Save Our
Sydney Suburbs (NSW) Inc.
News
Release September 2005
Marrickville by-election and important article
Hi SOS Members
The significant Marrickville by-election is being held tomorrow. SOS member
Lorraine Thomson is one of the nine candidates contesting the seat. Lorraine
is a nurse who has worked on a variety of interesting health initiatives for
the underprivileged. She has acted as a mid-wife and educator and is currently
working for the Red Cross Blood Bank. She is very active organising a branch
of WIRES, the group that rescues injured native animals. The SOS website lists
SOS policies.
This election will be very interesting. Where we have insufficient people-power
to man booths we will be assisted by the Greens. SOS how-to-vote handouts suggest
the voter's second preference goes to the Greens and the third preference to
the Democrats. The Democrats have advised that their how-to-vote handouts only
specify a "1" for the Democrats and no futher preferences. We now
hear that ALP supporters have been spotted distributing Democrat election literature.
It thus seems probable that the ALP will assist the Democrats at the booths
tomorrow. Any votes for the Democrats not specifying a preference flow will
exhaust, so sterilising those votes and preventing them flowing on to other
parties such as SOS or the Greens. Such is politics!
We read that the ALP has spent in excess of $100,000 contesting Marrickville
whereas SOS is spending $700. Obviously SOS does not expect to win the seat
but we need to get our name more widely known - the election is generating considerable
publicity. We have been hoping that we might get a mention in the ABC TV Stateline
program at 7.30 tonight - the ABC cameras were at the "Meet the Candidates"
event. However the Latham revelations might displace whatever coverage of the
Marrickville by-election was planned.
Nevertheless we will get publicity tomorrow in an opinion piece on urban planning
in the Sydney Morning Herald being written by reporter Michael Duffy who has
interviewed me. This is an important breakthrough that I have been working on
for some time - I have been trying to persuade the paper to publish our views
in letters and articles. The public response to this opinion piece will
determine whether or not the paper will publish more articles of this nature.
If no public interest is shown, the subject will die.
It is therefore critical that letters are sent in to the editor responding to
Michael Duffy's article appearing tomorrow. Please take a bit of time to read
the article and write a short letter on the subject to the editor at letters@smh.com.au.
Remember to include your name, address and phone number at the end of your letter.
To all our election helpers tomorrow - have a good day!
Tony Recsei
President, Save Our Suburbs