BREAKING: MEMBER for Mildura Ali Cupper has severed ties with the Reason Party.
The shock news came after Ms Cupper was accused early yesterday of being a “hypocrite” and “game player” after the party she was in coalition with bought the domain names of three Victorian National Party MPs earlier this year.
The Reason Party secured the domain names of Victorian Nationals leader Peter Walsh and two of his colleagues, Member for Lowan Emma Kealy and Gippsland MP Danny O’Brien, in response to the Nats buying Ms Cupper’s domain name.
Website searches this week for peterwalsh.com.au, emmakealy.com.au and dannyobrien.com.au were all directed to the Reason Party’s home page, which states: “Its (sic) time for Reason! People before politics” before seeking “big or small” donations.
Both Mr Walsh and Ms Kealy slammed Ms Cupper for being linked to an act of hypocrisy after she labelled the Nats’ similar move in February as “gutter politics” and “highly misleading”.
“As deputy leader of Reason, Ali Cupper must decide: Will she stand with Mildura or will she stand by as her Reason Party leader secretly revels in the so-called ‘gutter politics’ that Ms Cupper publicly claims to despise?” Mr Walsh said yesterday.
Late yesterday, Ms Cupper contacted Sunraysia Daily to say that she was ending her alliance with the Reason Party, which was formed in December last year.
“I entered the coalition with the best of intentions, but I am not prepared to be drawn into party politics and game playing at the expense of my values and reputation,” Ms Cupper said.
“All my constituents want is hard work and results. No games. No distractions.
“The coalition with the Reason Party was, to my mind, a way of increasing the influence of the Mildura electorate in the upper house, particularly on regional rate reform, which is of critical importance to our community.”
In a dramatic day, the Mildura independent MP earlier conceded she was aware that a staff member of Ms Patten’s had bought up the three rival MPs’ domain names about three months ago, shortly after the Nats created the alicupper.com website.
Ms Kealy said Ms Cupper’s silence since the Nats’ websites were created by Reason “speaks volumes and smacks of hypocrisy”.
“Ali Cupper is not a game changer, she’s a game player,” Ms Kealy said.
“(This has) exposed Ms Cupper’s attempt to smear others for what she labelled ‘gutter politics’ as a deceptive facade.”
Ms Cupper earlier yesterday said the domain names were registered by an advisor in Ms Patten’s office “not with my approval”.
“One of Fiona’s staff members found out that, what do you know, Peter Walsh hasn’t registered his domain name,” she said.
“He was saying to the Nats that, ‘We’ll give yours back if you give Ali’s back’.”
When Sunraysia Daily put it to Ms Cupper that this was schoolyard tit-for-tat stuff, she replied: “I know, that’s right.
“That’s why I never got involved in it. I was aware that they did it, but it was not of my making.”
In a statement yesterday, Ms Patten said the Reason move against the Nats was in defence of Ms Cupper.
“When I read the Nats denigrating Ali Cupper for not having secured her .com website and then using it to further denigrate her I had a quick look and was surprised that the Nats had not secured their own websites,” said Ms Patten, an influential upper house MP.
“I am a bit surprised it has taken so many months to realise but I’m happy to relinquish their sites and would hope they would do the same with Ali’s site.
“She is worth at least three of them.”
Ms Cupper said she had been proud to stand alongside Ms Patten and would always admire her.
Ms Cupper holds the seat of Mildura after beating the Nationals’ sitting MP, Peter Crisp, by just 254 votes at the 2018 poll.
In a speech in state parliament on March 3, Ms Cupper accused the Nats of “galling hypocrisy” after their domain attack against her.
“The big parties purchased my domain name to run a campaign of public humiliation against me,” she said.
“The big parties may not understand, but voters are connecting the dots. They are connecting the dots when they consider matters of integrity and the conduct of politicians and big parties, of all of us.
“They are seeing the galling hypocrisy in this, and it is not covering anyone in glory.”
When asked if she had any regrets about not doing more to shut down the Reason retaliation, Ms Cupper replied:
“At the time I made it clear I wasn’t comfortable with it.
“”I don’t engage in gutter politics. I have contacted the Reason Party today, of which I’m not a member, and asked them to relinquish those names immediately.”
