Top: LNP campaign posters from the 2012 city council election and, above the official council City Council cleat as used recently on plans for a makeover for the Brunswick Street Mall.
Imagine you’re a politician and someone repeatedly calls you a cheat. You’d be indignant, right? Your reputation impugned, you’d want to put the record straight and prove your accuser wrong?
We’re sticking with our copycat cleat campaign for one simple reason:
Silence means Team Quirk wants to cheat again
It’s now clear that Lord Mayor Graham Quirk and his team of spin doctors have decided not to try to defend the indefensible.
Their ongoing silence in response to our attempts to make them come clean on the use of their copycat council cleat speaks volumes. It confirms what we already know: that they cheated before and during the last council poll. They cynically copied the council’s design for no other reason than to link their campaign with council’s good name and give it an authenticity it did not deserve.
Have a look at the images at right. Does any sensible, reasonable person think that Team Quirk chose those colours and blocks because they liked the look of them? Yet they think that by avoiding the issue, The Independent will give up and move on. But we won’t. The issue here is too important. What we want is simple: they can’t defend what they did so we want them to be honest enough to admit they got it wrong. Were too clever by half.
And just as importantly, we want them to state categorically that they will never use the copycat cleat again. But as our heading above suggests, Team Quirk will probably be tempted to try the con on again –to deliberately break council rules – for one simple reason: it wins votes even though it’s the wrong thing to do. Which is why they copied the council cleat in the first place.
Email sent on 13 April 2012:
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. 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 follow-up questions later that month have been ignored over and over again.
We again sent slightly amended versions to him earlier this month, only to be greeted with ongoing silence. Here’s what we asked:
1. Please explain fully to our readers how the blue and yellow block design Team Quirk used down the left-hand-side of political material before and during the recent council poll - leaflets, newspaper advertisements, business cards, billboards, roadside election signs and even the back of a campaign car - differed from the official City Council cleat, a design that you accept cannot be used for political purposes?
2. Please explain why you believe these differences were sufficient that any reasonable person could not have possibly mistaken one for the other.
3. For those who have formed the view that you and your colleagues deliberately bent council rules to your own advantage - namely to create the impression that Team Quirk LNP candidates had some form of official council backing - please explain why they are wrong.
