Candidates backed by an anti-vaccine, conspiracy theory-promoting group have been elected to councils across Western Australia after last month’s election following campaigns in which they played down or hid their fringe beliefs.
The group, run by the founder of the federal Family First party and his former property mogul wife, encouraged group members to campaign on more electable issues and to use councils as a springboard to state and federal politics.
Stand Up Now Australia is a group run by husband and wife duo Peter Harris and Ruby Janssen that purports to “inform and empower individuals, connect like-minded people, create change in the world and stand up”.
Born of the COVID-19 pandemic, the group started as a primarily anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown group which a Crikey investigation revealed was behind a group of online anti-Dan Andrews groups. Since then, Stand Up Now Australia has morphed into a broadly conspiratorial and anti-institutional sovereign citizen movement. Some of its recent campaigns include opposing an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, Australia’s proposed digital ID system and the World Health Organisation’s international health regulations.
One of its initiatives is the Community Connect program that encourages group members to establish local pods to, in Harris’ words, “draw other members of the community into the program”. Part of this includes running for local politics — a plan that has had early success.
Harris told a Zoom meeting of his group earlier this month that 11 people who were part of their Community Connect scheme had been elected to various WA regional councils at the state’s local government elections held on Saturday, 21 October. The meeting included a number of recently elected councillors including Shire of Augusta Margaret River’s Nicki Jones, City of Joondalup’s Rebecca Pizzey, City of Busselton’s Jarrod Kennedy and City of Karratha’s Brenton Johannsen.
Other names mentioned as being sympathetic to their movement but not present were City of Geraldton’s Aaron Horsman, who declined to comment; Busselton’s Anne Ryan, who agreed with Crikey’s characterisation that she was anti-vaccine but noted “the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth [is] six weeks”; along with a handful of other candidates who didn’t respond for requests for comment. Harris said in an email over the weekend that this number had grown to 20 but Crikey was not able to independently verify this number.
These candidates did not highlight or campaign on their fringe beliefs. Echoing an idea floated by Harris when he first launched the program months ago, Pizzey said that she’d been elected on a platform of opposing the council’s use of glyphosate, a popular herbicide that’s the subject of lawsuits or bans around the world (including in Australia) over claims it causes cancer.
“[My campaign had] nothing to do with ‘freedom stuff’”, Pizzey said in the Zoom meeting, referring to the anti-vaccine, anti-mandate “freedom movement” that emerged in Australia during the pandemic.
Jones spoke of a similar strategy. “I knew to keep my mouth shut when it was needed,” she said.
Despite this, those present spoke about how their movement needed their new position-holders to act on their extreme views. One meeting attendee, Peterine Smulders, spoke about how a similar local conspiracy franchise group My Place was also targeting next year’s 2024 Victorian local government elections.
“This is where they’re deciding things like 15 Minute Cities and Drag Queen Storytime,” she argued.
In some councils, the group claims to have established a serious presence. Kennedy claimed that there are “three of us, maybe four” on the City of Busselton’s nine-member council.
“Those kinds of blocs become very influential,” Harris chimed in.
The appeal of local governments, Harris argued, is that they allow insurgent groups like Stand Up Now Australia to subvert the party-entrenched higher levels of government. He said that he believed his group was tapping into an anti-institutional sentiment that is widely felt, even mentioning a phone call with former Liberal Party federal president and campaign director Brian Loughnane expressing the same view.
With an eye to repeat this success at next year’s local government elections along Australia’s east coast, Harris’ hopes for the recently elected councillors go beyond just local politics.
“It’s always been a platform to state and federal governments,” Harris said. “I think it’s great for Australia that you’re populating local council chambers.”
Worrying, considering the evisceration of local media, who might have had the time and interest to expose hidden agendas:.
Very easy to undermine democracy when there’s no one there to watch.
The tobacco industry has long promoted disinformation about all science to undermine the scientifically proven link between smoking and cancer.
In fact a favourite subject is “everything causes cancer” to dilute the fact that “their product specially causes cancer”.
The fossil fuel industry I’m sure does the same.
And I’ve no doubt that both industries (and other destructive industries and regimes) have some involvement in promoting anti-vaxxing and anti-everything.
Correct, try US Atlas or Koch Network e.g. IPA and CIS; in US etc. behind big tobacco, big oil, ‘freedom rallies’ and big conspiracies….
DeSmog 2020 ‘How the UK’s Climate Science Deniers Turned Their Attention to COVID-19. The coronavirus crisis quickly divided the population between those putting their trust in public health experts and others quick to question the science.’
Segues into climate science denial and supported by various attacks on K12 and higher education curricula etc..
Yes – the great book “Merchants of Doubt” covers this in detail and reveals that no corporation can ever be trusted especially the F Fuel companies.
Totally; it’s absolutely in the interests of genuine conspirators to have all this noise drowning out the signal. On another site, I was likened to Qanon fruit-loops for grumbling about the ‘Dismissal’ (or as I’d have it, the most successful coup ever pulled off), and mentioning a whole bunch of stuff that’s indisputably on the public record, and linking a Grundle piece on the matter. The lack of critical thinking out there is astounding.
“even bragging about having recently received words of support during a phone call with former Liberal Party federal president and campaign director Brian Loughnane.”- isn’t this bloke married to someone?
I think he is Mr. Credlin? Pretty easy to make the link then between Credlin and the anti Dan nutters.
Most education and training nowadays is aimed at churning out a variety of technicians, i.e the potentially employable in “late-stage” capitalism. But the field of public health is about a lot more than that, so people just don’t get it.
Science is now given short shrift. Philosophy has been almost wiped out from our universities. The notion of “the common good” has all but disappeared from Western consciousness. We now have little trust in government.
All this is a recipe for a public health disaster. Pandemics are predicted to increase with global warming. Resource scarcity will lead to further destruction of natural habitats, accelerating the release of new pathogens.
It’s now going to be up to our kids and grandkids to turn all this around. But with social media silos currently entrenching clueless and maladaptive notions in a raucous proportion of the population, and with few mainstream institutions to counteract, what are their chances?
All is lost.
Reminiscent of the tactics used by Resistance and other Trotskyite factions, but at least they were more open about it. How well did it work for them? We’re all living in a socialist state now, aren’t we? At least Clive Palmer thinks so. Clive?