Independent candidate for South-West Coast James Purcell has denied his two sons are political stooges for him by standing for his party in the Upper House at this month’s state election.
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Mr Purcell said his two sons, Aaron and Nathan, were standing for his Vote 1 Local Jobs party in the Upper House seat of Northern Metropolitan because they were interested in state politics and their preferences would support the Reason Party’s Fiona Patten hold her seat.
“I would like to see her returned,” Mr Purcell said.
He said their candidacy was not part of any preference deal by self-styled “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery who has worked with numerous micro-parties.
Mr Druery has created coalitions of minor parties to harvest preferences from each other to get their candidates elected on small primary votes.
Mr Purcell said while his sons might be unlikely to win, they were not political stooges.
Political stooges are candidates who are unlikely to win but their candidacy can serve a purpose for another political operator.
His sons were not running to manipulate the preference system, Mr Purcell said.
Mr Purcell has a strong interest in preferences after they allowed him to build on a primary vote of less than two per cent to get elected to the Upper House in 2014. His primary vote was the lowest ever that allowed a candidate to get elected to the Victorian Upper House.
Mr Purcell said he had been approached by Mr Druery regarding his preferences but “he had no interest in what he (Mr Druery) was offering.”
He said Mr Druery had wanted him to preference Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party but he had decided his sons’ preferences would go to Ms Patten.
He said he expected his sons were unlikely to get the four per cent of first preference votes for Northern Metropolitan that would allow them to get their $350 candidacy deposit returned.
On his preferences for his own bid to shift from the Upper House to the Lower House South West Coast seat held by the Liberals’ Roma Britnell, Mr Purcell said he had fallen out with Australian Country Party (ACP) candidate for South West Coast Jim Doukas over the ACP’s decision to preference Mrs Britnell over him on the Doukas how to vote ticket.
The ACP’s decision had scrapped an earlier unwritten agreement between the ACP and himself that he would get ACP’s preferences, which was part of a bid to shift South West Coast from a safe Liberal seat to a more marginal one, he said.