POLITICS/CRIKEY: Northern Qld politics no place for wusses, sheilas

Politics in the central Queensland mining town of Mackay isn’t a game for wusses. Or women for that matter. Which might explain why not a single female candidate showed up to the Dawson "Great Debate" last night at the Mackay Entertainment & Convention Centre. It’s not that chick candidates wouldn’t have been interested. It’s just that there were no sheilas running this time around.

Unlike the LNP candidate George Christenson, few conservative women I know would be stupid enough to spend their university days writing stuff that single-handedly offends Jews, women and gays.

When asked about the remarks published in The Student Advocate in 1998, Christensen said sorry to everyone for his "pretty stupid and quite frankly offensive" comments he made "when I was a teenager" and emphasised how he had never believed his mum was stupid. One prominent academic, Heather Nancarrow from nearby Central Queensland University, told Christensen she had asked each party for their policies on reducing violence against women and children. She’d received stuff from all other parties present (Greens, ALP and Family First) but not from the LNP. Christensen replied words to the effect of "I’ll get it to you before the election. It’s been a busy week".

On the other hand, how many left-of-centre women would you know who, like ALP candidate Mike Brunker, would end up in a fight with the president of a local turf club and be facing criminal charges a week out of the election? Brunker denied it all and told us about how he’d "copped it on the nose" from the said Cyril Vains (himself an ALP member) and merely defended himself. The editor of the Daily Mercury, who was chairing the debate, noted that the defence involved Vains receiving cuts to his eye and a bruised face. Brunker responded that he had lots of witnesses including a minister of religion. At this point, one lady screamed out: "Good on ya Mike. We still love ya!".

Apart from this heckler, there were very few sheilas in the audience. Or indeed blokes. The hall must have had a capacity of about 1500. Hardly a fifth of that number showed up. Among the no-shows was a candidate from the Citizens Electoral Councils. I doubt he’d have been missed.

The Greens chap Jonathan Dykuj began his presentation by acknowledging the traditional owners of the area. This caused a tiny ripple of applause up the front and a much larger groan around the rest of the hall. Perhaps Christensen should have just focused on the blacks and left the sheilas and poofters alone.

Speaking of the backwardness of black fellas, some bloke representing the local branch of a forestry lobby group got up and lectured us all on the evils of world heritage listing before reminding us of how "white man had discovered the value of our forests". No one took him seriously except Christensen, who reminded us that people should be able to chop down trees on their property.

Christensen also kept going on and on about the mining tax, which was killing local businesses and sucking millions of dollars out of the local economy each week. "Talk to the mining contractors and ask them about how they are suffering." Then one bloke stood up and declared: "I’m a mining contractor and my business is going gangbusters. Which mining industry are you talking about?"

Some bloke surnamed Kelly lambasted the ALP over its broadband plans in Tasmania and then asked Christensen a dorothy dixer about the LNP’s NBN proposal. Christensen then lambasted the ALP’s proposal as being based on outdated technology like optic fibres. He must have been a little perturbed to see on Lateline Tony Smith says that the Coalition’s plan is built upon the same outdated technology. And the questioner, Mr Kelly, wouldn’t have been happy to be identified by the Greens candidate as being the husband of former National Party MP De-Anne Kelly

The only sombre moment was when one brave woman stood and said she was a consumer of mental health services. She wanted to know what each party was doing to attract mental health service providers to the area. On this issue, the candidates decided to stop verbally punching each other and address the issues.

As I walked out with the crowd, I could see some Convention Centre staff looking rather desperate to get home. "Full house?" I asked one. They sniggered and responded: "Should have advertised it as a mass debate."

First published on the Crikey website on 19 August 2010.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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ELECTIONS/HUMOUR: The great Auburn kebab konspiracy ...

Local government elections have just been concluded across New South Wales. There have been no clear winners, with the ALP obvious losers in most areas. Minor parties and independents have also done well. This was largely an election about local and state issues.

But according to one candidate for the Greens, this election was also about the leadership of his local mosque flouting secular traditions and allowing one candidate to address its congregation after Friday prayers.

Kuranda Seyfi Seyit, chair of an organisation calling itself the “Forum of Australia’s Islamic Relations”, has spat the dummy after he was out-polled by community independent Izzet Anmak in the elections for one of two wards in Auburn Council. Seyit has approached ABC and claimed that Anmak was endorsed by the executive committee of the Auburn Gallipoli Mosque to run as their candidate, allowing him the opportunity to speak at the mosque on the Friday before the elections.

Mr Seyit is quoted by ABC as alleging that Australian Turks have a proud secular tradition, the obvious implication being that the mosque and/or Anmak were part of a plot to introduce political Islam into local government.

This is a serious charge to make against a mainstream religious institution that has in the past allowed candidates of all major parties to visit the mosque and address parishioners during local, state and federal elections. Past speakers and visitors have included former Mayor Le Lam and State ALP Member Barbara Perry.

Mr Seyit was endorsed by the Greens, a party whose leaders have spoken out against stereotyping of Muslims and other racial and religious minorities. The Greens have supported the cause of asylum seekers and have opposed anti-terrorism laws on the basis that these have been passed in an environment of hysteria.

Now, one of their candidates is generating hysteria, accusing a Turkish religious institution of attempting to influence a council election.

The imbecilic nature of Mr Seyit’s allegations is obvious. On the one hand, he states that Australian Turks are proud of their secular nature. Turkish secularism places strong emphasis on separating mosque from state. If Aussie Turks shared this passion, surely one would have expected any attempt by the Gallipoli Mosque executive to support a candidate to backfire. Surely any attempt by the mosque to support Mr Anmak would have worked against him.

Mr Seyit’s outburst isn’t without its unintended humour. In a recent e-mail sent out to a Muslim yahoogroup, Mr Seyit stated the real reasons for his anger at the mosque executive.

Politics in the mosque should not be tolerated. Not because I am secular … The mosque cannot take sides. when the Mosque allowed Izzet to make a speech to the congregation it really hurt me as that mosque is something that my father worked towards building. My father was sent to Turkey in 1982 by the mosque building committee to raise funds. My father used to teach Quran courses there and we were all a part of the mosque's history. In fact my father was the first Turkish man in Australia to lead the Eid prayer in a small house in Redfern in 1970.

By his own admission, Mr Seyit is no great lover of secularism. His main concern is to benefit from mosque resources he believes he is entitled to because of his father’s efforts.

In the same e-mail, Mr Seyit makes this extraordinary claim:

Now we await the result and although prior to running I had done the calculations I knew that I would get in without difficulty. Instead, as it stands many of my votes went to Izzet and there is a very high chance that both of us will miss out. I was invited to run by former councillors and that is why I ran, I was assured of their support and knew that I would get the majority of the "Muslim" vote in ward one.

Yes, Mr Seyit clearly would have been Auburn Council’s answer to Saladdin, liberating Ward 1 from the nasty crusaders and leading the mythical Muslim voting bloc to political glory. Mr Seyit saw himself as becoming perhaps Auburn’s first Caliph.

Mr Seyit also argues in his e-mail that there was a kebab konspiracy involved, with kebab manufacturers plotting against him:

The owwner of the Ozlem Kebabs told me that they wanted to run their own man … and that is why they did not endorse me. They used the every trick in the book to get votes from the Turkish community, with a bottomless pit of money, they placed pressure on most of the kebab shops to vote for their man, they convinced the ALL the Turkish Newspapers to promote their man (because Ozlem and the kebabs are all big advertisers) , they ran large ads every week, and they worked on each every Turkish organisation and soccer club, first and foremost they had the support of the Gallipoli Mosque and the president campaigned hard for their man.

Clearly this was a foul-smelling kebab konspiracy, filled with extra garlic sauce. Both Mr Seyit’s ego and his political career seem to have died with a felafel in his hand.

UPDATE I: Writing to the same yahoogroup referred to above, a certain Gazza, who admits to being an ALP member and addict of non-alcoholic beer, has made the following important observations ...

I have read the to and fro of messages about Seyfi’s unfortunate loss in the Auburn council elections and am disappointed in the sniping and backbiting that has resulted. All this serves to demonstrate just how nasty politics can get ...

Lets all take a Valium and go to sleep till the next election.

My response to Gazza is this - I'll be happy to bring the Bavaria if you supply the valiums!




Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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