He’d found a message on his phone when he woke up, a message from someone he didn’t know.
It asked him to participate in a survey by CMS Research “about Rob Priestly’s endorsement by Daniel Andrews’ Labor Party”.
The Boss doesn’t belong to a party and likes to play a straight bat on this political stuff. He says the region has been good to him and it’s a fine place to live so the best thing he can do is vote in a way that is best for the people who live here.
He was annoyed because he knows that Mr Priestly, who’s running as an independent, was born into a farming family and runs a big laundry business with his brother Phil, employing hundreds of people. And he’s no Labor man.
He says Mr Priestly has done some big community jobs, like chairing the Committee for Greater Shepparton and being our deputy mayor. Then, last year, when 20,000 locals were locked down with COVID-19, he helped spearhead the massive GV Cares effort to get food and supplies to those people who really needed it.
In other words, he’s a really good fella and a great contributor. The Boss detests what he calls “dirty politics” – spreading fear and lies about a candidate to try to swing the vote.
“It’s the Nationals doing this, General. It’s very disappointing. It stinks,” he said.
“Labor has its own candidate, Bill Lodwick, so it’s not just untrue to say Mr Priestly has been endorsed by Labor – it’s a blatant lie.”
The Boss reckons the Nationals are trying to make it look like Mr Priestly is in fact a Labor sympathiser by putting doubt or fear in the minds of people who dislike Labor or the Premier, or both.
“The Nats have form on resorting to these grubby tactics, General, and it creates a bad smell.”
I didn’t quite see why it was a bad smell – I like a bad smell. And I reckon all’s fair in love and war myself. But he went on:
“They did it last state election, throwing muck at the state member, Suzanna Sheed. And they did the same kind of divisive thing during the foodbowl modernisation, even though they knew our irrigation system needed fixing.”
He was eyeing me off because he knows I default automatically to ruthless: when it comes to something I want (food comes to mind) I will stop at nothing. He knew what I was thinking – the Nats must be just like me!
“Ruthless might be useful if they were ruthless in leveraging their power to extract maximum benefits for the electorate,” he added. “But we’ve learned that ruthless tends to stop when they get in.”
“They prefer the perks of office,” The Boss reckoned. “They prefer the overseas trips, the ministerial staff and cars and salaries to sitting on the crossbench, on a backbencher’s salary, doing ruthless deals for our electorate.”
So there you have it, according to The Boss. Whatever it takes – until they get what they want. Just like me. Woof!