THE general public can’t stand dirty politics.
We see it as petty, cheap and nasty, and below the behavioural standards we’d expect from a primary school child, let alone our elected leaders.
But how else can you describe The Nationals’ tactics of buying out the website domain names of rival candidates and using it to smear them?
This week, it was revealed The Nationals had bought the website name of female Upper House candidate Sue Gilroy.
The Nats have plenty of form in this area.
They also own the website name of Mildura’s independent MP Ali Cupper.
“Back when I was first elected, and it was a bit of a surprise election for me, we went to set up the website when we realised that alicupper.com.au had been purchased by the National Party,” Ms Cupper previously told Sunraysia Daily.
“Alicupper.com is an international domain and there aren’t any international laws that govern that.
“Unless they agree to give that back, they can continue to own it and use it to run a grubby, dirty, misleading smear campaign against me.”
And then there was the targeting of Member for Murray Helen Dalton.
The Nats bought the Shooters Fishers and Farmers member’s domain name before Ms Dalton made a complaint to the regulator to fight to get it back.
The personal attacks on these rival MPs also include letterbox drops, which in the Mildura electorate have included flyers with QR codes sending users to the alicupper.com website.
Seriously? Is this the level we have stooped to in Australian politics?
Little wonder so many people have a low opinion of government and politicians.
What these marketing gurus at The Nationals fail to understand, however, is that the only brand they are damaging by engaging in such gutter politics is their own.
And, by extension, that damages the image of their own members on the ground.
Take Federal Member for Mallee and Nationals member Anne Webster.
What must she make of the tactic?
Dr Webster and Ms Cupper differ in their politics. But, having met with them on a number of occasions, I consider them both smart, community-minded and likeable women who operate with dignity.
But The Nationals’ tactic to undermine hard-working women with grubby social media attacks flies in the face of what Dr Webster stands for.
Consider this. Just recently, our Federal member upped the stakes in her campaign against misinformation on social media, calling on the government to develop laws holding the big technology companies to account.
Dr Webster’s call for new laws was motivated by personal experience of being targeted on social media.
“For several months in 2020, my husband and I, as well as the charity we founded to help single mothers access education, were the targets of baseless and defamatory accusations made by a conspiracy theorist on Facebook,” she said recently. “It was unrelenting for months.”
While there is a need to operate with unity in a political party, Dr Webster should not stand for the ongoing tactics by The Nationals.
She should march into the offices of Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack and Victorian Nationals leader Peter Walsh and demand it stop. Now.
She should ask both what they would say to a child who stole another child’s website name to smear their reputation. Ask them if they consider that dignified behaviour befitting the highest offices in our land. Or just boorish bullying that should see them kicked out of class.
