The news that local media are experiencing challenges in persuading Eden-Monaro Liberal candidate, Fiona Kotvojs, might come as a surprise to many who would imagine any sensible politician these days, invited to expand on their mandates, would shun away from from the limelight and not seize the prize opportunity to communicate with her target electoral audience?
Exceedingly strange behaviour indeed, given the knife-edge nature of the contest and with early polling already underway as we speak.
The Beagle's questions posted to her Facebook page remain unanswered (and presently not deleted as has been the case of any comment that was not gushingly effusive)
Above: questions asked of Ms Kotvojs remain unanswered and, at present, not deleted from the candidate's facebook page
Could it, might it, just possibly be, even at this delicately poised phase of the process, that Party Head Office flack-handlers, observing some issues of personal style and tone, have decided to take their candidate in hand and out of circulation, and whilst temporarily ‘busy on other matters’, prime her on how to navigate some of the curly questions she’s going to face from locals and media alike, given some of her previous self-invited contributions on local environmental and climate issues, particularly in the Eurobodalla?
As has already been widely commented, the choice of who gets to represent Eden-Monaro’s Eurobodalla residents in Canberra offers a strong card in this most marginal of electorates.
Residents and voters can expect a deluge more of anxious pollies trailing through the area looking for other freshly-seeded lawns to trample on in the lead up to Polling Day as they desperately make promises left, right and centre.
With that in mind and the recent spate of pork-barrelling at a Federal and State level our own natural interest in the potential outcomes concerning Eurobodalla’s new hospital thoughts of at least one candidate’s past commentary still resonate on this issue.
At the time of the previous Eden-Monaro election, candidates were assiduously canvassed in respect their views on the community’s urgent demand for a proper Level 4 Hospital in Eurobodalla: A demand to be no less strongly voiced in Narooma.
The issue was given an attentive reception and uniformly supportive encouragement by nearly all the candidates. But, as recorded on the “ONE Eurobodalla Hospital” Facebook page at the time there was one very notable exception which should not pass unremarked as it goes to the heart of the best interests and welfare of Eurobodalla residents of Eden-Monaro.
A description of that meeting presented a deeply concerning picture of then (as now) Liberal candidate Fiona Kotvojs, with no medical expertise to her name, somewhat dismissively questioning the purpose and the need for a new hospital in Eurobodalla, and suggesting that residents were in any event well served by the hospital facilities available to them in Bega, Goulburn and Canberra.
Such a disturbingly out-of-touch mindset demands clarification to establish if she still adheres to the above attitude and, if not, what illumination on her own road to Damascus has caused a credible change of heart other than the practical convenience of losing as few votes as possible in a very marginal electorate? Just asserting she has changed her mind will simply not cut it.
Given her previously stated position, the question can be asked "Why should Eurobodalla residents of Eden-Monaro give any credence that her position has in any substantive way changed from the highly unhelpful and thoroughly unsupportive one she evinced on the new Eurobodalla hospital at the last and, in her case, unsuccessful election campaign?"
