Albo and ScoMo reveal tipple of choice
Campaign Confidential: A hard earned candidate’s thirst needs a big cold beer, so we’ve asked ScoMo and Albo about their favourite brews. Then we get a bit more serious.
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Hey, true brew
You can get it talking. You can get it walking. And you can even getting it gaffing. A hard earned candidate’s thirst needs a big cold beer, so we decided to ask ScoMo and Albo about their tipple of choice. ScoMo said he drinks both the lager and the Indian Pale Ale from Hairy Man Brewery, located in his electorate, which “he loves so much they stock it on the RAAF plane”. And Albo’s favourite is The Albo, produced by Willie the Boatman Brewery near Sydney. They’ve even produced a limited edition pale ale for the election – red tin and all – featuring a photo of a younger hotter Albo. Word has it, sales are strong.
Drama for Sharma
THE tension within the Libs over Katherine Deves could not be more red-hot, with Scott Morrison,Jane Hume, Angus Taylor and Michael Sukkar backing the controversial candidate for Warringah, and Josh Frydenberg, Marise Payne, Anne Ruston and NSW Treasurer Matt Kean all slamming her for a litany of disparaging comments on sexual and gender minorities. But so far we’ve heard not a peep on Deves’s candidacy from Dave Sharma, the Liberal MP for Wentworth, widely renowned as the pinkest electorate in Australia. There’s been nothing on his website, or social media feeds, and he recently advised he would not be able to participate in a Wentworth candidates’ forum organised by Doctors for the Environment next Tuesday. (Campaign Confidential hears Sharma’s decision prompted the ABC’s Norman Swan to withdraw as moderator.) A recent ad for Sharma in a gay community publication featured a message of support from ACON (formerly the AIDS Council of NSW), which thanked Sharma for “displaying courage in standing up for vulnerable people in our community, particularly young trans people and their families”. Will he say something before the final deadline for candidates passes on Thursday at midday? Clock is ticking, Dave.
Candidate no-show
Sharma is not the only Liberal candidate declining forums right now. In the south western Sydney seat of Werriwa, the Hoxton Park Anglican Church has advised that local Liberal candidate Wassam (Sam) Kayal has declined an invitation to speak at its forum next Tuesday. Werriwa is Labor to its bootstraps (held by the party since 1934, it was once Gough Whitlam’s seat), but we reckon the 33,000 voters who ticked Liberal in Werriwa in 2019 (many of whom also got a Liberal elected in the recent Liverpool council elections) might have liked to have heard from the party’s candidate this time around.
More spam, wham!
Australia’s media regulator has warned voters to expect more text messages from political parties this election, despite receiving 8000 complaints in the wake of UAP leader Craig Kelly’s unsolicited mass texts in 2021. On Tuesday the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) confirmed candidates were legally allowed to send political messages during the campaign, saying the Spam Act of 2003 only regulates unsolicited commercial messages, and political texts do not need to offer recipients a way to unsubscribe. Political messages do, however, need to feature an authorisation indicating their source, ACMA said. A proposal allowing Aussies to opt out of political messages was considered in 2019 but shut down by a parliamentary committee. Thanks a bunch to whoever it was who allowed that to happen.
A rush on the rolls
The close of the voter rolls led to a predictable last-minute rush, with a record 214,000 Aussies lodging applications on Monday alone, adding to the half a million who had already done so since the calling of the election. While it will take a few days to get final figures, the AEC expects there will be around 17.2 million Aussies on the electoral roll come May 21, or 97 per cent of the eligible population. This would be a slight increase on 2019, when 96 per cent of eligible Aussies enrolled. Go democracy! Go us!
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Originally published as Albo and ScoMo reveal tipple of choice
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