Information
Opinion
It seems that social media pretty much dominate most people’s lives now, whether they like it or not. What happens when mayoral candidates try to use it to further their campaigns, but are a bit naive?
Perhaps a timely reminder that the internet never forgets is due for some of the candidates for mayor down in the Queenstown Lakes District.
An unseemly stoush has been going on in the Facebook pages of our various candidates. Some stay out of it completely, others just put up little posts saying how sad it all is that it has come to this and we wouldn’t see it from them, but a few of them are all out.
One candidate, Olivia Wensley, an ex-lawyer and well supported by good people, has been running an effective campaign, but there are skeletons in her closet: a fact that candidate Glyn Lewers is only too happy to point out in local media.
You see, Wensley is the daughter-in-law of a chap called Ross Wensley, who was one of Queenstown’s bigger developers back in the day. Unfortunately, some of Ross’s companies went under during the global financial crisis back in the late 2000s, which naturally created a few issues for his son Greg (Olivia’s husband), who worked in the family business.
This of course isn’t really something that should be held against Olivia. These things happen – people don’t pay their bills, or bail out of unconditional contracts and companies tip up; such is life – but a couple of the big developments that Ross did have turned into leaky nightmares for the owners and, in turn, for the local council, which, due to our nonsensical joint and several liability rules, means that the council (and their ratepayers) are the last man standing.
Some big rates rises have already been announced to cover the cost of the first failed development, and some truly massive ones are coming soon if the QLDC can’t beat the system in court.
Allegations against Olivia are that she will struggle to run the council as mayor if she has such conflicts of interest. I won’t get into the merits of that, but what has been interesting is the social media and regular media hit pieces that are coming out.
It seems we are getting into a kind of American politics scenario, where candidates attack each other. To be honest, it is all a bit unseemly.
What has really interested me, though, is some of the traps that the candidates fall into around social media.
Olivia recently was talking the talk, and she was called out regarding the messages below, where she replied to one vaxhole’s comment that denigrated the so-called “anti-vaxxers”.
A local called Wensley out re that comment and another where she called people who would take the vaccine to go on holiday but not to protect the vulnerable as being “Sooo disgustingly selfish”.
Olivia also replied to a question about Voices For Freedom (VFF) and she replied with this comment below.
Naturally that encouragement to ask the tough questions was leapt upon by some critical thinkers.
Another chimed in with…
At this point, Wensley claimed that she was not supportive of discrimination but that she didn’t support further mandates as we know enough now to show they aren’t needed anymore.
She also claimed she was opposed to all misinformation and, when called out on that and her claim that VFF were producing it, she supplied a link to an old media article from that bastion of truth and government funding Newshub, from way back in the middle of 2021.
As a rider Wensley added in an open and transparent way, “Not engaging in this conversation anymore – I’m pro-science like the vast majority of the population.”
This naturally prompted a response by the critical thinkers, one suggesting that the old bought-and-paid-for Newshub article had been debunked long ago and went on to shoot her (lack of) argument down in flames.
So what response did Wensley make to the further questioning?
She blocked the respondent then deleted all her own comments!
Naturally an untrained and unskilled pseudo-journalist such as me here at TheBFD had the screenshot button at the ready, so all these discussions are safely tucked away. Perhaps Mrs Wensley also failed to expect the Queenstown Inquisition! Let that be a lesson to you ma’am, you know, in case you actually are our next mayor, because you will be held to account.
I shall leave the final comment to one of the critical thinkers with their response to Olivia after getting blocked.
I think the facepalm emoji seems to be particularly on point.
In a follow-up article, I will highlight another Queenstown mayoral candidate, ‘independent’ Labour stooge Jon Mitchell, well known as an online troll, who is another desperately trying to hide his past internet crimes.
Mayoral candidates need to be a bit more cognisant of the fact that the internet never forgets. They can sanitise their socials as much as they like. They can block people they don’t have the skills to debate, but it all comes back to find them eventually.
Hopefully people will indeed do their research before voting and not just listen to the platitudes that these campaigns induce. Remember, if you are mail-in voting it must be done by tomorrow 4 October. If you think you might miss the mail, drop your vote in to the council office directly so it is more likely to be counted.
