By Samantha Hutchinson and Paul Sakkal
Northern Beaches residents were treated to a show – or an early wake-up call, depending on how you see it – on Monday morning as a Qantas-branded Airbus picked Manly for some circle work ahead of its arrival at Sydney Airport.
A new Airbus A350-1000 at Sydney airport on Monday.Credit: Brook Mitchell
The hollowed-out test plane sent from the French jet manufacturer’s headquarters in Toulouse formed the centrepiece of Qantas’ big-ticket announcement to offer ultra-long, non-stop flights from Sydney to London and New York by 2025, thanks to a deal with Airbus securing 12 of the ultra-long distance planes.
Qantas executives had initially organised for the plane to arrive at the airport via the scenic – and highly telegenic – route over Sydney Harbour, taking in the bridge and the Opera House. And just in time for brekky TV, no less.
But when the time came to land, air traffic controllers had other ideas, with traffic woes at the airport forcing the plane to circle off the northern beaches before being handed final clearance to land. A headache-and-a-half, no doubt, when there’s a crowd of 300 including Qantas boss Alan Joyce and Airbus big wig Christian Scherer standing in a hangar, waiting for the plane to land.
PICK AND CHOOSE
Wentworth Liberal Dave Sharma has stunned supporters by handing out how-to-vote cards encouraging his supporters to preference United Australia Party candidate Natalie Dumer in second place. This is above the liberal-minded Liberal Democrat Daniel Lewkovitz, who is in third place. Arch rival and independent Allegra Spender is in fourth position while Labor candidate and local businessman Tim Murray is in fifth spot.
Dumer did not return phone calls on Monday about whether she is preferencing the Liberal incumbent. Sharma did not respond to calls on Monday.
But Liberal insiders say the decision was driven by the UAP’s generous ad spend and visibility in the area, which has been a boon for nabbing undecided voters. The UAP dropped almost $350,000 on Facebook advertising in the three months to May.
Whether it corresponds to votes is another question.
Wentworth voters handed the party just 629 votes at the 2019 election. In local terms, that makes the party about as popular as an oil and gas exploration permit off Bondi Beach. And that was before party founder Clive Palmer decided to take the party’s style cues directly from a hazardous materials sign.
But we digress. Major contender Spender is not directing her preferences to anyone. Labor’s Murray has put Spender in second and Sharma in fourth place. Analyse that.
CELEBRITY HEADS
And yet that’s not the biggest issue in Wentworth. It’s corflute wars at 50 paces in the electorate that keeps on giving, with candidates ditching the battle for hearts and minds in favour of a different target: eyeballs.
Independent Allegra Spender got off to an early start, carpet-bombing the electorate with corflutes by January in an effort that has only ramped up since. Liberal incumbent Dave Sharma has waged his own counter-insurgency, encouraging Liberal supporters to contact telegraph pole owner Ausgrid to have the corflutes removed.
It’s corflute wars at 50 paces in the Wentworth electorate.Credit: Illustration: John Shakespeare
Last week, the energy provider took action and conducted a mass clearing of Spender’s corflutes. Sharma chalked up the effort as a win. But Spender has since regrouped.
By Thursday, Spender had emailed supporters, asking them to erect more signs and large banners from their homes.
“Five hundred of you have already stepped up and placed a sign out the front of your home or business … we know we can do so much more.” By Sunday, almost 200 supporters had heeded the call. In other words, there’s plenty more visual pollution to come.
BIG MISPRINT
But when talking preferences, consider the conundrum Higgins Liberal MP Katie Allen finds herself in. After last week’s ballot draw, the paediatric allergies specialist reported United Australia Party candidate Ingram Spencer to the federal police for “acting aggressively towards people and scaring everyone”. Days later, he was arrested for allegedly using a carriage service to harass someone and placed behind bars ahead of a first court hearing later this week.
So imagine the surprise among Higgins Liberal members and broader constituents when tens of thousands of them received Liberal how-to-vote cards instructing them to preference Spencer, a QAnon-following Vladimir Putin admirer, ahead of Labor and the Greens.
Allen called her Labor rival, infectious diseases doctor Michelle Ananda-Rajah, a “national disgrace” for questioning the efficacy of AstraZeneca in February 2021.
Presumably she would also have strong opinions on Spencer’s social media postings. Spencer, who is a former PwC director, has labelled the Pfizer vaccine “extremely unsafe” and claimed it kills 3 per cent of those who receive it. The Palmer party hopeful shared a post appearing to celebrate Shane Warne’s death because he supported anti-vaxxer Novak Djokovic’s deportation. He has also shared material questioning whether the Port Arthur massacre happened and propagated Russian military propaganda in the war in Ukraine.
All normal posts from an extremely normal fellow.
Allen’s office says the voting cards were already at the printers by the time he allegedly harassed people. Future how-to-vote cards will have the candidate in last place. But with tens of thousands of these cards already in letterboxes, hasn’t that horse already bolted?