b_auspol

And now on to North Metropolitan, where Flux (currently known as Liberals for Climate) have been causing some chaos.

Rafe Roberts & Carel Husselmann
N. Spada & M. Husselmann
Billy Amesz & Steven Gersbach

I don’t usually do this, but I’m going to group these six together and not even bother treating them as separate tickets.

These people have all been entered by the same group as “independent” voting tickets. They are not. This is readily apparent from the fact that when you check the public candidate contact information, Rafe Roberts, Carel Husselmann, N. Spada and Billy Amesz are all registered as having the same email address: independents.wa2021@gmail.com.

Yes. I know it looks different: each of them has +RR, +CH, +NS, +BA as part of the email address. This is actually a trick with gmail email addresses: anything after the + sign is not treated as the actual email address. It’s generally used as a filtering method by people, so you can sort incoming emails or see where someone got your email address from.

Since they can’t even be bothered concealing the fact that they’re all the same group, I won’t bother treating them independently.

I can’t specifically identify Rafe. Carel is a Senior Mine Planning Engineer who doesn’t have a public facebook account but is a member of several South Africans in WA facebook group. M Husselmann is almost certainly a relation. Steven Gersbach appears to be a nature photographer, and I quite like his work.

N Spada has stood as a phony “independent” before in Agricultural Region in 2017: he’s a member of Flux (who are calling themselves Liberals for Climate). Billy Amesz did the same thing, but in Mining and Pastoral Region in 2017. Here’s an article about it. Here’s another one.

I’m not even going to bother trying to find out their opinions. They clearly exist only to funnel preferences. The reasons why these six are running as “independents” is that the Druery group is set up to funnel preferences to Liberals for Climate/Flux in this region.

Their preferences go to Liberals for Climate first, then each has an altered mix of Sustainable Australia, Daylight Savings Party, Health Australia Party, Western Australia Party, Liberal Democrats, with Greens, Labor then Liberal at the bottom of the ticket.

Do not vote for these crypto Flux candidates. I think Flux are being PARTICULARLY cynical this election and playing a lot of dirty tricks, and if you do for some reason like their platform, just vote for the real party.

Michael & John Tucak
https://michaeltucak.net.au/
https://www.facebook.com/michaeltucakindependent/

The first lot of independents in this region who are actually running for parliament!

Michael has run as an independent previously in 2017 for North Metropolitan. He’s currently a Councillor for the Town of Cottesloe and has been since 2017. His day job is as a IP lawyer. I’m guessing John is his brother.

It’s just so nice to see a candidate with actual experience. However, Michael is currently pretty busy talking about things the local council is up to and hasn’t pivoted to running for election, which is a bit odd given voting has started.

Michael’s slogan is “a 'creative, constructive and community-minded' approach to government and decision-making”. I can’t find any actual state level policies, but at a local level he’s involved with public art, primary school traffic and safety, library management, and open spaces and the foreshore.

His preferences go to T. Ravichandar, then to WAxit, Animal Justice, Legalise Cannabis, Michael Mischin (the 5th Liberal candidate), Andrea Randle, the WA Party, Alison Xamon (lead Greens candidate). Bottom of the ticket is One Nation then all the other independents.

I really can’t get a coherent message out of these preferences. I think it’s almost an isolationist leftie, except you’d expect to Sustainable Australia a lot higher in that case. NMV and HAP are very low, so he’s at least not anti-vax.

I remain confused by Michael Tucak. He seems largely harmless, but I can’t see a reason why you’d want to vote for him.

Andrea Randle & Wvendy Chan

Andrea Randle does not appear to have officially run for parliament before, but was pre-selected by One Nation for the 2017 election to run in Pilbara while still living in Perth. Apparently due to the backlash at this, One Nation scrambled around and found someone a bit closer. Andrea is a nurse: she was nominated and received recognition during 2020 for her work as a nurse during COVID, with this decription: “Andrea is carer to her 85-year-old mother, 86-year-old mother-in-law and a special needs child as well as working as a nurse.”

Andrea does not appear to have said anything publicly about her candidacy this time. I would suspect, however, given that Andrea’s been a member of One Nation in the past, that her views generally conform to that.

Wvendy Chan runs a karaoke bar called Galaxy Lounge in Northbridge. Her social media’s pretty open, though focused on her business: I can’t see a single thing there about running for election.

Moving over to the group voting ticket, which shows a bunch of interesting choices: First up are all the independents, with the Tucaks, followed by T. Ravichandar, then the crypto-Flux candidates, the WA Party, Simon Ehrenfeld (THIRD Liberal candidate), Animal Justice, No Mandatory Vaccination, Sustainable Australia, Health Australia Party, Liberals for Climate, WAxit, DSP, and then One Nation. Last are Greens and Labor.

From this I read that Andrea is pretty pissed off with One Nation, is preferencing a lot of anti-vax parties quite highly for someone who works as a nurse, and has generally pretty solidly right wing, close the border views.

At least this lot are actually running? But still. Treat like you would anyone who’s been a One Nation candidate and then ceased to be.

T. Ravichandar

Ravichandar appears popular among the more “real” independent candidates in North Metropolitan, but I cannot track him down. There’s a possible LinkedIn match for a consultant in Perth, but the profile seems to have been made private.

He does have an email listed, so if you were more curious than me, you could contact him to find out what he actually stands for, but I’m not don’t think his chances are good enough to make it worth my while to check.

His group voting ticket preferences go to the Tucaks first, then WAxit, AJP, GAP, No Mandatory Vaccination, and Legalise Cannabis. Bottom of the ticket is Labor, then Liberals, then the Greens. I don’t actually see a coherent strategy here – he seems to be wildly pinballing from the far left to the far right each pick.

Let us know why you’re running, T. Ravichandar! You don’t appear to be funnelling preferences, so what are your concerns?