids party in full swing with no one there knowing who Gabi was or
where Steve was. I was told that Party headquarters was elsewhere and as I was
getting on the phone to find out where this was another volunteer arrived to
confirm I was at the right place. I then manoeuvred through the crowd of youths
running amok in the rumpus room and to the back room to find the brains of the
tilt all there. The smell of ink and burning printers was in the air. I felt
fortunate to be given around 50 new how to vote cards and grabbed them before
anyone changed there mind and was back on the road to the Church. By the time I
arrived James was down to his last legal brochure. I still haven't got to the
bottom of how he got his hands on a few of them before I did but it may have
had something to do with the email that Steve fired out in desperation to
all on The Mayne Report list asking for them to print the brochure out and take
to the nearest booth. I reckon that would have got another 10 or so votes that
could have made the difference.
We were now cruising with the new brochures and having a laugh
with the fellow volunteers but the closing rush started to kick in and we were
fast running out. Again instinct kicked in and we were soon shamelessly diving
into the recycling bin to retrieve brochures from the back door of the voting
booth. My brother arrived after working late and chipped in for a valuable
shift on the recycling crew. I'm sure that welded on Liberals were deliberately
screwing up the Mayne brochure but that didn't stop us and were even able to
claim that the Mayne campaign had a Green tinge about it as we were
recycling.
The night was coming to a close and the voters to a trickle. We
had won over our Labor unionists man and the Greens volunteer was happy with
our recycling and the banter was flowing. Our mystery Liberal volunteer still
sat to the side in the shadows of the fading light. Barring the light and weary
bodies we would have gotten a group booth photo with all volunteer comrades
embracing. The word on the wire was that Menzies was close and this was met
with disgust and guffaws from the incumbents. The countdown to 6pm arrived and I
was disappointed that it was almost over. What a roller coaster day it had been
and one that I will not forget for sometime and recommend to anyone that has an
interest in our democratic system and wants the grassroots experience. James
and I shot off to the after party at the Templestowe Bowling Club and despite
the final result becoming obvious fairly quickly we had a fun night talking
about our experiences that day. Stephen gave a concession speech and despite the
loss we all walked away after his speech feeling that we were winners and that
we made a difference. This may not be apparent straight away but I'm sure the
Liberals will now take Menzies more seriously and hopefully we see the benefit
in this term. Thank you Steve for your tireless work and the experience. You
made it fun despite the fact that politics can be quite cynical. I don't
believe that this will be the last time we see you on the Federal front but I'm
sure your family have a big say in that. Best to let the dust settle first. And
last but not least thank you Gabi. You were the oil on the day!
Justin at North Ringwood Primary School 11am until 3pm
Hi Stephen,
Well done on a great campaign. Shame it did not pan
out a little better.
Sorry I did not make it down on Saturday night.
Started watching a bit of Carlton v Collingwood, then after not too long,
Carlton v Collingwood was watching me.
Thankfully for me, Ringwood North Primary was a
fairly calm voting booth – perhaps because of the largely disengaged populace –
I was astonished at the amount of people who were not sure if they were voting
in Menzies or Deakin. SO no war stories to report.
From your email, you noted that the Turnbull
supporting independent perhaps may have not been the best strategy. My two
cents worth – I think the messages were great for engagement prior to voting
day. On voting day, for the (sadly) large majority who either make up their
mind on the way in or just vote the way their parents do, this message might
have been confusing at that late stage. This appeared to be the case on many
occasions while handing out the HTV.
Perhaps
next election, you can get intot he eye of the beast, and challenge for
pre-selection of the liberal party.
Anyway,
up and ownards. I hope to see you again soon.
Take
care, Justin
Andrew at North Ringwood in the morning
Hi Stephen,
Firstly, was great to be involved in the Political process.
My experiences were at the Ringwood North Primary School polling
booth from 8am to 11am on Saturday. I found that the Liberal Party volunteers
tried to 'block' where I stood, so that voters couldn't get Mayne's How to Vote
cards as they walked in.
The other trick that the Liberal Party volunteers did was to 'talk
friendly to you' when a cluster of voters approached the polling area, by that
I mean.... The Liberal Party volunteers tried to distract you at the moment, so
you couldn't hand out voter cards to the cluster of voters.
Noting the above, I used my charm and skill to outsmart the dirty
tricks the Liberal Party volunteers tried on Saturday.... to the point that I
was running out of Mayne's How to Vote Cards by 10.20am, and had to call
Campaign HQ for reinforcements.
Thanks, Andrew
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