Tim Blair

FREE THE MIND, USE THE VOTE!

Margo Kingston is running for election! The brilliant author, columnist, and political powerbroker wants to become a member of the Canberra Press Gallery Committee:

The problem for many gallery members is that Kingston rarely works from Parliament House. She is Sydney-based and turns up only occasionally when Parliament is sitting. Some of her Fairfax colleagues are not impressed she is standing, even though she has a gallery pass and is entitled to. Which has sparked some inventive electioneering. The brochure pictured was accompanied by a quote from Not Happy John: "I'm now an outsider to the goings on at the physical and symbolic heart of our democracy – Parliament House, Canberra. I left the place I loved and despised in equal parts more than three years ago, after 12 years of breathing its air, thinking about its thoughts, chatting to its players, questioning its decisions, investigating its secrets. Hating it. Loving it." The kicker to the brochure is "Defend your democracy – don't vote an outsider on to the Press Gallery Committee." The other rather witty slogan is an appropriation of the words uttered by Howard and turned on Kingston herself, "We decide who comes here and the circumstances in which they come".