MEDIA RELEASE
Saturday August 7, 2010 - If you search for 'Jess Moore' - the Socialist Alliance candidate for Cunningham - on Google, the first link to come up is for the Liberal Party. The same sponsored link appears if you search for 'Jess Moore for Cunningham'. This is now the case for all candidates running in Cunningham.
'Money from the big end of town funds the Liberal Party's campaign, and this is what they are spending it on. People who are trying to find out what the candidates stand for are being mis-directed to the Liberal Party's anti-worker and anti-social policies. This kind of dishonestly and manipulation should be condemned by all those who believe in open and democratic elections', said Moore.
'Rather than debate us openly or honestly the Liberals are buying sponsored links to confuse and mislead people. I have attended every 'meet the candidates' meeting that I've been invited to, in the interests of democracy and choice. The Liberal Party has failed to attend any of these meetings. Now - worse still - they're trying to stop people finding out about the alternatives.
'For candidates not backed by the major parties it's incredibly hard to get your ideas out to a broad audience. We can't afford TV ads, for example. But the internet is a much more even playing field. We've put a lot of work into the "Jess Moore for Cunningham" blog for this reason.
'How can we break the undemocratic dominance of the two major parties if our ability to talk to people is undermined by tricks like this?
'I challenge Philip Clifford to a public debate on the issues facing the people of Cunningham. Rather than just buying up website links, Clifford should face his opponents and honestly put forward what his party stands for', Moore concluded.
Check out the profiles of candidates in this week's Wollongong Advertiser. You can see from the titles that candidates stand for VERY different things. Jess stands for 'People before profits', while Labor's Sharon Bird vows to 'cut business tax'! The Liberals are 'taking a stand', whatever that means; the Greens are worried about unemployment.
