This was how National Party candidate for the federal seat of Richmond, Kimberly Hone, presented herself to the media and electorate on 24 March 2022 in Echo online:
Nationals Party
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| Nationals candidate, Kimberly Hone. |
Her earliest video post is from November 2, 2021.
She says on a video that, with her husband, she has been running a fitness coaching practice for 12 years.
‘I stand for families and small businesses’, she says in another video. Ms Hone replaces Tweed Heads’ Hungry Jacks owner, Matthew Fraser, who previously ran multiple times on the Nationals Party ticket.
Intrigued by the very specific claim presumably made by Ms. Hone or the National Party on her behalf - that she only had one social media presence, a Facebook account, with her earliest video post being from November 2021 - I decided to look.
First thing I noticed is that she has an active Instagram account with videos dating back to at least 2019. On this account in October 2021 she announced her official candidature at the next federal election.
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| Retrieved 27 March 2022 |
A second look showed she still had one, possibly two, accessible Twitter accounts.
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| Retrieved 27 March 2022 |
https://twitter.com/kimberlyhone
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| Retrieved 27 March 2022 |
https://mobile.twitter.com/kimberly_hone
Both Twitter accounts contain political comment.
In addition to these social media accounts, the Nationals candidate for Richmond also has an old YouTube video account in her name with one video going back to 2019.
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| Retrieved 27 March 2022 |
Then I looked for news reports about the candidate and this article immediately popped up, which might go some way to explaining her reluctance to admit the range of her social media accounts.
Gold Coast Bulletin online, 25 March 2021:
Richmond resident Kimberly Hone is the fresh face on the Nationals ticket in the race to beat Labor MP Justine Elliot who has held the seat since 2004.
Her political rivals have also labelled her a “risk to the community” over her support for radical alternatives to fight Covid including Ivermectin.
The deworming medicine for horses has been touted as a Covid “wonder drug” by ex-US President Donald Trump and billionaire Clive Palmer.
Ms Hone wrote, “China treats their citizens with intravenous Vitamin C” in a thread in which she also endorsed Ivermectin.
In a series of tweets, since deleted, Ms Hone tweeted with links:
* “One way to avoid domestic violence is to marry well. Abusers are exceptional at manipulating …”
* “Imagine if your child’s school secretly started feeding your child transgender hormone tablets.”
* “Ten religious reasons against climate change.”
* “Global thackery: Earth has not warmed for the past 19 years – new study.”
* “Debunked: Hurricanes harvey and Irma were NOT (sic) caused by climate change.”
Video of Ms Hone speaking at a community church in October 2021 also shows her encouraging supporters’ anti-vaccination views.
At one point she states she is “so glad” audience members “no longer trust medical science”.
Richmond MP Justine Elliot has since slammed Ms Hone for her comments, labelling them “repulsive”, “dangerous” and “deeply offensive”.
“Concerned locals alerted me about these extreme views,” she said.
“It’s about transparency. (Her comments) are all extreme and quite disturbing, particularly about domestic violence.
“Victims are never to blame for domestic violence. I was personally offended when those were brought to my attention.
“This is appalling.”
“Voters deserve to know who she is.”
Ms Hone said making her past statements public was “bullying behaviour” and she refused to be “dragged down to a schoolyard cat fight”……
Ms. Hone made a rookie’s mistake when she apparently attempted to direct people towards just one social media source of information about her, without first sometime earlier either closing those Twitter accounts or removing them from public view.
As for that innocuous Instagram account, she would be better off making that a locked account for family & friends until the federal election is over and she has returned to private life once more.
It is hard to see how it could be otherwise for this novice candidate. Because she failed to take the very first fence in the political steeple chase – she was not open and transparent.
As for that risible "bullying" claim.......
BACKGROUND
In October 2021 Ms. Hone clearly stated that “the ultimate goal for me, just like my husband and I have done with business, I want to bring God’s kingdom to the political arena and I want God’s kingdom to penetrate the political mountain”. It appears that in this video (commencing at 29:48) she is asserting that all legislation must reflect a Christian worldview and values.
Ms. Hone has a "business slash ministry" with her husband, Kingdom Business. This appears to be a business networking vehicle for Christian business owners.
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