Prahran: Newton-Brown. Listens. Sacks.

It's been a rocky few weeks for CNB in the battle for Prahran. Last week Carbone and Money (two writers with the slackest jobs in Melbourne media, in my humble opinion) had an interesting story about the Good Ship Newton-Brown encountering rocky waters:

Rocky path
Five months out from polling day and bike-riding Liberal candidate for Prahran Clem Newton-Brown has suffered three flat tyres on the campaign trail. Electorate chairman/campaign chairman Tony Harris has stepped down (he told Diary it was for business and personal reasons), campaign manager Sol Green has stepped aside to focus on an IT role (for personal reasons, Clem says), and a fund-raiser has been cancelled (it clashed with another event, Tony says). Clem assured us everything was hunky-dory: "There has been no falling out." Clem needs to stay pumped because he's only 1337 votes away from seizing the seat from Labor's Tony Lupton. That's if his tyres go the distance.


Meanwhile, Newton-Brown has been pressing the flesh in a series of local Listening Posts. This is perhaps an apt title for a series of exchanges that will most likely see Newton-Brown repeating his well-rehearsed answers over and over again, much like its music store namesake. Anyhow, for what it's worth, Newton-Brown dropped a flyer in the letterbox on a Thursday informing the Resident (that's me) that he would be at an intersection less than 50 metres from my front door at 10:30am the next Saturday. Now that's service! Or at least it would have been if I bothered turning up. Still, it's a damn fine idea and one that's worth encouraging.

Comments

Polly said…
Denise McGill did the - "I will be on your street corner" campaign when she unsuccessfully defended the state seat of Oakleigh during the 1999 election. It's a good idea, but I don't know how it would compare with door knocking. Standing on a street is far less resource intensive than door knocking, but door knocking (especially if you leave campaign material along with a brief handwritten note at unoccupied houses) is more memorable. Of course some people hate being door-knocked, but it probably swings more people in favour of a candidate than it puts off.
4 July 2006 at 18:21
Anonymous said…
I met Clem Newton-Brown at the Midsumma Pride Festival (Melbourne's largest gay event) - where he (and the other parties) had a stall. His was the most impressive and he was making a very strong pitch for the gay vote - not easy as a Liberal!!!

Anyway, I was impressed and despite being very underwhelmed by the federal Liberals (an understatement), I came away from his stall considering the Liberals.

Unfortunately I live in the seat next to Prahran and my subsequent contact with Liberal Helen Shardey was VERY underwhelming re gay issues. Still, Newton-Brown was very impressive.
9 August 2006 at 11:19
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