Redland politics sink to ‘all-time’ low after Laming allegations

Politics in Redland City have hit an all-time low, and have been described as a canker, rife with personal jibes, aggressive party politics and deep-seated hatreds being played out on social media.

Clockwise from top left: Andrew Laming; Don Brown; Karen Williams; Paul Gleeson; Peter Dowling

Politics in Redland City have hit an all-time low, and have been described as a canker, rife with personal jibes, aggressive party politics and deep-seated hatreds being played out on social media.

Redland political observers have spoken out about the city’s toxic “small-town” mentality days after long-serving federal MP Andrew Laming announced he would not recontest his seat of Bowman following harassment allegations.

The labelling comes less than a week after the city was named in state parliament for its politics hitting an all-time low.

Mr Laming apologised after the allegations he harassed the head of a homeless charity and the wife of a local councillor.

He also apologised for taking a photo of a female employee in a workplace without asking first but said he believed the photo was in no way compromising.

He defended his actions saying he had been “asking the hard questions” about people in public office and that had now been “reinvented as harassment”.

But this week’s claims about Mr Laming are not the first time Redland city has been tarred with having toxic politics.

Last week, Capalaba MP Don Brown told state parliament Redlands politics had hit an all-time low after Redland City councillor Rowanne McKenzie had failed to answer media questions about a Facebook account under the name Scarlett Rivers.

Redland City councillor Rowanne McKenzie; the Scarlett Rivers Facebook Page and Capalaba MP Don Brown.

Parliament heard that police documents revealed the IP address of the computer used to create the Scarlett Rivers profile, and to send emails, was traced to the home of Cr McKenzie.

It was alleged in parliament that the Facebook account and an associated email address were used to make claims against Sheena Hewlett, the wife of Redland City councillor Lance Hewlett, with messages sent to Mrs Hewlett’s place of work.

Mrs Hewlett was one of the women who accused Mr Laming of harassment last week.

Mr Laming said he had no links with the Scarlett Rivers account.

Mrs Hewlett’s sparring with Mr Laming stems back to 2013 when her brother, former Redlands MP Peter Dowling, was sacked after photos emerged of his penis in a glass of red wine.

After the LNP disendorsed her brother in 2014, Mrs Hewlett mounted a campaign for his seat as an independent candidate.

Mr Laming then led a successful Supreme Court challenge against Mrs Hewlett on election day barring her from handing out how-to-vote cards because they were registered after the deadline.

The sparring continued in 2017 when Mr Dowling accused Mr Laming of not doing anything for Redlands and Mr Laming retaliated saying he had endorsed Mr Dowling “while he was fiddling in red wine”.

In the past month, state parliament was also the forum for further Redlands shenanigans when Capalaba MP Don Brown and his LNP counterpart Oodgeroo MP Mark Robinson exchanged jibes through the office of the Parliamentary Clerk twice.

Mr Brown accused Mr Robinson of jeopardising a court case involving a juvenile when he mentioned a fatal crash and the LNP then took Mr Brown to task over claims, later found to be inaccurate, that he swore in parliament. No action was taken against either but Mr Robinson apologised to parliament after inadvertently breaching standing orders.

Nasty politics have also been a major component at the local government level where Mayor Karen Williams was allegedly suing the Capalaba MP Mr Brown for defamation.

Redland Mayor Karen Williams who has also gone head to head with Capalaba MP Don Brown.

It was Cr Williams who urged her councillors to sign up to a “pledge not to sledge” campaign in 2018, the same year her councillor Paul Gleeson misused Facebook.

Cr Gleeson was fined $2100 by the state government’s Councillor Conduct Tribunal in 2019 for threatening a councillor and social media use, including making derogatory comments.

But Redland has had more than a decade of nasty online sparring between politicians from both sides of the political divide.

Australian Institute for Progress executive director Graham Young, a former consultant on Shoreline, the city’s largest housing estate, said Redlands politics “seemed to be a lot pettier and nastier than other places”.

Graham Young Australian Institute of Progress

“I remember there being attacks on Karen Williams by other councillors saying petty and false things about her,” he said.

“I watch the stuff on social media and the things that happen and I thought it was a pretty toxic environment all up.

“I put that down to it being a small community where a lot of them went to school together and I figure there were fights in the playground being prosecuted as adults.”

Karen Williams met her husband Peter when they were going to school in Redland and Don Brown’s father was also a politician in the area.

The parents of Sheena Hewlett and her brother also lived and worked in the Redlands.

Advocacy group Redlands2030 president Chris Walker said the Redland nastiness stemmed from the city being a small subculture community.

“In reality, this is a dormitory suburb of Brisbane which has an anachronistic council that could easily be done away with,” he said.

“We have a federal MP who is more interested in small-town politics and we are over governed with councillors who don’t have enough to do.

“None of the local councillors are accountable because there is no process like there is at federal or state level where the public can ask councillors or the mayor direct questions.”

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