Ron Cooper’s win in the Tweed Shire Council election was well deserved. He put in a superhuman effort for every single vote he received.
Draped in his colourful ‘No High Rise’ corflutes (back and front) and black hat decorated with his No High Rise Business cards Ron epitomised Dr Seuss’ character ‘The Cat in the Hat’, hardly a single voter escaped Ron at pre-polling ‘You don’t want the Gold Coast on the Tweed, do yah! No High Rise on the Tweed’.
All the old-ducks loved it. Give me your card Ron, they panted.
All the old ducks except Dot of course who promptly turned up on the second pre-polling day in her own (double the size) coreflutes strapped back and front which stated ‘There’s No High Rise Proposed for Kingscliff Just Inflated Egos & A Scare Campaign’.
The contest of the walking bill-boards at St Cuthberts’ pre-polling booth was on.
A much amused Barry Longland suggested a bet among us hander-outers as to whether Dot would lift off when a stiff breeze blew up.
However, there was no breeze strong enough to get Dottie into lift off mode and the bet drizzled out.
The first few days saw quite fiery clashes of opinion between Dot and Ron with the poor trapped voters in the breach, particularly when Ron got a voter into a huddle and was dishing out his greater sermon. Dot just couldn’t stand it and would interrupt; neither side was going to back down.
On the Wednesday morning one rather enterprising middle aged male voter had the two of them at it for at least a full half hour as he traversed back and forth, enjoying every minute.
I soon learned the one thing Ron had not planned out to the last detail was his preference flow.
Ron was to give his number two to Gary Bagnall and vice versa, as did Labor. The idea was to get Bagnall up, not Ron.
Whilst Katie Milne and Chris Cherry swapped number twos to ensure the Green surplus vote got Chris Cherry up.
But Ron outperformed the former deputy mayor Gary Bagnall at the polls and things swung about with Gary Bagnall’s preferences pushing Ron to victory to secure the all-important seventh spot on our council.
Reports have it that Dottie has gone into hibernation.
Terry Sharples, Tweed Heads
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