Interviews with Richmond candidates 2022: Independent Terry Sharples

Terry Sharples is a retired accountant living in the Tweed Shire and running as an Independent for the federal seat of Richmond.

Bay FM Community Newsroom host Mia Armitage interviewed Independent candidate for Richmond Terry Sharples live on-air on Friday 6 May in the first of a series of interviews with Richmond candidates. To follow is a transcript of that interview, which you can hear here.

A ‘censored’ old age pensioner

MA: When we spoke the other day, Terry Sharples, you joked about how your decision to run as a federal candidate for Richmond was made literally at the last minute on the morning of the last day for registrations. 

But really, you’re no stranger to politics, you’ve thrown your hat in the ring before and when you’re Googled, past links to Tony Abbott, and a less than amicable relationship with Pauline Hanson come up. So, what are people getting with Terry Sharples? Where do you come from politically? And what sort of government do you want to see?

TS: Well, I want to see, I want to see the two major parties brought back into order and the only way you can do that is basically to vote independent. Because I’m afraid The Greens party is almost as bad as the other two, they’re suffering major problems because they’re starting to alienate their own base. 

So, we’re in one of those really critical election periods where we get what we vote for. So it’s important that we hear from all of the voices before we make our informed choice this time around and I believe in the end, I want to see Richmond go independent. I’m running and let me tell you, I’m running to win Richmond as an Independent. 

The problem I’m having as an Independent, though, is I’m being censored by the local newspaper [Tweed Valley Weekly]. I have been writing letters to them. I’ve had a long history of doing that and they refused a letter that was relevant to the election. I spoke to the editor [of the Tweed Valley Weekly] about it last Friday morning at nine and he said to me, I was a good writer, but it’s just too sensitive. 

And I said, what do you mean too sensitive? And he said, Justine’s very sensitive about Mandy. I said, so, it’s an election, you know, I mean, people have got to know what’s going on. So would you think about it again? 

And then I said look if it’s money, you know, I’m an old age pensioner, I can’t afford much. So I’ll put up $1,000 for a budget, what sort of spots can you give me?

And so he went away and got his lady, Erin, to come out and we talked about it and for about a thousand bucks, I could get two three-by-nine spots and two quarter-pages, I can’t afford the, you know, the big pages that all the others can on a pension. 

So I signed that contract with him and I put in a put in an ad for the first edition that was supposed to come out yesterday and blow me down on the night before I get an email from Erin at the Tweed Valley Weekly and she says Hi, Terry, please find below an edited version of the text for your advertisement booked that Jonathan has approved. 

Now this is a paid ad and I’m having the editor of the local paper taking away quite serious chunks of the information that I wanted to speak to the electorate about and he also took away, by the way, the heading, and the heading was Just how dumb does Justine think we are?

Sitting Labor member accused of laziness

MA: I understand you feel like you’ve been censored by some of the local press. Happy to have you on here today, though, completely, almost completely uncensored, though I am moving on with the questions for the sake of time and to allow us to talk about some of the federal policies. Just back to you though. Have you ever been a member of a political party? 

TS: No.

[Ed note: According to David Marr, Quarterly Essay 65, Mr Sharples paid his membership fee and was issued with a membership card for One Nation. Mr Sharples contested the seat of Burleigh for them – it was only when One Nation refused to reimburse his election expenses that he decided to sue and found out that he wasn’t a member as he intended.]

MA: That’s nice and easy. Thank you. And what makes you think that you can do a better job of representing the Richmond electorate than someone like, say, Justine Elliot, who’s been voted in six times and she’s held the seat continuously for the past seventeen years?

TS: Well, Justine should just roll over. I mean, in my view, she’s probably almost the laziest politician in Australia and that’s the problem, is she just doesn’t have to work to win support because she been fixed on this rising green vote. 

So essentially what’s happened in Richmond over the last seven, eight years, is the primary vote for both Labor and the conservative candidate have been falling and the vote for The Greens has been rising and of course, that’s what’s scaring Justine and it’s what’s scaring Jonathan at the Tweed Valley Weekly who lives off the electrical allowances that Justine Elliott pumps into his paper. 

I mean, she pumped in over $200,000 into his paper last year, she’s a serial, she’s the serial, I think someone told me she’s actually the …[deleted]… of all the politicians in Australia and that’s certainly saying something. 

So what’s going on there is they’re frightened of any voice out there that might challenge Justine and that’s why they’ve edited me out. I have also written letters to The Echo, and they’ve refused to publish any letters, I have tried to talk to the editor. So far, I haven’t been able to get him to call me back, I went down to see what advertising I could do and they want $2,500 for, you know, for an ad. I mean, I can’t afford that. I live on a pension. So unless I get some free ability to speak through The Echo by way of letter or something, then I can’t talk to this cell in any of the community. 

[Ed note: The Acting Editor spoke to Mr Sharples directly following his failure to submit responses to questions provided to him and all other candidates. The Acting Editor suggested that he send in a press release rather than a letter as the letters space is for the community and with so many letters coming in it was unlikely a candidate letter would make it in. He sent the press release and had an article in the following week.]

So you’ve got two papers really here and one supporting Mandy and that’s the truth of it. She’s getting flat chat through The Echo, and the other paper’s supporting Justine and that’s what this fight, that’s what the big fight is in this electorate, they’re scared stiff that Mandy will get up and go over the top of Justine.

Call for more ‘sensible’ people like Independent Member for Hobart Andrew Wilkie

MA: Let’s go to some of your views on some of the topics dominating mainstream media coverage of the federal election campaign. The cost of living, for example, inflation’s reached more than five per cent and wages only two per cent and then of course, climate change. Where do you stand on some of those?

TS: Well, first of all, look, I’m a retired accountant, okay, I’ve actually got qualifications in accounting, I’ve had a long career in both commerce and public accounting, I hold a graduate diploma in financial planning. So I know a little bit about finance. The situation is, of course, that inflation is just not gonna go up to five per cent. It’s gonna skyrocket as soon as this election cycle, it’s gonna skyrocket through the roof and your voters are just not being told about that at the moment, for obvious reasons, because the two-party system’s stuffed up the economy. 

I mean, we’ve got a trillion-dollar deficit and they’re talking about spending trillions more on nuclear submarines, which we won’t get, if ever, for 20 years. The crazies are in charge and that’s why we need a few independents down there to create a buffer zone. I mean, I’m a great admirer of the member for Hobart and a few more sensible people like him are absolutely required and this time, voters in Richmond have got a real chance of supporting an independent and I’m urging them to seriously consider that.

Richmond election ‘a big one’ says Independent candidate

MA: Finally, for you, Terry Sharples, what preference deals have you made or are you hoping to make? It’s been a bit of a whirlwind for you in terms of getting your registration in as a candidate, but are you hoping to make some preference deals with other candidates for Richmond how-to-vote cards?

TS: Well, look, eventually I will. I mean, as you said, I’m a late starter. I’ve met David personally, I came down to see him and we had a good chat and I met the other independent for a short period of time, but outside of that I’ve had no chance to meet any of the other candidates. 

So at this stage, it’s a blank for me in terms of how I’m going to go about that and look, what can I say? I think it’s important that voters do start to think about the preference arrangements because I believe that Richmond will fall, I think Labor will lose Richmond. 

But it’s not a given that Mandy will win Richmond because I think there’s been a serious breakdown of the Greens vote. You know, there’s a lot of protesting out there that I’m hearing. There’s all sorts of strange things I’m hearing actually, I stumbled across a Labor voter who actually saw my nomination and he said, I am a Labor voter, but I’m not gonna vote Labor this time and I sort of couldn’t resist asking him, what’s making you think that way? And he says, oh, that Jim Chalmers, they’ve got him, I wouldn’t put him in charge of a trillion-dollar budget, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. So there’s a diverse range of things going and this is in the Richmond electorate. That is gonna be a big decider. Richmond electorate is going to be a really big one.