It never fails. Every election, there’s always some independents who can’t be found online. Either they have no profile, or there are enough people with the same name that it isn’t clear which one they are.
We do search for them: we put their names, as given on the ballot paper, into search engines, and look for them, appending terms such as “parliament”, “senate”, “facebook” and “twitter”. Somehow, they continue to elude us, despite these measures.
So, we’re putting out a call to you, our readers. Can you point us at the details of any of the following candidates? Allen Ridgeway, Bernardine Atkinson, Nat de Francesco and David John Dillon.
Everyone else has been located and will be being reviewed soon, but these four are the Scarlet Pimpernels of this election. And unless we know what they stand for, we’re not going to be able to review them fairly, and they will, perforce, be place lower in our preferences than might otherwise be the case.
EDIT: Thank you to our eagle-eyed readers, all of these MIA politicians have now been located, as you can see in the comments below! You can now read about Allen Ridgeway, Bernardine Atkinson, Nat de Francesco and David John Dillon to your heart’s content.
A Bernardine Atkinson ran for Wannon in 2016
https://www.standard.net.au/story/3914180/big-ideas-for-change/
Yeah, I found that and the Ridgeway article in your other comment, and I think it’s likely that it is the same person in each case, but I can’t confirm it.
An Allen Rideway ran for Mallee in 2019
https://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/story/6043291/fourth-independent-candidate-plans-to-run-for-mallee/?cs=12
I can’t wait to see what you write about James Bond.
Not the most memorable campaign video I’ve ever seen (that would be Jeff Bartram and his “Tradesman Entrance” video from 2014), but it’s up there.
I’m saving him for last. He’s the dessert course 🙂
He is on Twitter and did a hilarious video on YouTube, very entertaining, but not one word of what he will actually DO once elected. Not sure he is even expecting to win. Still, might be worth putting him above some candidates you don’t want to get in. Here is the link.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2AQlNVykGbE
Thank you Sue. We are aware of James and will be covering him soon 🙂 I didn’t realise he had a twitter, though – can you point me at it?
Last I looked, he’d put up a second video advocating a Boomer Tax.
I think Nat De Francesco is a Kilsyth builder, living in Wandin North. https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-profiles.nat_de_francesco.6551dfbb25dea9d5743b4241fa7a3340.html
There’s a bunch of WA Senate candidates I can’t find political pages for: Tricia Ayre, Ashley Buckle, Peter Robert McDonald, Yunous Vagh, Bob Burdett. But I’m not on Facebook, so there’s probably stuff out there I’m not seeing.
I’m really looking forward to a review of Valentine Pegrum – I don’t agree with all of his policies, but his youtube channel is, well, entertaining at least. He can sing, and does!
I honestly don’t know if we’ll get to the WA independents, I’m afraid. We’d like to, but there’s so many candidates and only so many hours in the day.
Found two:
https://www.senatorbuckle.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Peter-Robert-McDonald-Independent-106866265353345/
Thank you for these, Guy. I don’t know if we’ll get to them – we’re concentrating on Victoria – but if we do look further afield, these will come in handy.
More info for Peter Robert McDonald – this is his website https://peterrobertmcdonald.com.au/contact-us
I assume this might be Bernardine Atkinson:
https://www.standard.net.au/story/3914180/big-ideas-for-change/.
Im suspicious she might be the same DR Bernadine who’s has a history for advocating nuclear power. (?) :/…
https://www.standard.net.au/story/3914180/big-ideas-for-change/.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-05-03/nuclear-power-way-forward-for-nt-academic/1670670
https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/nuking-the-world-by-bernardine-atkinson-and-dr-bernardine-atkinson-9781426933554
Yeah, that’s what I found too, and I think it probably is her, but I’d like to be sure I have the right person.
https://www.sheppnews.com.au/news/national-service-nuclear-and-rates-independent-senate-candidate-shares-vision/
Still pro-nuclear, also something about national service?
https://1abcd.au/ – this appears to be the main page for Dillon.
Thank you that. In retrospect, I realise I only searched for “David John Dillon”, assuming that the name he’d registered with the AEC was the name he’d be running under. We’ll do an entry for him soon.
Thank you for finding this, we’ll do an entry for Susan soon.
This page has info about candidates in the 2022 Federal election.
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/a/australia/2022guide/senate/senatevic.shtml
Thank you for that, I’ll add it to our list of links
Allen Ridgeway has two nearly identical facebook pages, and two policies.
I feel unhinged just pasting his ‘about’ information.
Standing SENATE//May 21. get my Nomination Ticket, the 100 Names required.Stand in street, when People approached, 3 things said, NAME//SENATE, these 2 lines.CHEAP WATER FOR ALL. GREATER INCLUSION//PROTECTION of our PACIFIC ISLANDER PEOPLE,(YES DONE EASY)
https://www.facebook.com/ALLEN-Ridgeway-115127664519716
And did you have a look at his other Facebook page? https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100080299074722
Punctuation is not a dirty word…
I found Nat de Francesco! Or, rather, his personal Facebook page, after quite a lot of hunting. The group memberships and page likes are public, at least, which gives a… sense of tone, at a minimum. https://www.facebook.com/nat.defrancesco
Thank you! I’ll do a short piece on him now!