Liberal Party dirty linen spills out of the cupboard yet again

A timely reminder of what goes in the shadows during Liberal Party election campaigns......

 The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 March 2016:

The Liberal Party has suspended a campaign director in the 2015 NSW election, after he was charged with electoral crimes in a marginal seat where the Australian Labor Party candidate was anonymously smeared as a paedophile.

The NSW Electoral Commission has taken action under the Parliamentary Electorates and Elections Act against Jim Daniel, who ran the campaign for the seat of East Hills, which MP Glenn Brookes unexpectedly retained by just 628 votes, or 0.8 per cent, in 2015.

During the campaign about 300 posters of ALP candidate Cameron Murphy, a human rights lawyer who has an Order of Australia and is the son of High Court judge Lionel Murphy, were defaced with stickers saying "paedophile lover," "stranger danger" and "our children are not safe".

In 2015 ALP MP Lynda Voltz, under parliamentary privilege, accused Mr Daniel, who is on Bankstown City Council, of organising the defacement of the posters.

At that time Mr Daniel said the accusations were "just another attempt to reheat issues previously raised and dealt with".

The Electoral Commission issued a statement on Friday that it had investigated a number of complaints and served two notices on Mr Daniel to appear at Downing Street Court.  

"It will be alleged by the NSWEC that political campaign material distributed in the electorate of East Hills was in contravention of the act."

The NSW division of the Liberal Party said on Sunday that Mr Daniel was suspended and the NSWEC was the right body to investigate any complaints. 

PerthNow, 21 March 2016:

EAST Hills Liberal MP Glenn Brookes will stand aside from the Liberal Party and will serve on the crossbench until the outcome of a charge against his campaign manager over an alleged breach of the electoral act involving a paedophile slur is determined.

Mr Brookes will also step aside from his parliamentary committee roles, including serving on Premier Mike Baird’s parliamentary ethics committee until the matter is resolved.

The scandal now threatens to produce a possible by-election.

Labor candidate Cameron Murphy, who was the head of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, lost the seat of East Hills by less than 400 votes — or 0.2 per cent — after the dirty campaign.

In the week before polling day, 300 of Mr Murphy’s posters were defaced with stickers falsely declaring him “a paedophile lover”.

Thousands of anonymous pamphlets were also letterboxed wrongly claiming Mr Murphy, the son of former High Court Judge and Federal Attorney-General Lionel Murphy, had stood up for paedophiles.

The matter is listed for mention at the Downing Centre Local Court on May 3….

BACKGROUND

The Express, 31 July 2012:

THE Liberal Party has endorsed two south ward candidates for Bankstown Council's election in September. Picnic Point resident Jim Daniel and Revesby's Vanessa Gauci will run on the south ward ticket.

Father-of-two Mr Daniel was preselected to run as number one on the ticket.

"I am honoured by the trust that has been shown in me by so many people who sincerely know that I have what it takes to be a successful south ward councillor on Bankstown Council," Mr Daniel said…..

The Express, 2 October 2012:

East Hills state Liberal MP Glenn Brookes has stepped down from his role on Bankstown Council after eight years.

Mr Brookes stood down from the council at last month's local government elections under new state government laws prohibiting anybody from holding a council and an MP position at the same time. "During my eight years on council more than $288 million has been spent on capital works and I am pleased to say that $26 million has been spent in my South ward," he said. Mr Brookes' heir in South ward is newly minted Liberal councillor Jim Daniel.

The Express, 19 May 2015:

The Bankstown Liberal councillor accused in Parliament of being involved in an election smear campaign has called the accusations "cowardly".

Jim Daniel denies being involved in a smear campaign that wrongly implied East Hills Labor candidate Cameron Murphy was a "paedophile lover".

Mr Daniel, who was the campaign manager for East Hills state Liberal MP Glenn Brookes during the State Election, was named by Labor MP Lynda Voltz in Parliament on Thursday.

Using parliamentary privilege, Ms Voltz said a resident saw Mr Daniel delivering the unauthorised leaflets during the campaign. In one leaflet it states "if a convicted child rapist lived next to you would you want to know?" alongside a photo of Mr Murphy.

East Hills was the tightest seat going into the election.

Despite Mr Murphy being favourite to win the seat back for Labor, Mr Brookes won by 372 votes with a slight swing in his favour.

In Parliament last Thursday, Ms Voltz said copies of the pamphlets were delivered to Padstow, Georges Hall, Revesby and Panania…..

The Express, 15 December 2015:

Mr Daniel, a Bankstown councillor, has denied any involvement. "I've had enough of them trying to belittle me. It's a hard enough job in politics without people crying over spilt milk," Mr Brookes said.

"They can't get over that I won. I told the people from (Liberal Party) hierarchy 'don't write me off'." East Hills had always been a Labor seat until Mr Brookes won in 2011 and he was re-elected in March despite only holding the seat by 0.2 per cent.

"They think they have a God-given right to the (East Hills) area - nobody does," he said.

Mr Brookes challenged Labor to accuse him of involvement in the smear campaign outside parliament. "Have a cheque book ready and have a go," he said.

Canterbury Bankstown Express, 6 May 2014:

Bankstown councillor Jim Daniel says he is "disappointed" he has been forced to defend himself over a business networking event he helped organise in 2012 that has been referred to ICAC due to a connection to former energy minister Chris Hartcher.

Cr Daniel helped his friend, accountant George Germanos, organise the networking meeting for Mr Germanos's Georges River Club at Bankstown Paceway in July 2012.

Mr Hartcher, who is being investigated by ICAC over allegations of a slush fund, was the guest speaker.

Cr Daniel said he asked East Hills state Liberal MP Glenn Brookes, for whom he works as an electorate officer, to invite fellow government members to attend.

"(Mr Brookes) invited a number of prominent people to attend, and it's just our luck that the one MP who did is now being investigated by ICAC," he said.

Cr Daniel said he and Mr Germanos had written to ICAC and the Electoral Funding Commission before the original event in 2012 to make sure there were no irregularities.

Cr Daniel said it was a shame Mr Brookes was now forced to defend himself for "helping out a staffer". He said there had not been enough money raised from the event to continue holding them.

Australian Federal Election 2016: laffing at 'Truffles'

“Malcolm is completely infatuated with truffles”

[Lucy Turnbull in The Guardian, UK News, 11 November 2015]

First the world laughed at Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott until his sacking, then less than two months later it commenced to laugh at Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

His wife accidentally started the ball rolling as she enthused to journalists covering a royal visit and, for many people Malcolm became 'Truffles' Turnbull for the duration.

The laughter rose a notch when the official Twitter account of an over-the-top U.S. fictional political drama tweeted this:

Then someone noticed the similarity between this fictional campaign slogan used in the comedy Veep

and this slogan uttered by our very own prime minister as he gears up for the 2016 federal election

which resulted in this

Even the Murdoch media couldn't resist likening the Prime Minister to that fictional political schemer and multiple murderer on its Daily Telegraph front page of 22 March 2016 - although I'm sure that the editor hoped readers would not recall those particular murder plots

Australian Federal Election 2016: company tax is a vexing question

In 2014 Treasury made a case for a flow-on to the Australian economy from a 1 per cent tax cut “in the long run” and the Abbott Government reduced company tax for small business by 1.5%, effective 1 July 2015.

This meant that in 2015-2016 the following applied:

(a)  a sole trader in Australia pays the same rate of tax as an individual taxpayer with the same tax-free threshold of $18,200 as the individual. Tax rate brackets range from 19 cents in the dollar if taxable income is between $18,201-$37,000 up to 45 cents in the dollar if taxable income is $180,001 and over; and

(b) a small business with an annual aggregate turnover of less than $2 million pays company tax of 28.5% and businesses with a higher turnover pay 30% company tax. The tax rate for companies is less than the highest rate for individuals.

In December 2014 (updated March 2016) the Australian Tax Office (ATO) created its first corporate tax transparency report for the financial year 2013-14 and the companies listed in this report represented 63% of the approximately 1.1 million companies operating in Australia who reported a taxable income in that tax year. The ATO data tables can be found here.

In 2013-14 company tax was an est. 28% of total income tax revenue received by the federal government and, according to the ATO companies paid total net tax of $67.3 billion.

On 22 March 2016 the ATO released taxation details of 321 private resident companies with listed revenue of $200 million or more in that same financial year.

Of these 30.52% paid no tax and another 31% paid less than the full company tax rate.

Using ATO data the Australian Financial Review published a table of 1,860 companies - with total annual incomes between $100 million and over (public/foreign-owned entities) and $200 million and over (private entities) - which showed that when tax was actually paid the taxation rates for these businesses in practice ranged from as low as 1%-2.5% up to 30%, with only an est. 30 per cent of all these companies paying the full company tax rate.

Yet with an est. 70% of these 1,860 companies not being liable for the full company tax rate and net company tax collected falling to $66.9 billion in 2014-15, the Coalition Government still appears to be hinting that it will consider reducing the company tax rate for a second time.

The Sydney Morning Herald also reporting on 21 March that: Big business wants the rate paid by larger corporations cut to 28.5 per cent to match the rate paid by small companies, and phased down to 25 per cent by 2020 and 22 per cent by 2025. This call by the Business Council of Australia (see paper precis) appears to be backed by some in the small business sector.

Are Turnbull & Co really thinking of giving in to a greedy cash clawback by big business, some of whom are generous political donors?

The prime minister refuses to be drawn before the 3 May 2016 budget papers are released.

Australian Minister for Justice and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Counter Terrorism Michael Keenan and his unfortunate phrasing

This is the Minister for Justice, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Counter Terrorism and Liberal MP for Stirling, Michael Keenan,  during his address to the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combatting Anti-Semitism in Berlin on 15 March 2016:

Anti-Semitism is far from being a new concept. It has a long and particularly dark history. It is a worldview that should have died and been consigned to history long ago but its resilience should continue to trouble us all.

We should also be mindful that anti-Semitism evolves. In the west you may no longer find many who would assert that Jewish people are racially inferior, and mainstream society overwhelmingly rejects outlandish conspiracy theories – but newer and subtler forms of anti-Semitism can still be found.

The extravagant attention given to the alleged human rights abuses in Israel while similar atrocities in other countries remain unheard of should ring alarm bells.

All countries here today are working to tackle this important issue and Australia is no exception.

It would appear that the minister is of the opinion that alleged human rights abuses in Israel are indeed atrocities, but that mentioning them in the press is a closet form of anti-Semitism by mainstream media journalists and editors.

Or is he just the victim of his own clumsy phrasing?

While we're waiting for the Turnbull Government to stop blackmailing the nation.......

A look round at the political landscape in the lead up to this year's federal election.
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The Liberal Party of Australia and the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) finally cast off their joint fiction that IPA is a genuinely independent think tank, when one of its members was pre-selected to stand on a Liberal Party ticket in the upcoming federal election and another was parachuted into a quickly devised Senate vacancy as Michael Ronaldson's scheduled retirement was brought forward.

Former IPA Director of Climate Change Policy and former
Human Rights 'Commissioner for Martinis', Tim Wilson, is standing in the Goldstein electorate (Vic) hoping for a seat in the House of Representatives.

Goldstein is a seat which has been held by the Liberal Party since its creation in 1984.

Former IPA Deputy Executive Director and former staffer of then Senator Mitch Fifield, James Paterson, has been a Senator for Victoria since 9 March 2016 making his first parliamentary speech on 16 March.

He was swiftly positioned on the following committees:

Senate Standing: Environment and Communications Legislation from 15.3.16; Publications from 15.3.16.

Senate Select: Scrutiny of Government Budget Measures from 15.3.16.

Senate Legislative and General Purpose Standing: Community Affairs Legislation and References Committees from 15.3.16.

Joint Standing: National Disability Insurance Scheme from 15.3.16.

Joint Statutory: Human Rights from 15.3.16.

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While Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan remains virtually silent his main opponent at the 2016 federal election Labor’s Janelle Saffin speaks out on new draconian protest laws which could see non-violent protesters fined $5,500 or imprisoned for up to seven years:

http://janellesaffin.com.au/Campaigns/Protect-Our-Rights-To-Protest

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On 30 June 2015 Rico Investments Pty Ltd of Murwillumbah donated $155,348 to the federal division of the National Party of Australia.

It looks like the Richards family are once again betting against sitting ALP MP Justine Elliott keeping her seat of Richmond.

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The Turnbull Government is charging taxpayers $28 million for an advertising campaign to sell its innovation agenda which led off with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s slogan “There has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian!”.

The excitement appears to have quickly died over at innovation.gov.au – a keyword search no longer brings up a single instance of the words exciting or excitement.

Now it’s all:

Alas, all that former excitement about innovation is now restricted to Turnbull’s twirls on social media and Tony Abbott’s attempts to catch up:

Twitter, 11 March 2016

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Australian Federal Police have begun a formal criminal probe into disgraced former Minister for Human Service and Special Minister of State, Liberal MP Stuart Robert.

Robert resigned from the frontbench after it was found he had breached ministerial standards when he took an allegedly  personal trip to China in 2014 that involved witnessing the signing of a mining deal (in which he had an indirect  pecuniary interest) and also had discussions with government officials.

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Senator Nick Xenophon pulled a tired old stunt during the lengthy debate on the Turnbull Government’s change to Senate election ballot rules:

#SenateSleepover on Twitter

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In a week when headlines mattered as political rhetoric (and downright insults) were heating up, The Sydney Morning Herald front page of its 18 March 2016 print edition was a real estate domain advertisement. This was due to a three day walk-out by Fairfax journalists, including those in the Canberra parliamentary press gallery, over a plan to cut an additional 120 jobs.

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Minister for Finance and Senator for West Australia Mathias Cormann appears to have whiled away his time during that same debate by tweeting, retweeting and deleting from his Twitter account:

Tweets courtesy of http://www.politwoops.com/p/unknown/MathiasCormann and @MathiasCormann

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The Australian Senate became your average bureaucratic bully on 17 March 2016:

The press gallery president, Fairfax photographer Andrew Meares, has written to the president of the Senate, Stephen Parry, asking him to investigate the encounter, in which the phone of a BuzzFeed journalist, Alice Workman, was searched after she tweeted about Labor senator Stephen Conroy playing Candy Crush in the chamber.

Workman complained that an unidentified attendant asked to see her phone and to follow him out of the Senate press gallery during question time on Thursday. She said this happened minutes after she sent the tweet about Conroy playing a Candy Crush-style game on his iPad.

Workman said the ban on photos in the Senate prevented her taking photographs of the senator playing the game:

“I followed [the attendant] out, and he asked me to open my phone and show him my pictures,” Workman said. “He searched through my phone. I took no photos, so there was nothing there. He saw that and then continued to question me about what I was doing for a few minutes.

“Then he gave me my phone back and let me go back inside. He warned me that we are not allowed to take photos in the Senate. Which I know, and I didn’t. Just to let you know, it was pretty intimidating.”

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That wet tissue paper of a Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull predictably went limp on 18 March.

The Guardian, 18 March 2016:

The Turnbull government has made dramatic changes to its Safe Schools anti-bullying program that have been described by the scheme’s opponents as “gutting” its content.

The changes sharply reduce the lesson content, restrict it to secondary schools, shift the program to a government website, remove all links to other material and sites, and add a requirement that students get parental consent and schools get parent-body consent before opting to use its materials.

The education minister, Simon Birmingham, said this was a “strong but measured response” to the concerns raised by Christian groups and conservative MPs, including the former prime minister Tony Abbott, who demanded for the program to be defunded. There were also claims made that it promoted Marxism and had links to paedophilia and pornography.

Birmingham said it left intact the program’s core aims – to give support and guidance to students grappling with questions of sexual identity and to allow them to feel safe at school.

But one of the leading opponents, the Liberal National backbencher George Christensen, said the program had been “gutted of all its bad content” and he was expecting that the Safe Schools Coalition, which delivers the program, would reject the new conditions. He said, if that happened, the minister had assured him the remainder of the program’s funding would be “pulled”.

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 A new political party probably just got in by the skin of its teeth to stand at this year's federal election.

On 11 March 2016 the Australian Electoral Commission registered On 11 March 2016, the delegate of the Electoral Commission approved an application to register the following party: The Australian Mental Health Party.

This minor party currently expresses an intention to stand candidates in both the Senate and House of Representatives.

The current Register of Political Parties can be found here.

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The Liberal-Nationals Coalition Federal Government's mindless cost cutting has struck a body blow yet again.

For the 'Haymarket Clinic' (well-known to North Coast Voices by way of the previous professional capacity of one of its listed contributors) the writing is on the wall for its medical services thanks to the Abbott-Turnbull Government.

It lost its annual federal funding of $900,000 as part of cuts announced in the 2014-15 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) and despite a one-off transitional payment of $990,000 from the Commonwealth, has been unable to secure an alternative funding source.

The Haymarket Foundation had this to say:

The Haymarket Foundation Clinic provides FREE medical, nursing and welfare services to some 1,200 clients a year!

Our Doctors and nurses provide 3,700 clinical sessions every year to Sydney’s most vulnerable.  

The latest City of Sydney Street count has found 365 people sleeping rough an increase of 5.5% for the same period last year.  Despite the growing demand in homelessness the Haymarket Foundation clinic has not been able to secure funding beyond the transitional funds which expire at the end of April. The Haymarket clinic is just few minutes down the road from the Prime Ministers electorate office and has provided long term assistance for the most vulnerable in our city for the last 40 years.

Follow the Story on ABC News.

Australia's multi-millionaire  prime minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull - who despite his frequent attempts to rewrite his own history never knew hard times - is apparently quite content to follow in the footsteps of the man likely to replace him before 2017 ends and, close yet another store-front service for vulnerable people.

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Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison finds out just how important he is to his leader:

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The meeja laughs at Turnbull's antics......

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Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull hits the prorogue button as he attempts to bully and blackmail the Australian Parliament's house of review:

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Australian Federal Election 2016: the FFS! file grows

Barnaby Joyce will personally lobby Simon Birmingham to rein in the contentious Safe Schools Coalition anti-bullying program amid backbench outrage over the Education Minister’s “whitewash” review of the scheme and claims one of its key proponents is a “pedophile advocate”.

Coalition MPs learned at a private briefing on Tuesday that the government’s review of the scheme — which educates secondary school children about ­sexual orientation and transgender issues — had largely ­endorsed the scheme’s content, but recom­mended clearer advice for parents.

Several MPs stormed out of the meeting, blaming the terms of reference that did not require reviewer Bill Louden to consult with parents or visit more than a handful of schools.

Disgruntled backbenchers were last night devising a partyroom powerplay by circulating a petition to suspend the program’s $2 million annual subsidy pending a “full-blown” parliamentary inquiry. It has been signed by at least 30 MPs, which is half the backbench. [The Australian, 17 March 2016]

Warren Entsch wasn’t having a lend. Christensen’s Safe Schools petition really has vanished. It was last seen in question time yesterday. Accident or misadventure. I know I shouldn’t laugh, but I am laughing. Politics really is absurd, isn’t it? [The Guardian, 17 March 2016]

The internal debate within the Government over the Safe Schools gender diversity program is escalating, with Tony Abbott signing a petition against it despite introducing the program as prime minister. [ABC News, 17 March 2016]

Malcolm Turnbull personally urged Annastacia Palaszczuk to delay appointing Ian Macfarlane to a plum role under a plan to save his government from a damaging by-election. The prime minister rang the premier last week asking her to keep open the newly created position of a Resources Investment Commissioner for another three months, which has further fuelled speculation he plans to call a double dissolution election.

The bizarre phone call was met with surprise by Ms Palaszczuk, who dismissed the plea, and wants to announce a candidate and turbocharge jobs in the struggling resources sector.

The Courier-Mail can reveal Macfarlane, who has already announced he would not recontest his seat of Groom, was planning to quit parliament as early as last Friday. It is believed he is the preferred candidate for the job and a contract is ready for him to sign. It has been speculated Turnbull thought he was also trying to help his mate, who under law cannot accept a job while he is a member of parliament. [The Guardian, 17 March 2016]

There's been much debate about why the Senate wants to keep photographers at bay.

Under current rules photographers (and their media organisations) can be banned from the building for taking pictures of Senators in the chamber when they are not standing and speaking.

[ABC News, 17 March 2016]

Australian Federal Election 2016: Nationals MP Kevin Hogan and suicide numbers in his electorate

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Summary of Findings 2014:

Among those aged 15 to 44, the leading causes of death were Intentional self-harm (suicide), Accidental poisonings (including drug overdoses) and Land transport accidents.

In 2014 the NSW suicide rate for males between the ages of 15-24 years was 14.1 and for females in the same age grouping the suicide rate was 5.4.

Excerpt from North Coast Voices post, 8 December 2014:

By 2013 New South Wales had a suicide rate of 9.1 per 100,000 people for 2009-2013.

In 2012-13 hospitalisation of young people aged between 15 and 24 years for intentional self-harm was significantly higher than the state average in Ballina, Byron, Clarence Valley and Coffs Harbour local government areas and, on par with the state average in Kyogle, Lismore, Tweed and Richmond Valley local government areas.

Excerpt from ABS media release, 31 March 2015:

Suicide was once again the leading cause of death for Australian's aged 15 to 44. Suicide accounted for 2,520 deaths in 2013 at a standardised death rate of 10.7 per 100,000 people. The median age at death for suicides is lower than for many other causes at 44.5 years of age. As a result, suicide accounted for over 85,000 years of life lost making it the leading cause of premature death in Australia. [my red bolding]

This was  Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan as reported by The Daily Examiner on 19 June 2015:

DESPITE a small number of dedicated youth mental health services in the Clarence Valley, the message from the Federal Government and experts is the region does not require one of the proposed 15 new headspace sites.

Member for Page Kevin Hogan told The Daily Examiner representatives from youth mental health service headspace had been in consultations with Health Minister Sussan Ley, with the Federal Government agreeing to further funding.

"The Federal Government has funded the establishment of new headspace sites to take total number of sites up to 100," Mr Hogan said.

But it is unlikely the Clarence Valley will be the recipient of one of the new headspace sites with Mr Hogan explaining we already had adequate services on the ground.

The Daily Examiner, 12 August 2015:

"The Clarence Valley needs more mental youth services and I will be campaigning for such," Mr Hogan said.

This is the situation in the Clarence Valley section of Hogan’s electorate in March 2016, as reported by ABC News:

Eleven youth suicides in 12 months have prompted a series of crisis meetings in the northern New South Wales city of Grafton.

The deaths have all occurred in the Clarence Valley region and include a 17-year-old girl in the past fortnight.

Meeting organiser Janita Cooper, a mother of three boys, said the Clarence Valley was a tight-knit community where everyone knew someone effected by suicide.

"The youth situation is out of control; it's like a rollercoaster ride," Ms Cooper said.

"The children grieve for one person and a few weeks later, it's another child."

The community's first meeting was held on Monday night with 150 people in attendance.

A working party was formed to campaign for more mental health services in Grafton, including a headspace centre, and another meeting was planned for the end of March.

A search of Hansard reveals that Kevin Hogan has never risen to his feet in the House of Representatives to plead for increased mental health services in the Clarence Valley.

In August 2015 when he was telling valley communities that he would be campaigning for more mental health services for youth, the only things he mentioned to his fellow MPs in the House were the Clarence Valley Business Excellence Awards (and what a great night he had in Yamba) and the Clarence Valley’s share of road funding.

Nor can I find any mention to date in the media that Kevin Hogan has personally been in contact with either state or federal health ministers in relation to this very serious health issue.

Apart from attempting to take some credit for the Northern NSW 2015-2018 Mental Health Integration Plan, which flows from the NSW Government strategic mental health plan, the current Federal Nationals Member for Page has done the bare minimum to date with regard to mental health services in his electorate.