For a moment I’d thought Warnie had moved states and was standing for the Libs in Indifference 2007 but no. It was Brenton Pavier, the now ex-Liberal candidate for Wyong, in trouble for inappropriate text messaging. Incidentally, Pavier had hit the news a day earlier when the Daily Telegraph discover his dating site profile.
Brenton Pavier, a Liberal councillor and the candidate for Wyong, was disendorsed by the party last night amid revelations he had forwarded an “inappropriate” SMS around Christmas to several people, including a woman.
It purported to come from a Civic video store, and apparently said: “The video you have ordered about how to have sex with men with small penises is ready for collection and the DVD titled Anal Sex with Goats is overdue.”
Councillor Pavier told the Herald he had sent the message to “three or four friends” and had been “stitched up” by his political rivals. “It is sad that friends who you forward jokes to during Christmas time would do this,” he said. “Someone has been sitting on this with ulterior motives to get square with me.”
We could muse whether the contents of the SMS could even be construed as a joke but let’s leave it at “boorish” and have a look at how the Central Coast is shaping up in Indifference 2007.
The Liberals have targeted the Central Coast as an area where they could gain a few seats. Using Antony Green’s helpful guide lets have a look at the seats. This pdf (warning – a little large) shows the boundaries of the electorates.
Gosford (in which I will vote) is a new electorate created via a redistribution. It encompasses most of the old seat of Peats which is the key. The Liberals have never won Peats and unlikely to do so this time around.
Terrigal is the other new electorate from the redistribution of Peats. Chris Hartcher was the MP for Gosford and is likely to become the MP for Terrigal.
Heading north and The Entrance has been in Labor hands since 1992 after a by-election. Green’s trivia notes that the by-election helped push then Liberal Premier Nick Greiner into introducing fixed 4 year terms for the NSW parliament. This could be a seat to watch.
Wyong could have been an interesting race. The current MP, Paul Crittenden, is retiring so the Liberals must have felt they were in with a chance with former Mayor Pavier. With the Liberals campaign pretty well sunk Labor should get home.
Lake Macquarie bridges both the Central Coast and the Hunter Valley. There is a protest vote against Labor with Lake Macquarie Mayor Greg Piper running as an independent. There is a perception that Labor takes for granted its strangle hold on the Hunter based electorates.
The big issue on the coast is water. Local sentiment is against desalination so the Liberal’s water policy could play well (with focus on recycling). The other issue that is on local minds is development. There are elements pushing for greater development (especially high rises) on the coast. Debra Wales, a former Liberal councillor and state candidate, is running as an independent in Gosford is infamous for pushing a pro-development line. The Outrigger Resort at Ettalong was not a popular decision and has made residents wary of any future high rise developments.
The battle for the Central Coast will still be interesting even if the seats are likely to continue to stay as they are now. The results will be a good indicator of how much ground the Liberals have gained at Labor’s expense.
I’m afraid that if sending text messages such as the comparitively mild abovementioned one is grounds for disendorsement, then most everybody amongst my staff, professional colleagues, neighbors, tenants, guests, patrons, contemporaries and especially my secretary is ineligible to EVER stand for office.
How ironic.
Brenton Pavier has simultaneously ended his career as a parliamentarian and as a comedy writer.
(However, one could argue that those DVD titles are survival guides for aspiring Liberal politicians.)
For that we are extremely grateful, steve at the pub.
That’s me out and most of my industry!
joe2 moves towards the flapping doors of ‘Steves Bar and Grill’ and rapidly removes himself before what he has said sinks in.
Can’t have real people in politics, can we now… politics is 100% pure plastic!
SteveAtThePub:
So that’s why the LibLabs are bereft of real talent…..
Shaun and Everyone:
It’s obvious that he was disendorsed because he showed that he was more inspired and relevant to the electorate than all the oxygen-wasters in his party.
Graham, you are close to the truth in some ways. The parochial reaction on the Coast is “He’s from Wyong. Whaddya expect?”
Pavier is running as an independent.
Via (shamefaced shuffle) The Other Cheek http://andrewlanderyou.blogspot.com/2007/02/got-his-goat-disendorsed-goat-sex.html
Was any of the recipients actually OFFENDED at the sms from Mr. disendorsed candidate?
Probably only the goat fuckers who returned the video to the wrong store…
Still worthy of revenge though…
By my reading, one of them was either genuinely offended, or not as good a friend as Cr Pavier thought.
“Was any of the recipients actually OFFENDED at the sms from Mr. disendorsed candidate?”
That really depends on how many of them were sexually frustrated ruminants standing on their diginity and /or had diminutive generative organs. I’m guessing enough to swing the next pre-selection vote the other way.
Whether or not anyone was actually offended by the fictitious titles is immaterial.
The point is that the god-bothering looneys who run the NSW branch of the Liberal Party had to pretend to be offended.
To fail to produce a reasonable facsimile of moral outrage would be seen as a betrayal of their Christian fundamentalist core constituency.
Please relish the absurdity of it all:
A lame reference to non-existent DVD titles
provokes
Faux moral outrage
confected for
Persons who adhere to a strange set of Middle Eastern myths
who are happy to support a political party that his doomed itself to permanent irrelevance
so long as they can go on pretending that their favoured politicians
are as
emotionally, sexually and spiritually repressed
as they are.
An unfunny example of a Liberal’s “humour”.
As pointed out the SMH editorial, Debnam had to act against Pavier. If he stayed on he would have been a joke himself. Either way the Liberal compaign was screwed.
The next time a Lib accuses the ALP of ‘political correctness’, or the next time a newspaper complains about boring, tightly controlled candidates, we should point to this case and laugh at them for ignoring their own hypocrisy.
You get boring, tightly-controlled candidates because of hyper-conformism like this, which appears to be very common in Australia.
No Katz.
You are lying.
Everyone knows all the girly-men are on your side of the political fence.
Lets have that retraction fella.
The point that Pavier is from Wyong is a good one – Pavier says he was undone by a former council colleague who is his independent opponent in the state election. That independent’s slogan was ‘we’re screwed’.
Myself, I think Debnam has done the right thing. Goodness knows, goats and men with small penises do not deserve to have their reputations traduced by the likes of Liberals.
What a ludicrous claim to make when everybody knows that the majority of New South Wales is on Katz’ side of the political fence. Nice to see the silent minority squeak up every now and then though.
Now there’s a criminal misuse of a perfectly good petrie dish.
And a step away from life as we know it.
Some commentary on Wyong in The Poll Bludger’s Week 1 wrap-up:
http://www.pollbludger.com/447