Geoff Lutz, ah, Geoff Lutz – who are you, what do you want, and why should we vote for you?
Alas, as far as the internet is concerned, Mr Lutz is a ghost, a mere shadow, a wraith, with no discernable presence whatsoever. The AEC tells me that he is a semi-retired orchardist. Make of this what you will.
Clearly, he knows something about fruit. But is he the apple of our eye, or just another political lemon? The cherry on our political sundae, or a nut in our electoral fruitcake?
We may never know.
I choose to believe that all he is saying is give peach a chance.
(… yeah, I really have no idea, sorry, though I’m guessing he will be in favour of supporting farmers. Everybody else is, and they don’t even have orchards.)
I managed to find a smidgen more about Geoff Lutz, mainly his previous political activity, but it’s still not terribly helpful: http://axvoter.tumblr.com/post/146650059125/blatantly-partisan-party-review-lv-victorias
I do notice, however, that you have been a bit more generous and forgiving to the independents than me. I’ve realised that through the course of my reviews I get a bit grumpier, probably from reading the same shit over and over again. But with these ungrouped indies in particular, I have an innate suspicion: why can’t they find a single friend to run with? They don’t even need a party; just one friend and they’ll get a square above the line. I recall a past federal election where this guy ran with his wife and daughter. His website was entirely about him, not even a mention of these two women in his life, but he still used them successfully to get a square above the line. (Don’t start me on the associated patriarchy rant!)
Of course, I know the answer to my question: some are genuinely bonkers and nobody would join them; some simply don’t realise that getting a mate would give them a square above the line; and others are so wedded to the idea of independence that they wouldn’t compromise it even with a mate. But the doubt keeps lurking in my mind.
Fair enough too! And thank you! I try to give them the benefit of the doubt, because my experience with political parties when I tried going to a few meetings (Labor, Green) was that there was such a strong pressure to conform that I found it very uncomfortable. And I’m not very good at compromise myself. So I have a little bit of sympathy for people who don’t want to join a party, or even start one. But I am probably fairly innately optimistic about people, my default tends to be sarcastic rather than grumpy, and bonkers or not, I do appreciate that all of these would-be politicians are trying to make Australia a better place, even when I feel strongly that their policies will actually make things worse.
And this batch of independents isn’t too bad, all things considered (though I still don’t understand why you would run for the Senate and then put nothing about yourself or your policies online!).
And, on a rather more sober note, I’m a woman expressing political opinions on the internet, and that can attract a certain very special sort of commenter which I’d rather avoid if I can. While I will not water down my opinions about parties or independents that I think are misogynist, racist or otherwise toxic, it’s always a little bit scary writing about them. I try not to let this affect what I write, but it does make me careful in my phrasing. Which is a bit depressing, really.
I remember my first election in 2007 being unable to find information about a couple of the independents. That year it was somewhat excusable – if you were an older person, the Internet probalby seemed like an optional extra or a source of confusion. But by now there’s no excuse. Especially not for somebody like Lutz, who clearly has experience in local government and in campaigning at state level.
I’m also surprised that so many people this year have dropped $2,000 on a doomed below the line candidacy. I’ve had people suggest to me that it’s for the thrill of seeing your name on the ballot, and I can be pretty cynical about motivations, but I really cannot imagine people being that keen to drop so much cash just to have everybody in the state skim over their name on the ballot.
I must admit I’m surprised I’ve received almost no negative comments to my reviews, especially given my blunt style. Is it the straight white male privilege? (I’m not sure how clearly those qualities come through in my writing, though I have stated my Pākehā ethnicity in a few entries.) Is it that nobody’s reading? Is that I chose a platform where you need to have an account and be logged in to comment, and the Tumblr demographic is slanted a particular way? Probably a combination of all three. I have considered moving to another platform, but I like that the tagging system of Tumblr puts my work in front of a lot of people for fairly little effort. I haven’t the tenacity to establish a blog such as yours. But I am waiting for the day some crazy racist gets stuck into me for denouncing One Nationa/Australian Liberty/Australia First/whatever.
Have you seen the lovely people on my Australia First Post? My favourite was the one who called me pervaded.
I’m about to send some readers your way, incidentally. Hopefully they will be the polite ones!
I have no idea about the privilege thing – the one death threat I got was from someone who thought I was male anyway. And your blog doesn’t give many clues to your identity! If there is any privilege at play, it is (perhaps?) that you don’t necessarily think about the nasty comments you might get when you write such a post, and thus are less tempted to self edit. But perhaps you do and are simply less timid than I am!
Yes I am still alive and live in North Essendon Village and believe in representative democracy which doesn’t seem to have significant meaning for most elected elected members of local,state or federal members.
Too true, alas! Lovely to meet you at last!
Ok