Cleat cheats? You be the judge
Victorious Lord Mayor Graham Quirk should
start his fresh four-year council term with a promise to Brisbane voters to
never again publish LNP political material that mimics official Brisbane City
Council designs. Those copycat images blighted much of his team’s electioneering
material over recent years – they were all pervasive during the recent
municipal election – and this paper suspects the imagery was designed to
mislead and trick voters.It’s a suspicion The Independent is entitled to hold
since we started asking questions last year after seeing the distinctive
pattern of blue and yellow blocks on all sorts of LNP election material that to
our eyes looked identical to the distinctive pattern of blue and yellow blocks
used on official BCC material.The council calls that livery – a distinctive
pattern of colours or shapes – its “cleat” and council rules are clear: it
cannot be used for political purposes and is reserved for official council use.
Cr Quirk and his staff were unable to explain why their copycat cleat design
was used, even though the Lord Mayor himself accepted that the BCC cleat should
never be used for political purposes. In some short, sharp answers to this
newspaper during the recent campaign, Cr Quirk accepted he and his LNP
candidates are banned under council rules from using the official cleat for
electioneering. But his blunt, final answer – LNP political advertising
material does not use the council cleat or the BCC logo – did nothing to dampen
our suspicions. We can rightly respond: really, Lord Mayor? Ones that look
very, very much like it are somehow okay? The questions he answered – and more
importantly the very reasonable follow-up ones he ignored – are reprinted on
page 3. He could not be bothered to reply to our questions on whether he
accepted that the lookalike cleat could lead people to believe it was the real
one, giving candidate material the aura of being official council
correspondence. He was also silent on our suggestion that an apology would be
in order if that were the case.In the absence of any explanation from the LNP
civic leader – and we thought politicians loved to talk, especially in
campaigns – we’ll help him out. At left is a collage of three documents, two of
which run the official council cleat down their left-hand side. The bottom one
is the official letterhead of now retired long-term Central Ward councillor
David Hinchliffe. The one in the middle, a pamphlet on City Cycle when Campbell
Newman was Lord Mayor, also uses the official council cleat. The front leaflet,
circulated by Central Ward LNP candidate Vicki Howard in the spring of 2011,
apparently does not use the official council cleat. It’s the LNP version – the one Cr Quirk obviously believes his team are entitled
to use.The Independent will put it bluntly: the use on LNP material of the same
colours, in the same block formation, in the same left-hand position as BCC
material surely cannot be an unfortunate coincidence. And if it was done
deliberately, then that makes for shonky, tricky political tactics that have no
place in our election processes. How does that old saying go? If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and waddles like a duck,
then it’s probably a duck. So let’s apply that old saying to the LNP’s copycat
cleat: if it has the same colours as the official BCC cleat, if it’s used in
vertical alternating blocks of colour the same as the BCC’s official cleat, and
is placed down the left-hand margin of all sorts of images just like the BCC’s
cleat, then it’s probably the BCC’s cleat. And even if it’s not, a very large
number of people are going to believe it is. And therein lies The Independent’s
problem with the far-too-clever by half use of this imagery for many, many
months now.This paper finds it impossible to believe that the LNP somehow randomly
selected blue and yellow colours that are indistinguishable from the colours on
the official city council cleat. We find it impossible to believe that the LNP
somehow randomly decided to use a pattern of blocks of those two colours in an
alternating vertical pattern. And we find it impossible to believe that the LNP
somehow randomly decided to use that imagery down the left-hand margin of
documents exactly where it’s used on official council material.In the absence
of any attempt by the Lord Mayor to answer our very reasonable followup
questions, we are entitled to suspect that if it look like a deliberate attempt
to mislead and deceive, then it probably is a deliberate attempt to mislead and
deceive. But let’s try to mount the defence the Lord Mayor might have offered
if he’d bothered to respond. If he had said the colours of the blocks are
different on the LNP’s copycat cleat, then sadly the answer is no. The City
Cycle and Vicki Howard pamphlets are both printed on gloss paper and the blue
on each is indistinguishable, as is the yellow. Maybe he would argue that the
yellow and blue blocks are larger on Ms Howard’s document. That’s true enough,
but when they are blown up to the same size (see above, left) they are almost
identical in proportion. Besides, even if the blocks are larger, does that
somehow mean residents won’t think of the document as an official council one?
The answer is a resounding no. As well, the LNP copycat cleat is not always all
that different from legitimate examples , as shown in the footpath election
signs snapped (above, centre) in Brunswick Street during the campaign touting
Mr Quirk as Lord Mayor and Vicki Howard as councillor, and a CityCycle leaflet
(above right) with the official cleat. The depiction of the official cleat also
varies fairly widely, as pictured in chunky form on the side of a city bus.
Unless that was an LNP political ad? Enough of the sarcasm. Any argument that
the LNP version is manifestly different is
laughable. Maybe the LNP could argue they had those yellow and blue colours
first. The Independent doesn’t believe so, but even if it did, does it matter?
Maybe the LNP has trademarked that pattern of vertical blocks of blue and
yellow. We doubt it but even if they have, we don’t care. Perhaps council
administration staff from the CEO down have said they are happy with what the
LNP did. Makes no difference to us.Several of Vicki Howard’s workers told The
Independent that the LNP design had been unsuccessfully challenged in court at
the 2008 poll. We found no proof of that but if it’s true, we still don’t care.
If the LNP civic leader had sent us testimonials from a dozen QCs that what
they did was perfectly legal, it would change nothing in our view.We’ll go with
the court of public opinion, for it’s our honest and reasonably held belief
that if we presented all this information to a hundred Brisbane voters picked
at random – and gave Cr Quirk equal time to defend his party’s use of the
copycat cleat design – then even if Blind Freddy and some rusted-on LNP hacks were
among them, an overwhelming majority would say that the LNP has copied the
council cleat with the intention to confuse or deceive. So the election has
been waged and the poll has been won – and won decisively. But the best
possible way this Lord Mayor can start his four-year term on the right foot is
by promising to never, ever, again use his lookalike council cleat for
campaigning. And while he’s at it, he should also offer to dump the tacky “Lord
Mayor’s representative” slogan used by candidates who were not elected
councillors. It’s also a too-clever-by-half strategy that misleads people
either by accident or design into thinking the people depicted are already
councillors. We suspect the former.And if the Lord Mayor in the euphoria of
victory is foolish enough to argue that his big election win means tacky
strategies like the copycat cleat and the misuse of the word “representative”
have somehow been given legitimacy by voters at the recent council poll, then
The Independent believes he will pay a very heavy price sooner or later.Let’s
end with the comments, provided to this paper during the campaign, of a leading
political scientist who says that while what the LNP used was “a clever tactic
in one sense, it does run the risk of generating cynicism among voters and
raising the ire of many”. Clive Bean, Professor of Political Science at the
Queensland University of Technology, added: “In the current political climate,
with the tide running so strongly towards the LNP, one wonders why they would
feel the need to adopt tactics that may be seen as unethical.“Among other
things, it seems inconsistent with the campaign theme of the LNP at the state
level to improve integrity and accountability in government. ”A sound analysis,
but maybe there is a more basic way to look at. Maybe the LNP, emboldened by
its massive victory at the state poll, simply doesn’t care about integrity and
accountability.
What the Lord Mayor answered ... and what
he didn’t Email sent on 13 April:Preface: In a letter to Chairman of Council Councillor
Krista Adams on 28 October last year, the council’s CEO Colin Jensen said in
response to a question as to whether the council’s cleat could be used in
political material: “No. MC026 Marketing, Communications and Advertising Policy
states that Council’s logo and cleat are used to indicate council program
association and activity. These design elements as set out in council’s Visual
Style Guide must not be used on material that is of a political nature.”We
therefore ask:
1. Was the CEO’s take on council policy correct then? Answer:
Yes
2. Does that policy still apply, or have the rules changed?Answer: This
policy still applies. It has not changed.
3. If so, when? Answer: N/A
4. If the
rules have not changed, why are you and some of your LNP candidates using the
council cleat, or a design so similar to
it that any reasonable person could think they are one and the same, in
political advertising material? Answer: LNP political advertising material does
not use the Council cleat or the Council logo.
Our followup questions in
April:
1. Do you accept that the pattern
of blue and yellow blocks down the left hand side of roadside hoardings,
footpath signs, candidate pamphlets, business cards and even a campaign car is so similar in look
and location to the council cleat used on official council documents that any
reasonable person could be mistaken for believing they are one and the same?
2.
Given that the electorate has proven time and time again that it is opposed to
parties that resort to tricky or sneaky campaign techniques, would you like to
offer the ratepayers of Brisbane an unconditional apology for the use of a
design that can be so easily mistaken by any reasonable person to be in fact
the council's intellectual property?
3. If as I suspect, the answers to both of
the above are going to be a blunt “no”, please explain the difference between
the council cleat and the design used in LNP advertising and state why you
believe there’s no likelihood at all that any reasonable ratepayer could
confuse the two?
4. Do you accept that the use of the words “Lord Mayor’s
representative” by candidates in wards held by Labor councillors could easily
lead to ratepayers, especially newly enrolled ones who know little of the
history of ward councillor incumbency, to believe that person to be the elected
councillor for the ward?
5. And in the extremely unlikely event that your answer
to 4 above is going to be yes, would you like to offer an apology to the
ratepayers of Brisbane for some of your LNP candidates using a form of words
that could lead to that erroneous assumption?
No answers provided despite
repeated requests.
Better late than never, but too late for some. It
was done the way it was supposed to be done. One half at a time, as our
pictures above show, to avoid inconvenience to both pedestrians and nearby
businesses. So simple really – but sadly just a half year too late for a number
of traders; one who has already shut, others who now plan to close sooner than later as a result of the losses
they’ve incurred.We are talking, of course, of the Waltons walkway that closed
abruptly in early December last year, supposedly for maintenance that never
happened in the almost four months the walkway was closed.Following Supreme
Court action in April by neighbours Lend Lease, owners of shopping complex
Valley Metro above the Fortitude Valley railway station, a judge ordered the
walkway opened immediately.Connecting the Valley Metro complex to Wickham
Street and via the airbridge to McWhirters and beyond, the walkway has since
had its tiles ripped up and replaced with what this newspaper sincerely hopes
is industrial-quality vinyl that will last for a very long time. The
Independent understands the work was undertaken by the revitalised Happy Valley
Body Corporate in the adjacent building that once housed the Chinese Club, in
an agreement signed off between the relevant parties just before the court ruling.That agreement
is also believed to be responsible for the fact that the up and down escalators
servicing the Happy Valley building to Wickham Street have been operating in
both directions reasonably regularly since the walkway makeover, much to the
amazement of both local business owners and pedestrians alike But it’s the
eventual repair of the walkway that has local traders scratching their heads
and asking the very reasonable question: “What was the last six months of
disruption all about? ”Owner of the Autographed Memorabilia shop just inside the
McWhirters building retail complex, Corey Hamilton, summed up feelings: “It’s
nice to see it finally happening, but it is not going to save a number of local
traders. ”Mr Hamilton, who will move out shortly unless he can negotiate some
rent relief to compensate for his losses during the closure, said: “Traders
have suffered huge losses that will never be made up. People have lost their
jobs over this and do the people who caused this care? The answer is no,
because if they had cared, it wouldn’t have happened in the first
place. ”Traders who lost out from the prolonged closure are still considering a
class action lawsuit against those responsible for closing the walkway.
