No-show Nicolle

On Tuesday night, InSider’s friends at CityMag were made a fool of.

You see, CityMag was contacted by the University of Adelaide Politics and International Relations Association (PIRA) to list their federal election forum in the CityMag events guide (which should be everyone’s go-to site to prove their ignorant mates wrong that there’s nothing to do in Adelaide).

Dutifully, CityMag listed the event, which was advertised as having four speakers: Labor Senator Karen Grogan, Greens Senator Barbara Pocock, Jacqui Lambie Network Senate candidate Rex Patrick and Liberal MP candidate Nicolle Flint, who is running for the marginal seat of Boothby.

But when InSider attended the event, Flint was nowhere to be seen.

The moderator said her office contacted them late in the week prior to notify them Flint would be unable to attend “due to unforeseen circumstances”.

A Liberal Party spokeswoman told InSider that “over a week’s notice of this change of plans was given”.

To be fair, if you’re able to give over a week’s notice, I think we can call that “foreseeable”.

When asked why Flint could not attend and why the Liberals didn’t send a replacement, the spokeswoman said, “marginal seat candidates have many competing priorities as polling day approaches”.

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“As this event was far outside of the electorate of Boothby, activities within the seat were prioritised,” she said.

The moderator said, despite PIRA’s best efforts, and months of back and forth with the Liberal party’s state office to secure a backup, it didn’t happen.

Grogan, Pocock and Patrick should have been thrilled, because no matter their performance or response to the youth-centred questions, they’re already ahead of the eight-ball because at least they actually showed up.

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Flint previously held Boothby from 2016 and didn’t contest the 2022 election due to health reasons as she has endometriosis, which is when the seat turned red to Labor’s Louise Miller-Frost. Flint is back in the running this time around, with improved health and raring to go according to the many, many flyers in Boothby letterboxes. But, is she ready to face the youth vote?

Pocock doesn’t think so.

“The issues of student debt, of housing and environmental and planet security are very significant in the minds of young people, and it is changing the voting patterns of our country, and thank heavens,” the Greens senator said at the event.

“And I think if you want to understand that, most importantly, turn up. Where are you? Nicole, turn up.”

This certainly hit with the crowd in the Bragg lecture theatre, receiving applause from most.

Overall, the Flint jab count clocked in at five during the almost two-hour event, with three hits from Pocock and two from Grogan.

Patrick did actually jump to Flint’s defence on the topic of defence, pointing out that the Liberals aren’t the only ones with nuclear dreams: “the Labor Party, too are bringing eight nuclear reactors to Australia in the AUKUS program”.

Late to the party

This week, politicians are making their final pitches to voters nationwide before we head to the polls to exercise our democratic right to a sausage (or democracy veggie patty, whatever you prefer, we don’t judge).

So, we were quite taken aback when InSider received an email on Wednesday, just four days out from election day, announcing that Frankie Bray would stand as the lead Senate candidate for the Animal Justice Party (AJP). Given candidate announcements and preselection gossip trickling into our inbox since late last year, this was unusual.

InSider contacted Bray, who told us her candidature was announced to AJP members via email a few weeks ago, as well as via social media. She said the reason they were only sending out a press release now is because they are a minor party with limited resources.

“We don’t receive any public or government funding, as a general rule, and we are just a bunch of volunteers doing our best to balance our work commitments, family commitments and so on,” she said.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Bray is currently studying a PhD at the University of Adelaide, focusing on animal law and lists previous legal experience at Debra Spizzo & Associates, Avant Law, the Women’s Domestic Violence Court Assistance Service and Belperio Clark Lawyers.

This is not the first time Bray has stood for an election, having previously run with the AJP in the 2022 State and Federal elections as well as the Dunstan by-election last year. So she has some community recognition despite the AJP only spreading the good word in the final lap of the campaign.

When asked why people should vote for her, Bray said AJP are more than a bunch of animal-lovers, and disputed that it’s a single-issue party.

“Our campaign is really based around animals, people and planet, and we care equally about all of those,” she said.

“Our underpinning values of the party are kindness, equality, rationality and non-violence. So, any issues that we don’t already have a policy on, those are the values by which myself and other members of the party would be approaching those issues.”

The Animal Justice Party said it is campaigning on “urgent reforms” including introducing Veticare (essentially an animal version of Medicare), ending wildlife slaughter and stronger climate and ecological action.

Well, better late than never?

Is it just me…

… or is the spin spreading from the election stumps to everyday life? InSider eagerly opened an email this morning announcing that Adelaide is “one of Australia’s top cities for networking”. Thinking that the City of one-degree-of-separation would top yet another list, InSider was surprised to find that the town ranked fifth… out of five.

So, forgiving the IT startup that was spruiking its digital business cards for spinning this harder than a pollie on talk-back radio, it seems that Adelaide might not be as connected as we all love to believe.

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Or is it simply that we don’t need our phones to connect with others?