Rebecca Lloyd: I was born for this moment

The disendorsement of Rebecca Lloyd from the One Nation party has caused ripples through the political landscape not so much for her disendorsement but how the whole process started and the part of mainstream media in running with a story to condemn a political candidate. More on that later.

For the record AFIPN do not support any political party or candidate. We will report the facts of a situation and believe our readers are quite capable of joining the dots and making their own conclusions.

I spoke to One Nation 2 days ago and they said they would have someone get in touch with me. As yet, there has been no reply.

I have sent emails and tried to contact Jonathan Sri, there has been no response. Update: At midnight last night there was a message from Mr. Sri, he said he will ‘try’ and get in touch Tuesday.

Rebecca Lloyd returned my call within 10 minutes of being contacted.

This disendorsement process of Rebecca Lloyd began from a social media post written by Jonathan Sri, Councilor for The Gabba.

His article begins, “Here’s a pretty misleading campaign tactic by One Nation that may even technically be illegal, because it seems to violate various election campaigning laws (including failure to properly authorize and disclose election ads).

I wish I had the time to make a proper complaint to the, but I’m flat out today trying to finish a submission to council about the floods. This could be a good one for some journalists to investigate though, ABC News, Brisbane Times.”

What struck me about the article are highlighted. May, technically and seems do not appear to be very strong reasons for writing an article. The fact that you had the time to write an article, when you were flat out writing a submission about the floods would seem to indicate a distinct lack of priority. Especially when you did not have the time to research that article nor even make a phone call to the AEC to confirm your complaints.

‘I will throw some information out there which may or may not be factual and hope someone else can do my dirty work to discredit someone running against my sister because I don’t have time to research it.’

This does not imply the integrity you so readily speak of Mr. Sri. I am happy for you to call me and correct anything written in this article.

MSM then ran with this article which Ms. Lloyd called fact less and baseless.

Her calls to the AEC revealed they knew nothing of her, had no clue of what she was talking about, nor was she under investigation. A further call to an AEC media spokesperson did suggest an investigation but the legal department who conducts the investigations had no idea what was happening at the time of Ms. Lloyds calls.

When potential problems had been pointed out to Ms. Lloyd about her website, Join the Conversation, she made changes to the site including removal of the possibly offending donate button and having all candidates add authorization statements.

When initially confronted by a One nation spokesperson about the ‘donate’ button Ms Lloyd was told One Nation wanted to err on the side of caution, not that it was illegal nor that she would be disendorsed. She understood this and had complied.

A suggestion that Lloyd was a front for One Nation and syphoning off funds for her personal use was met with bemusement.

The AEC confirmed that she could raise up to $14,000 for independent candidates without declaration and if more than $14,000 was raised Join the Conversation had 3 months to declare the amount.

At the time of writing there had been no need to declare any funds raised.

The ABC suggested the Join The Conversation website, registered to Rebecca Lloyd, purports to be a platform to connect voters to local minor party candidates. 

But it only allows voters to see candidates from the United Australia Party (UAP), One Nation and the Great Australian Party, despite claiming to list candidates from all parties, except those endorsed by Labor, the Liberals, the Nationals, and the Greens.

The sole independent candidate listed is Kelli Jacobi.

When questioned about this Ms Lloyd replied that there was no registry of ‘freedom candidates’ as such, so it was up to her and her team to find these candidates. At the time of establishing the website the published candidates were the only candidates in the freedom movement she knew of. She added, there are more coming next week to add to the site and the growing list of freedom candidates.

She also stated she had sold her shares in Join the Conversation to avoid any conflict of interest in her political campaign.

Lloyd was quite frustrated that there is so much money flowing around politics and political parties, yet she has been singled out for investigation over a very small amount. Some of which had even been donated by the ABC.

Join the Conversation is intent on continuing its efforts to raise funds for the legitimate Independent Candidates. Many ‘Independents’ are simply fronts for the major parties and with the displeasure with the major parties at the present some Independents are being installed just to redirect votes to the major parties. It is important to research all Independents to confirm their ‘real identity’ and this takes time.

Get Up, another fund-raising organization, pulls in over $10,000,000 a year and runs a support program for the ABC. While claiming it does not receive donations from any political party is obviously political in it’s support of the programs listed on its website.

Tik Tok are being investigated for electoral fraud being a front for political parties or unions who have paid influencers to promote anti Morrison sentiments. This would appear to be a much larger issue than the Join the Conversation website.

We should not condone any electoral deceit, but Mr Sri could do well to widen his attempted attacks to those areas that do not involve his sisters’ political aspirations. Conflict of interest and transparency should be equal for all parties.

Rebecca Lloyd was asked by One Nation to take down the video she produced defending her reputation however, she chose to decline to take it down.

She was told by a colleague in One Nation she had acted imprudently and should have just let it go. Lloyd feels she was recognised as a candidate that would not be controlled by party politics but stand for the Australian people she represents. One Nation issued a statement on Friday afternoon saying it had “discontinued its association” with Ms Lloyd.

“Her unwillingness to work with and follow direction from One Nation’s national executive as part of this team has led to the regrettable, but unanimous, decision to disendorse Ms Lloyd as the party’s candidate for Brisbane,” the statement said.

“One Nation wishes Ms Lloyd all the best with her future endeavours.”

Ms. Lloyd produced the video because she feels her reputation had been ruined by a ‘hit piece’ by the Greens Councillor Sri, who has 41 public complaints against him.

It should be noted that legal advice has been given and Rebecca is currently in touch with two legal advisors who have both said Electoral criminal codes may have been broken and this will be investigated further.

Criminal Code Act 1899: 102 Publishing false information about a candidate. This act carries a maximum penalty of 1 year’s imprisonment.

Ms. Lloyd has not made a firm decision yet on what her next step will be. She has been approached by two large freedom parties but is potentially too outspoken to join a party if their decisions are contrary to her conscience.

That leaves her other options to either run as an Independent for the Senate or move back into full time fund raising.

One Nation did wish her well in her future endeavours. I wonder if that well-wishing will come back to bite them? Many voters in the wider community are disillusioned with the current crop of politicians and are looking for strong candidates. Candidates who will stand up for not only what they believe but what their constituents need.

Rebecca Lloyd would appear to be one candidate who won’t be bullied. Who has integrity and values she will fight for and who has quietly developed a huge following in the various freedom movements.

We look forward to hearing what her decision will be. I believe whatever it is, it will impact the political landscape of our next election and beyond.