Last Saturday October 14 2017, Australia First Party president, Dr Jim Saleam, stood as an independent candidate in New South Wales electoral district of Cootamundra.
Achieved 1% in just a few weeks
The shock resignation of the sitting Nationals member, Katrina Hodgkinson, giving just four weeks notice on July 31 had triggered a bi-election. With only six weeks warning, Australia First Party was not able to register in time, so Dr Saleam stood as an independent candidate with the Party’s full backing.
Dr Saleam went up against the incumbent Nationals, as well as Labor, Greens and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party. The ‘SAVE Tumbarumba’ group turned out to support Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party candidate Matthew Stadtmiller in Cootamundra. Even Fred Nile’s mob were in there too.
The Nationals held the seat with a margin of margin of 20.4% over Labor in the 2015 state election, though this was down from the 31% dominance of 2011.
Except Jim stood for and continues to stand for something none of these others does – the true Australian. He went into the campaign the ultimate underdog. Yet, he is also the smartest, most honest contestant on the ticket.
Jim hit the campaign trail running, covering vast territory and participating at numerous ‘Meet The Candidate’ events, with the exception of a that shut him out namely the editor of the Young Witness, Craig Thomson. What an unfortunate name?
Gnat prejudiced
Taffy Thomo’s usual recipe of ‘Nazi’ accusations and lurid innuendo, resembled the grubby slur by departing Katrina Hodgkinson against the Shooters candidate Matthew Stadtmiller.
Hodgkinson gave Stadtmiller her hateful “zeig heil” during the campaign, now infamous and showing just how desperate the National Party has become. Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party MLC Robert Borsak, whose father escaped the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, subsequently called on Deputy Premier John Barilaro and Premier Gladys Berejiklian to denounce the comment.
Another pin-up puppet for the Libs voting bloc backbench
Thomo’s prejudice against our candidate was similarly acute. All Thomo served to do by blocking Jim from speaking to the electorate was to interfere with the democratic process. All Young witnessed was the erosion of the Nationals in their once secure heartland.
Instead, what happened as result of the Nationals once again abandoning their support base, has been to create a political vacuum. Thanks to Hodgko, AFP’s place in regional Australia is now entrenched. We are there to stay, we are there to grow. We will be dug in until the day comes that we can deliver to our people everything that has been stolen from them by the sucession of Political Class cheats.
Hodgko was Barry O’Farrells’ water minister, but then she pissed off Gladys and was relegated by the Libs to the backbench where most Gnats end up. So it will be interesting to see what lucrative private sector job she has secretly secured – that is who bought her out and what her price was.
We will stay because AFP is not in this thing for a pay day, we are the only party honest about delivering Australia back to our people. In this campaign they have tried to sideline Jim by telling him he is bringing “federal” issues to a regional campaign. He rightly pointed out that federal issues ARE regional issues because of the global stamp they are planting on our last bastions of proper Australian identity.
Jim achieved what he set out to achieve – a political presence and brand awareness. Jim presents the true Australian, the people’s ombudsman and the nationalist alternative in the Riverina. Jim has exposed the Nationals elitist gentry that rule and control the region.
Jim challenged the real threats facing the Australian people of the Riverina:
Jim has built on all the hard work done by Lorraine Sharp at nearby Wagga Wagga over the years. Australia First contested Riverina district before. Lorraine Sharp was our candidate in the 2013 Federal poll and received 1287 votes (1.46%). She was also a candidate for the Wagga Wagga City Council in 2016 and narrowly missed election, earning 4.42% of the poll.
The votes are all but in for the by-election in the electorate of Cootamundra. Jim currently stands on 434 and as the remaining Declared Institutions votes and the postal votes are counted, Jim went a little higher – to one per cent.
“This time around, I actually like to be a one percenter”
It means we are the outsider-folks in a sizeable part of the huge Riverina district of New South Wales. And outsiders have the habit of growing their reach when the cause is true.
The Cootamundra by-election was an interesting challenge. It saw us leafleting small and declining towns and meeting ordinary working people.
It put our name and our message out there for the future. For the record, Jim intends to be a candidate for Cootamundra again in 2019 in the New South Wales state election.
At candidates’ nights, Jim met with many locals who are for their first time thinking not only of voting against their ‘normal’ party, but whether there are fundamental problems within Aussie politics that cannot be addressed by system-answers.
Our workers on the job and at the polls reported conversations with members of other parties that are also likely indicators of growth for nationalist ideals in the community. It is noted that the purely electoral side of our effort lacked particular human resources. On polling day, we handed out less than 10,000 cards. We managed to bring some polling volunteers from outside of the area (and we thank them) and we organized some of our local supporters to help out.
But this electorate is 24,711 square kilometres and has two dozen very small booths that we could not attend – and obviously we received few votes. At some booths where we had people all day, we reached over 2% and at the booth Jim attended (the Athenium Theatre at Junee), we are happy to say Jim polled 3.3%.
The Riverina is an area targeted by globalisation and by Chinese imperialism and it is infected by the traitor class landed-gentry view of politics and economics which is subservient to these forces. A resistance must be generated and we intend to work in that direction.
Australia First party electoral policy is to always preference the sitting party/candidate last, irrespective of who it is.
Dr Saleam as an independent candidate issued a ‘1’ only how-to-vote and recommended that voters give no preferences.
In the end the big party numbers race and dodgy preference deals between the usual suspects – Nationals candidate Steph Cooke, Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate Matthew Stadtmiller and Labor’s Charlie Sheahan (not to be confused with Charlie Sheen).
Well the Gnats won but on a smaller margin, copping a “brusing” 10% swing against them by locals. After their totalitarian efforts with forced council mergers and banning greyhound racing, the Gnats remain permanently on the nose.
Another hateful Gnat, it’s leader John Barilaro who allso slung mud at our Jim, has tried to brush off massive swings against his party both in Cootamundra and in Murray, not forgetting the Gnat’s ousting previously in Orange. Not suprisingly, a Nationals staffer was caught handing out unauthorised election material at a booth in Young. They’ll do anything these days. The NSW Electoral Commission is investigating.
Stay tuned.