Far from being a calm rural paradise, Port Macquarie has suddenly become a hotbed of innuendo, political skullduggery, and sabotage. The Independent member from the Port Macquarie electorate I mentioned in my previous post has allegedly had his campaign bus sabotaged, causing a serious oil leak on the road and resulting in an accident involving three cars.

During our morning coffee I note that the shock jocks of Syney's radio stations are turning themselves inside out to prove the accident was indeed just an accident, and that the member for Oxley was? is? delusional in his claims of sabatage.

This state campaign appears to have become rather dirty in its tactics. The TV ads being run by the National Party (with the exception of the National candidate for Port) are in my opinion, disgraceful. Poor Rob Oakeshott has been smeared from breakfast to dinner and back again, and Peter Besseling (the Independent member for Port) has had to put up with downright falsehoods being told about him. Now his bus appears to have been tampered with.

What happened to fair play and winning fair and square? Why can't these parliamentarians be judged on their performance and their policies in their respective electorates? Neither is less hard working or doing things differently since the Federal election as far as I can tell. Why do their reputations need to be destroyed?

In my first field education placement as a student minister, the incumbent minster in that particular parish told me that when there is no real evidence of misconduct by a public figure, be it a politician or a minsiter, some of those who disaprove of that person's opinions or affiliations will always be capable of conducting character assassination by innuendo and rumour. Seems that she was right.

What a sorry state of affairs. I hope one day those responsible will come to the realisation of how badly they have acted. In the meantime, I will be writing letters condemning the smear campaign to the smeared, so they know there is at least one sane person out there who will judge them on their performance.