LNP state director Lincoln Folo has failed to answer questions from The Independent over the ongoing use of a copycat council cleat by Team Quirk candidates.
This paper believes its readers would regard as fair and reasonable the questions put to Mr Folo as the person who authorises election material carrying the copycat council cleat. The questions are similar to ones Lord Mayor Graham Quirk and Central Ward councillor Vicki Howard have refused to answer for years.
Here are the questions asked and the preface to them:
In the run-up to the 2016 Brisbane City Council elections on 19 March, you and/or other LNP officials are authorising LNP/Team Quirk material that uses a pattern of alternating blue and yellow blocks down the left hand side of all sorts of political material, from roadside billboards to footpath candidates’ signs to all sorts of leaflets/pamphlets
.
Accordingly we seek prompt answers to the following questions:
1. Do you share The Independent’s view that Brisbane residents should always obey both the spirit and the letter of Brisbane City Council rules and bylaws?
2. As LNP state director, do you believe that in using the design features mentioned above, the LNP and Team Quirk are obeying both the spirit and the letter of that council rule that bans the use of the City Council’s intellectual property – its branding “cleat” of alternating blue and yellow blocks run vertically down the left-hand side of official council material - in political material?
3. Do you accept that the dimensions of the blue and yellow blocks used on official city council material vary widely as seen by the public?
4. Do you also accept that if just one voter in Brisbane thinks what the LNP/Team Quirk are using is the council cleat, then that’s one too many?
5. Lord Mayor Quirk told the Brisbane Times recently that the colours being used on Team Quirk material in 2016 are different from the official cleat, yet the council’s CEO told The Independent last year after examining material used in the 2012 campaign that the colours were the same. Has Lord Mayor Quirk lied to the media? Or has the LNP subtly changed the colours used for this current campaign? If so, please explain any such differences.
6. Looking at the attached image of one LNP/Team Quirk north-side billboard that is clearly political as it proclaims it was not produced at council expense, please explain fully to our readers why you believe, if there are any differences in those blue and yellow colours or indeed in the dimensions of those blocks of colour from those of the official council cleat, they are sufficient that any reasonable Brisbane voter – for example, a motorist driving past - could not have possibly mistaken one for the other?
7. The Independent has long argued that the LNP/ Team Quirk have deliberately used such a design feature to make voters – The Independent argues most - think it’s the council cleat. If you disagree with that then why are they using it?
8. The Independent has long argued that the use of the copycat council cleat in LNP/Team Quirk political material is done for no other reason than to link Team Quirk with the council’s name so that Team Quirk becomes the council’s official election team, thus giving it an electoral advantage, one we argue is unfair, unethical and politically dishonest. Assuming you disagree with that view, please explain why we are wrong.
9. If you have been or unwilling or unable to explain why the design the LNP/Team Quirk use is sufficiently different from the council's official cleat that the average Brisbane voter could tell the difference, do you undertake, in the interests of local politics played openly, honestly and cleanly and on a level playing field, to move immediately as LNP state director to ensure that that design feature is covered over on billboards, footpath signs and the like that are in the public eye, to pulp any other existing print material that features that design, and to ensure it is not included in any fresh printed or electronic media/social media campaign material in the lead-up to the 19 March elections?
