Election special No 1 – Ratbags of Riverina

Welcome to The Antibogan’s first election special.

We hope to regularly feature some of the more bizarre election candidates who will be surfacing between now and September 7.

Naturally they will either be standing as candidates for extremist micro-parties or as independents. However we do know of some who have made their way into mainstream parties.  Just check our tag cloud.

First on the ratbag rollercoaster is the Federal Division of Riverina in south-west NSW on the banks of the Murray.

Electors of Riverina are faced with no less than four fringe candidates out of a total of seven. There must be something in the water down there.

1. Lex Stewart (Palmer United Party)

We first featured serial party person Lex Stewart here

Obviously Clive Palmer is not aware of his candidate’s colourful past, or if he is he does not care.

Lex lives in the otherwise nice little Snowy Mountains town of Adaminaby (above the waterline we trust) and has a Facebook page here where he is still espousing protectionism and strangely enough supporting a Family First page as well as some Clive candidates – so it’s back to the 50s with Lex, family style.

Despite all those wholesome Mad Men-era family values we doubt if Nationals incumbent Michael McCormack, sitting on a margin of 18.2%, has much to worry about from Party Boy.

2. Lorraine Sharp (Australia First Party)

Holding up the somewhat saggy neo-Nazi end in the bush is Lorraine Sharp. She has a policy declaration on the Australia First website (which we don’t wish to link to) where she invites people to take revenge upon the political class (students of Political Science at CSU Wagga campus be warned!) then goes on with the usual League of Rights – derived rant about globalisation, locking the dollar up etc etc – more nostalgia for a lost world that wasn’t all that good in the first place.

She doesn’t much like Chinese people though.

To quote her:

I see the Chinese trade centre in Wagga Wagga as the spider in the middle of the web of overseas takeover of our land and an agency of a pure and simple imperialism.

Nor does she much like Wagga City Council

Shades of the Yellow Peril!

Though we are glad to see that Lorraine at least has the decency to keep her shirt on and to not display any dodgy swastika tatts, unlike most of the male AFP fans. That might get a couple of votes. Her and hubby perhaps.

3. Paul Funnell (Democratic Labor Party)

On the surface this guy seems very mild-mannered. Almost normal in a conservative sort of way. According to the DLP website

Paul was born and raised in West Wyalong, educated by the Christian Brothers and has experience owning and managing small businesses

However a look at the policies of the DLP reveal that not much has changed since the days of Bob Santamaria and Brian Harradine. No joy for supporters of marriage equality, not much for women, ambiguous policies towards refugees and asylum seekers and religious bodies are allowed to discriminate in employment and service provision.

Only difference is the bogeymen under the beds have changed hue from red to green. Though according to the DLP their lives all began at conception.

And Paul is keen to have a mass “great debate”

4. Kim Heath (Rise Up Australia)

Here’s schoolteacher Kim ready to fight the good fight against the Muslamic hordes teeming into Riverina. Good luck with reconciling her teaching career with being the public face of a party of hate and bigotry.

This must be the worst campaign photo we have ever seen. Makes us wonder whether Mad Danny really wants her to get any votes.

In other news

Election 2013 – guide to the freak show

Dennis Jensen MP tells Indigenous woman to get over colonialism

And thanks to the source of the pictures