A tipster tells us that Liberal MP Jason “orgasm” Wood, who holds the marginal seat of Latrobe by 4%, has refused to attend a candidates forum to take place at a local church tonight:

“It was not surprising when someone suggested a candidates forum to offer our town the chance to put questions to the candidates. However what did surprise everyone was the sitting member Jason Wood (Liberal) refusal to take part.

“Last week organisers upped the ante and encouraged locals to leave a polite message on Wood’s Facebook page asking him to attend the forum. The messages where deleted immediately and the authors banned. One lady commented on the forum’s Facebook page ‘Why would my local member ban me for simply asking a question?’

“It’s not the first time Wood has played this game, the Dandenong Ranges chapter of The Friends of the ABC held a function recently where Wood was represented by an empty chair with his name on and in the 2013 Wood made only one public appearance, that was an event for the ACL where he stood against marriage equality. The ACL appearance is interesting as since being elected in 2013 (he lost the seat to Labor’s Laura Smyth in 2010) he has backflipped claiming he never had a firm opinion on marriage equality and if put to a vote in parliament would vote for or against depending on how his electorate supported it. In the 2013 campaign Wood refused several invitations to a range of candidate events covering subjects such as environment, education, NBN.”