NEWS
An LNP candidate for next year’s Brisbane City Council poll has sidestepped questions over an election leaflet that a top political scientist suspects was designed deliberately to make people think she is already an elected councillor.
Vicki Howard will contest the inner-city Central Ward next May for the second time running, and distributed the leaflet shown at left to residents to suburbs within the ward at Christmas.
After obtaining a copy of the leaflet, The Independent conducted a small vox pop in the Valley Mall and the handful of respondents all thought Ms Howard was the sitting councillor for the ward.
In a series of questions, the paper then asked Ms Howard whether she accepted that the use of a very close copy of the official city council’s consecutive blue and yellow striped pattern down its left hand border, and the use of “Lord Mayor’s representative Central Ward” and “Your Can-Do representative for Central” could lead would-be voters into thinking she was already the elected councillor for the area.
Her terse one-sentence reply – “I am both the endorsed LNP candidate for Central Ward and the Lord Mayor’s representative for the area charged with listening to residents’ concerns and reporting them directly to the Mayor”– comes as a respected political scientist questioned the ethics behind the design of the leaflet.
Professor of Political Science at QUT Clive Bean told The Independent: “I would agree with you that it would be easy for a casual observer to conclude that the person is purporting to be the local councillor.
“Anything that is made out to represent something that is not truthful does have questionable ethics, you would have to say.”
Asked if he thought the leaflet had been designed deliberately to achieve that result, he said: “It does look as if it is.”
Professor Bean said the incidence of candidates trying to gain some advantage by hinting at incumbency “was not too common but not unheard of”. He said politicians at a local council level had a “very low profile compared with state and federal politicians”.
“There is some evidence that incumbency does have an advantage over first-time or [other] candidates.”
But he added: “In a way they may think they are getting more of an advantage than they are.”
Lord Mayor Campbell Newman’s response to questions on the issue was almost as abrupt as Ms Howard’s. The Independent had asked the Lord Mayor:
1. Was it wrong for your LNP candidate Vicki Howard at next year’s civic poll to use that blue and yellow pattern on the left of her Xmas leaflet, therefore creating the impression that the document was an official city council document?
2. Do you agree that her use of words such as “Lord Mayor’s representative Central Ward” and “Your Can-Do Representative for Central” could easily mislead voters who know no better into believing that she is in fact already the elected representative for Central Ward? and
3. Will you be directing Vicki to refrain from using any further campaign material in the leadup to the 2012 municipal poll whose visual design and wording could easily create the impressions outlined above, whether by accident or design?
One of his media advisers replied via email that Mr Newman had confirmed Vicki Howard was his representative for the Central Ward and a member of the Can-Do team. “Vicki Howard is the endorsed LNP candidate and has committed to serve local residents in the next term of council if elected. She regularly provides me with positive ideas for the Central Ward and feedback from local residents,” Mr Newman said.
Long-term sitting councillor for the ward David Hinchliffe, who held off a strong challenge by Ms Howard to win by only 121 votes last election, did not want to comment on the issue.
Cr Hinchliffe is presently weighing up whether he will contest next year’s municipal poll after almost a quarter of a century in public life.
