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!
