And here, I’m afraid, I’ve drawn a blank. Gary Mannion, congratulations, you are officially the most elusive candidate so far in this election. There are, as it turns out, a number of Gary Mannions on the internet. One of them is a psychic surgeon, which sounds like far more fun than writing about politics. Another is a politician – but in Massachusetts, not Melton. A third Gary Mannion is a country musician in South Australia. I was getting high hopes of another music video, but I’m pretty sure this is the wrong Gary Mannion too.
In short, I don’t know who this candidate is. I do have one lead on a Gary Mannion who lives in the right suburb and trains greyhounds, and while my gut feeling is that this is the write chap, I can’t say for sure that it really is. This particular Gary Mannion has a few political things on his Facebook page, including a poster saying that what Australia needs is more unemployed politicians, and also a petition to ban Halal certification fees.
And that’s it.
In terms of where he stands with the various political parties, People Power put him at 11th, which is quite a good effort, and the Liberal Democrats, who I am beginning to suspect just like ungrouped Independents generally, put him at 19th. Nobody else is too keen. The Greens and ALP put him at 26th, the Liberals at 29th. The Cyclists and Palmer United both put him at the bottom of their ticket. Given the possible association with greyhounds, I was curious to see where the Animal Justice Party put him, but they put him at 30th, which is below the major parties and the parties that they actually like, but above their least favourite groups (right wing Christian parties and parties belonging to people who like hunting). I don’t think this counts as evidence either way.
In fact, this whole post is basically a very long way of saying “I have no idea who this guy is or who he stands for.”Sorry, folks!
I can’t even fathom why somebody would stand for public office and then put out no information about themselves, yet it seems there is at least one such individual on the ballot every election. Seems like a huge waste of their time and money in registering to me. Why put yourself on the ballot if you aren’t going to reach out and give people reasons to vote for you? It’s a shame that most other parties rarely put any effort into identifying the independents (even those who do properly promote themselves) or preferencing them in accordance with any ideology, logic, or strategy. You can immediately tell those parties that haven’t even tried if all the independents are bunched together in the middle or at the end – though I get a giggle when I see the Save the Planet candidate in Northern Metropolitan placed in the middle by very conservative parties who, if they bothered to find out who she was, would have put her right at the bottom.
Anyway, that’s my little rant. I actually intended to comment just to compliment your posts. As somebody who is also reviewing all the candidates (or at least all those in Northern Metropolitan), I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading your posts – and not just because I’m generally in agreement with what you say! I just did my entry on the No Smart Meters party, possibly the most daft and petty single issue party I’ve ever seen, so I look forward to reading your thoughts on them.
Greetings, O my fellow dweller in the insane little island that is small parties!
I’m right there with you in being bemused about people standing for Parliament but not giving voters any idea of what they might be voting for. Perhaps it’s one of those things where you go “Right, I’ve had enough, I’m going to DO something about all this,” and then sort of run out of steam?
I have to say, I took a peek at the Smart Meters people a couple of weeks ago, and my evil side is quite looking forward to reading up on them. There seem to be some deeply weird ideas on that website.
I searched the Email address that this bloke gave to VEC (gazza01_@hotmail.com, searching for “gazza01” brings up a lot of Australian forum users, but they don’t show any connection). It turns up on a pertition to keep Greyhound racing at Wimbledon Stadium in the UK, so I think that’s a clear enough link to say that he’s the man you settled on.
Besides that, he’s apparently not religious. To quote this page:
http://www.rationalist.com.au/candidates-in-victorian-election-reject-special-religious-instruction/
“I believe that religion is something that shouldn’t be in schools. I am not religious and I believe that religion is an outdated fairy tale created by man so that he can have power over the people he wishes to dominate.”
Now I really should stop getting distracted and go to vote…
Thanks for that! I, too, had little luck with his email address, but it does sound as though we can view the greyhounds as confirmed. Pity. I had my heart set on getting a psychic surgeon into office…