Attended Capelfest yesterday, one of the biggest local annual fairs held in the South West of Western Australia.
The Liberal Candidate wasn’t in attendance. Pure stupidity, Forrest might have a 10% margin but she won’t have the advantage of incumbency and if the swing is on the seat could easily be tight…even lost.
The ALP candidate however was clever enough to have a stall, right near the main entrance as well, so exposure would have been huge, I’ve got no idea what the attendance figures would have been, but I’d guess maybe 20,000 people, certainly at least 10,000, there were people everywhere.
The stall was decked out nearly exclusively with anti Work Choices stuff, everything from portable 2.5m full colour banner displays, stickers, flyers etc… I didn’t take the camera and forgot to grab a photo on the mobile, I should have.
She who must be obeyed said to me that it wasn’t a professional layout in her opinion, but we’re both seasoned at this sort of stuff and in years gone by, from shopping centres to country shows we’ve got a ton of experience at these sorts of things, but we shouldn’t really be the bar to which all such displays should be measured + her analysis ignored an important point: the stall wasn’t there as an information booth, it was there so the ALP candidate could play meet and greet with as many people as possible. And indeed, in the couple of times I walked past it there was always a pile of people around the stall, a sure sign that not only was it working, but it was serving its purpose.
Given the quality of the anti-Work Choices material it’s as clear as day to me that the 2007 Federal Election is going to be about WorkChoices….and as long as the ALP can keep on message Kevin Rudd will be the next Prime Minister of Australia, after all, general support for WorkChoices is minimal in the electorate. If 2001 was the Tampa election, 2007 looks like being a referendum on WorkChoices, and it’s a vote the Government cant win.
