From corflute craziness to ‘Trumpet' texts, election day can't come soon enough
I'm almost scared to vote in my hotly contested electorate. I've had ankle surgery and I'm worried I won't be able to navigate my clumsy crutches through the sea of signs and corflutes at my polling booth.
It's sign city in this marginal seat and every second fence seems to have a smiling face. It's ridiculous how many there are – as if a vacillating voter will be swayed by this visual pollution.
But then, the corflute is a consequence of our not caring. With so many disengaged, disheartened and disenfranchised voters, candidates need name recognition at the very least. Social media algorithms target us in bubbles, but we've all seen the conspicuous corflutes (and we've all received the annoying 'Trumpet' texts).
If posters are the only way to universally access voters, they're bound to attract passion. The skirmishes around signs range from scary to silly.
Independent candidate for Calare Kate Hook's posters were ripped down and had metal stakes poked through the face. It takes a certain kind of fury to do that to an inanimate object, and any woman who feels welcome in politics after seeing the image is crazy-brave. Hook says it's 'a distraction from the issues of homelessness, affordable housing, childcare and climate change' that she wants to talk about.
Similarly, there's the video of Dr Greg Malham; in his blue singlet and shorts, he takes out his rage on independent Monique Ryan's poster and boasts about 'burying the body under concrete' as he stomps on it. He has apologised, but this man operates on spines that now shiver at his misguided machismo. Melbourne seems to be showing nastier behaviour this election – neo-Nazis have crashed a sacred event to get attention and volunteers have been spat at.
In Sydney, we've seen sillier expressions of subliminal rage in the staking of land claims.
The Mosman women using a Chanel lipstick to draw a pig face on an election poster for the MP for Warringah Zali Steggall says everything about the entitlement of the ladies who possibly liquid-lunched, and none about their MP. Not since Kath and Kim's alter egos Pru and Trude have we seen such a show of clueless entitlement and petty obsession with such clipped vowels. If you wrote these lasses in a comedy sketch, you'd be accused of being too reductive. I feel sorry for the people of Mosman – these women just set your stereotype in stone for the next decade. Yet the word 'pig' on a face in lipstick still slightly sickens me.
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The moment lunch with Tim Wilson turned into an ambush
Wilson's tanned skin turns a deeper shade. I notice our unexpected guest has a plastic loop on her mobile phone case around her middle finger, making it very easy to film us as she fires questions. She's feisty, but her hands are trembling slightly. 'You want nuclear in Australia, and you are a Zionist?' she asks for a third time, not waiting for an answer. 'And you want people killed, and you want babies killed?' Wilson tells her that he is having lunch, and this is grossly inappropriate. Nevertheless, she persists – for a full five minutes. This being Brighton, a well-do-to suburb south-east of Melbourne's CBD with a strong sense of self-worth (think Mosman in Sydney), the discourse soon turns to housing. Our anti-Wilson activist is bitter that her daughter and granddaughter ('who went to Brighton Primary') were forced to move two hours away because of housing affordability. She also says Wilson was invisible on the streets of Goldstein. The antagonists start to align on criticism of the Victorian state Labor government's massive underinvestment in local education. The temperature calms. Wilson masterfully suggests a visit to the local state MP, James Newbury, just down the road. But he can't help himself, slyly querying if bowling up and filming people without permission and verbally abusing them is really the best way to win friends and influence. 'No, no, I do need to do more letter writing, yes,' is her withering rejoinder. A man at the next table decides enough is enough and in a thick European accent tells the local activist to move on. She disappears down the side street. 'Save my love to Zoe,' is Wilson's slightly garbled postscript to break the tension. It's a joking reference to teal independent Zoe Daniel, from whom he has just regained the affluent seat with a significant Jewish community situated on Port Phillip Bay. Wilson asks his cafe neighbour for validation – he is indeed a recognised local face. 'I don't know who you are,' the man replies. 'I just don't like people bothering each other.' The whole thing was excruciating. Who would be a politician? Tim Wilson, that's who. Wilson is 45, a Liberal, and a liberal, one-quarter Armenian, a happily married gay man, carrying a few extra kilos but, frankly, for someone who has just engaged in a gruelling election campaign, a man with pretty great skin. 'It's politics, right,' Wilson says a short time later between mouthfuls of the cafe's signature Abundance Bowl, an enormous pile of salad greens, sweet potato, quinoa, seeds and a fried egg, to which he has deleted the halloumi and added not just avocado but pan seared salmon. He ordered it almost every day of the campaign. I have the similar salmon bowl. The flavour mix is terrific, the mouthfeel excellent. But wine is waved away – it's a Monday – in favour of a double espresso, which sits largely untouched. Today Melbourne feels on the precipice of winter. It is allegedly going to reach 18 degrees, but locals are mistrustful. One passer-by is in a puffer jacket, the next in T-shirt and shorts. Wilson is wearing his campaign uniform: jeans, blue blazer, a crisp shirt, bright-yellow pin lapel. And to be fair, during our 90 minutes together, 14 well-wishers come up to congratulate him. Earlier in our conversation, he says going from civilian life to winning an election and straight into the shadow ministry is 'feeling like you're being shot out of a catapult and haven't quite hit the ground yet. Still from election night there are SMS that I haven't even read. It is not an unwillingness, it's a simple incapacity.' I want to know about winning – and losing. 'I can tell you there are two winnings,' Wilson says. For him, nothing beat the feeling of winning his first preselection in 2016 after Liberal veteran Andrew Robb had retired. 'Everybody expected me lose', but Wilson went all in, resigning from his post as human rights commissioner just to contest. 'Bold,' I venture. 'Bold, but welcome to Tim Town,' he agrees, opening his hands as if to demonstrate 'voila!' – but only for a split second. 'I remember that adrenaline rush, and also quite frankly shock.' This time, victory was not a shock but rather 'a mountain to climb'. At which point he turns to losing. 'Pretty much from the last election day I had a personal and professional purgatory. It feels violent,' he says, describing the post-loss businesslike phone call from the bureaucracy to losing MPs. 'You're out, this person's in, pack up the office, sort that out – bang, bang, bang, bang. 'All of a sudden nothing – and you are out.' A lot of people were very worried. A psychologist friend suggested a chat. He went. 'Part of it is just to vent and get things off your chest,' he says. 'And somebody to listen. I found that very helpful.' The morning after the loss, his husband, Ryan Bolger, a school teacher, told him: 'You can look at this as the moment that ends you – or you can look at this as a gift.' His purpose taken away from him, the couple left Goldstein so Wilson could find his space and his place, moving back to their old apartment in South Yarra, where Wilson undertook a PhD in the carbon economy. 'I don't find making money something that excites me,' he says. His voice quickens in summary mode: 'It's an awful, horrific experience. But anyone who experienced a big professional setback will know those experiences. The difference is you do it in full public glare. And of course, you are known for the last thing you did.' Which in his case, was to lose. The 2025 Goldstein campaign was controversial. The very morning of our lunch, Daniel was on ABC radio talking about dirty tricks and a personal campaign directed at her. Wilson says the campaign was intense. 'We both had very passionate supporters. No one's trying to pretend otherwise.' As to her accusations about attacks on her from groups supporting Wilson, he sits there, anger clearly rising. 'I'm really resisting in light of the difficult circumstances she is facing and living right now – fighting back.' One political commentator describes Wilson as 'charming but very egotistical'. I realise I have known him for a decade, back when I was media editor at The Australian and he was a member of the free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs and had a higher profile than many Liberal MPs. For Wilson, liberalism – the philosophy that promotes individual rights and freedoms – is the foundation of society. 'I hate the term 'moderate', because my liberalism doesn't come in moderation. I believe in that very strongly,' he says. 'I think what people are used to is this kind of idea that you have these kind of moderates who don't fight, and then they have these conservatives who fight very aggressively, whereas I'm somebody who fights very aggressively and not afraid to.' Which included contacting The Age at 3.45am one morning to protest at one aspect of the paper's coverage, which he is a little sheepish about, explaining he couldn't sleep that night. 'I don't particularly enjoy a fight, but I definitely enjoy a crusade and to be able to go and achieve change,' he says. 'I'm also not afraid of failure.' Wilson played a key role in defeating Labor's policy to change capital gains tax under Bill Shorten; now he is fighting against Labor's proposed tax changes on superannuation. I ask if there could ever be a gay leader of the Liberal Party (subtext – him). 'It's yet to be tested,' he says. 'I don't feel anyone is sitting there thinking this is an insurmountable barrier to anybody. 'There's a time where my relationship with my husband would have found me in gaol, and now it finds me, frankly, barely able to tick a diversity box.' How did the couple – who married in 2018 – meet? 'We actually met at Liberal Party State Council.' 'How romantic,' I reply. Here, Wilson looks down to apparently study his lunch and says something softly to himself. It occurs to me that Wilson might be more confident attacking Labor's superannuation policy than discussing affairs of the heart. But he reasserts himself, not pretending it was the most romantic of settings. 'It wasn't, but nonetheless it is what it was.' Ryan and he have common values, he says, brightening. 'As he says, at least he knew what he was getting himself in for.' Wilson admires Margaret Thatcher, has a poster of Ronald Reagan on his wall, and loves Milton Friedman 'because he explained economics with a charm and a smile'. He name-checks two little known political women, Pauline Sabin, who fought against prohibition, and Katharine Stewart-Murray, a distant British relative, who tried to topple her own prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, over his appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1938. 'I like Menzies a lot as well because, in the end, he's a man of rebirth, and perhaps like me, he's a man who failed first,' Wilson says with a smile.
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2 days ago
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The moment lunch with Tim Wilson turned into an ambush
Wilson's tanned skin turns a deeper shade. I notice our unexpected guest has a plastic loop on her mobile phone case around her middle finger, making it very easy to film us as she fires questions. She's feisty, but her hands are trembling slightly. 'You want nuclear in Australia, and you are a Zionist?' she asks for a third time, not waiting for an answer. 'And you want people killed, and you want babies killed?' Wilson tells her that he is having lunch, and this is grossly inappropriate. Nevertheless, she persists – for a full five minutes. This being Brighton, a well-do-to suburb south-east of Melbourne's CBD with a strong sense of self-worth (think Mosman in Sydney), the discourse soon turns to housing. Our anti-Wilson activist is bitter that her daughter and granddaughter ('who went to Brighton Primary') were forced to move two hours away because of housing affordability. She also says Wilson was invisible on the streets of Goldstein. The antagonists start to align on criticism of the Victorian state Labor government's massive underinvestment in local education. The temperature calms. Wilson masterfully suggests a visit to the local state MP, James Newbury, just down the road. But he can't help himself, slyly querying if bowling up and filming people without permission and verbally abusing them is really the best way to win friends and influence. 'No, no, I do need to do more letter writing, yes,' is her withering rejoinder. A man at the next table decides enough is enough and in a thick European accent tells the local activist to move on. She disappears down the side street. 'Save my love to Zoe,' is Wilson's slightly garbled postscript to break the tension. It's a joking reference to teal independent Zoe Daniel, from whom he has just regained the affluent seat with a significant Jewish community situated on Port Phillip Bay. Wilson asks his cafe neighbour for validation – he is indeed a recognised local face. 'I don't know who you are,' the man replies. 'I just don't like people bothering each other.' The whole thing was excruciating. Who would be a politician? Tim Wilson, that's who. Wilson is 45, a Liberal, and a liberal, one-quarter Armenian, a happily married gay man, carrying a few extra kilos but, frankly, for someone who has just engaged in a gruelling election campaign, a man with pretty great skin. 'It's politics, right,' Wilson says a short time later between mouthfuls of the cafe's signature Abundance Bowl, an enormous pile of salad greens, sweet potato, quinoa, seeds and a fried egg, to which he has deleted the halloumi and added not just avocado but pan seared salmon. He ordered it almost every day of the campaign. I have the similar salmon bowl. The flavour mix is terrific, the mouthfeel excellent. But wine is waved away – it's a Monday – in favour of a double espresso, which sits largely untouched. Today Melbourne feels on the precipice of winter. It is allegedly going to reach 18 degrees, but locals are mistrustful. One passer-by is in a puffer jacket, the next in T-shirt and shorts. Wilson is wearing his campaign uniform: jeans, blue blazer, a crisp shirt, bright-yellow pin lapel. And to be fair, during our 90 minutes together, 14 well-wishers come up to congratulate him. Earlier in our conversation, he says going from civilian life to winning an election and straight into the shadow ministry is 'feeling like you're being shot out of a catapult and haven't quite hit the ground yet. Still from election night there are SMS that I haven't even read. It is not an unwillingness, it's a simple incapacity.' I want to know about winning – and losing. 'I can tell you there are two winnings,' Wilson says. For him, nothing beat the feeling of winning his first preselection in 2016 after Liberal veteran Andrew Robb had retired. 'Everybody expected me lose', but Wilson went all in, resigning from his post as human rights commissioner just to contest. 'Bold,' I venture. 'Bold, but welcome to Tim Town,' he agrees, opening his hands as if to demonstrate 'voila!' – but only for a split second. 'I remember that adrenaline rush, and also quite frankly shock.' This time, victory was not a shock but rather 'a mountain to climb'. At which point he turns to losing. 'Pretty much from the last election day I had a personal and professional purgatory. It feels violent,' he says, describing the post-loss businesslike phone call from the bureaucracy to losing MPs. 'You're out, this person's in, pack up the office, sort that out – bang, bang, bang, bang. 'All of a sudden nothing – and you are out.' A lot of people were very worried. A psychologist friend suggested a chat. He went. 'Part of it is just to vent and get things off your chest,' he says. 'And somebody to listen. I found that very helpful.' The morning after the loss, his husband, Ryan Bolger, a school teacher, told him: 'You can look at this as the moment that ends you – or you can look at this as a gift.' His purpose taken away from him, the couple left Goldstein so Wilson could find his space and his place, moving back to their old apartment in South Yarra, where Wilson undertook a PhD in the carbon economy. 'I don't find making money something that excites me,' he says. His voice quickens in summary mode: 'It's an awful, horrific experience. But anyone who experienced a big professional setback will know those experiences. The difference is you do it in full public glare. And of course, you are known for the last thing you did.' Which in his case, was to lose. The 2025 Goldstein campaign was controversial. The very morning of our lunch, Daniel was on ABC radio talking about dirty tricks and a personal campaign directed at her. Wilson says the campaign was intense. 'We both had very passionate supporters. No one's trying to pretend otherwise.' As to her accusations about attacks on her from groups supporting Wilson, he sits there, anger clearly rising. 'I'm really resisting in light of the difficult circumstances she is facing and living right now – fighting back.' One political commentator describes Wilson as 'charming but very egotistical'. I realise I have known him for a decade, back when I was media editor at The Australian and he was a member of the free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs and had a higher profile than many Liberal MPs. For Wilson, liberalism – the philosophy that promotes individual rights and freedoms – is the foundation of society. 'I hate the term 'moderate', because my liberalism doesn't come in moderation. I believe in that very strongly,' he says. 'I think what people are used to is this kind of idea that you have these kind of moderates who don't fight, and then they have these conservatives who fight very aggressively, whereas I'm somebody who fights very aggressively and not afraid to.' Which included contacting The Age at 3.45am one morning to protest at one aspect of the paper's coverage, which he is a little sheepish about, explaining he couldn't sleep that night. 'I don't particularly enjoy a fight, but I definitely enjoy a crusade and to be able to go and achieve change,' he says. 'I'm also not afraid of failure.' Wilson played a key role in defeating Labor's policy to change capital gains tax under Bill Shorten; now he is fighting against Labor's proposed tax changes on superannuation. I ask if there could ever be a gay leader of the Liberal Party (subtext – him). 'It's yet to be tested,' he says. 'I don't feel anyone is sitting there thinking this is an insurmountable barrier to anybody. 'There's a time where my relationship with my husband would have found me in gaol, and now it finds me, frankly, barely able to tick a diversity box.' How did the couple – who married in 2018 – meet? 'We actually met at Liberal Party State Council.' 'How romantic,' I reply. Here, Wilson looks down to apparently study his lunch and says something softly to himself. It occurs to me that Wilson might be more confident attacking Labor's superannuation policy than discussing affairs of the heart. But he reasserts himself, not pretending it was the most romantic of settings. 'It wasn't, but nonetheless it is what it was.' Ryan and he have common values, he says, brightening. 'As he says, at least he knew what he was getting himself in for.' Wilson admires Margaret Thatcher, has a poster of Ronald Reagan on his wall, and loves Milton Friedman 'because he explained economics with a charm and a smile'. He name-checks two little known political women, Pauline Sabin, who fought against prohibition, and Katharine Stewart-Murray, a distant British relative, who tried to topple her own prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, over his appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1938. 'I like Menzies a lot as well because, in the end, he's a man of rebirth, and perhaps like me, he's a man who failed first,' Wilson says with a smile.
