Parkes votes: Cryptic Independent Stuart Howe’s bizarre anti-media strategy
A political outsider is implementing a counter-intuitive method of getting elected in an ultra-rusted on seat in NSW’s far west.
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A mysterious political wannabe is taking a peculiar approach to his campaign in an attempt to reach the House of Representatives.
The self-proclaimed “true independent” Stuart Howe is running for the electorate of Parkes, the largest geographical seat in NSW, but the man who references experience working in the “banking sector” has dodged multiple media requests.
Mr Howe has rejected three invitations to speak with NewsLocal reporters as well as knocking back ACM’s Dubbo masthead The Daily Liberal and stand-alone newspapers The Gilgandra Weekly and The Cobar Weekly.
The aspiring pollie didn’t just turn down the media requests in his long-winded replies, he also warned the journalists his comments were “completely off the record” and “not to be publicly published by your newspaper in any way, shape or form” – before publishing the correspondence on his Facebook page.
Mr Howe, whose campaign videos suggest he is running for the far western NSW seat from the Newcastle suburb of New Lambton, also rejected the NSW Farmers Association’s request to speak at a “meet the candidates” forum in North Star earlier this month because his decision to “be stationery [sic] throughout the entire election campaign”.
In response to the question of why he isn’t accepting face-to-face or over-the-phone interviews, Mr Howe said it was because he wanted to be “fully transparent” and to avoid being exposed to a “gotcha moment”.
“I am personally tired of leaders being forced off the top of their head in so-called ‘gotcha’ moments so that some in the media can make political mileage from it,” Mr Howe said in an email.
“It would be remiss of anybody to suggest that the political bias that is simply oozing from many publications … the average person being the voters/electors in my opinion, and my opinion only, have had enough, well at least I have.
“I have made it plain and clear to my electorate and the voters within that electorate from the beginning I will be fully transparent and [sic] every written conversation that I have, so that there is no misinterpretation of what is said.”
Mr Howe has outlined his stance on a range of issues on his eclectic website, which features videos of him riding a bike and running around with chickens, but he backed away from the opportunity to expand on his views.
Mr Howe also refused to answer if he were to be elected, if he would be doing all of his dealings via email and he didn’t clarify where he was from when asked why someone from Newcastle was running for a seat hundreds of kilometres away.
Media or not, Mr Howe is unlikely to make any significant inroads in Parkes which has always voted Nationals since its 1984 inception with former deputy speaker Mark Coulton holding the seat by 16.9 per cent.
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