Twangst

The aftermath of the Marches in March have been too much for right wing commentator Chris Kenny’s gentle soul to take, and he’s walked away from the ugliness of the lefty-dominated Twitter. 

Profane, violent and sexist, these attacks usually emanate from anonymous or fake accounts. Both ends of the political spectrum dish it out but, given Twitter's strong green-Left bias, the slurs from the Left dominate, shouting down voices from the Centre Right and spreading the sort of personal hate we saw in the March in March protests last weekend.

Those placards about killing or retrospectively aborting Tony Abbott were shocking to see on our streets but such sentiments would hardly raise an eyebrow on Twitter.

Mr Kenny, like so many right wing figures before him, has proven that he just doesn’t know how to use social media. He was, until a couple of days ago, a frequent tweeter, and because his position is so staunchly pro-Coalition and anti-Labor/Greens, the response to his tweets was often strongly worded…and worse.

That’s Twitter for you.

He’s certainly not alone in being the target of some nasty treatment, but rather than walking away, why wasn’t Mr Kenny managing his Twitter feed? As soon as anyone indulged in unacceptable (as defined by Chris Kenny himself) tweeting, he has the facility to block them. Even Paul Murray, his conservative colleague at Sky News Australia recommended that he stop complaining and just block the offenders. That he didn’t do that strikes me as bizarre. He did not have to endure Twitter abuse; no-one does.

Piers Akerman, Chris Kenny, Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt

 In fact, there are plenty of left-leaning people on Twitter who are ready to engage in polite, reasoned debate - albeit with a little gentle mocking thrown in. Most high-profile conservatives, including Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones, Ray Hadley and Piers Akerman, don’t tweet. Chris Kenny was one of the few, and Australian political Twitterati will be diminished without his input.

It’s awkward to make an unbiased comparison with commentators from the left, as they don’t exist en masse. David Marr doesn’t tweet, although Mike Carlton does. Labor politicians are largely comfortable in the Twittersphere, yet Coalition politicians are discouraged from using Twitter. This imbalance could be why Mr Kenny perceives a Twitter bias favouring the left, and cutting himself off from the collected wisdom and flavour of day to day political tweeting is denying himself valuable insight. It’s not a socialist echo-chamber; ten minutes visiting the #auspol hashtag is all the proof he would need.

Mr Kenny’s Twitter rejection is all too reminiscent of the recent threat by Andrew Bolt to quit his career as a conservative commentator after Professor Marcia Langton blamed him, on QandA, for driving an aboriginal academic away from public life. Professor Langton later clarified her comments, and an apology was issued by the QandA programme for airing the comments.

But Bolt, the Australian conservative defender, used his column to have a mighty sook. It was a piece of psychological manipulation designed to whip his fans into a froth of protective fervour. 

And when Attorney-General George Brandis hotly insisted I was not racist, the ABC audience laughed in derision. Not one other panellist protested against this lynching. In fact, host Tony Jones asked Brandis to defend “those sort of facts” and Channel 9 host Lisa Wilkinson accused me of “bullying”.

That immediate reaction from the QandA studio is similar to the cadence of Twitter. The ABC audience did laugh and the panellists didn’t protest at the idea of Andrew Bolt being anything but racist – that should tell Andrew Bolt something about how he is perceived by an audience that identified itself as 48% Coalition and 48% ALP/Greens.

Of course Bolt didn’t quit, and I expect to see Chris Kenny back on Twitter sooner rather than later. After all, he hasn’t deleted his Twitter accounts, he hasn’t deleted his tweets, and despite this week’s decision, Chris Kenny enjoys the interaction, the profile, the discussion.

Tweeting with Rupert

If you were in any doubt about Rupert Murdoch’s integrity, take a look at his tweet from 10:15am Sunday (left). The tweet suggests fairly bluntly that the reason why Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is missing is related to a jihad, which implicates Muslim involvement. The tweet goes on assign a motive for the "attack", and recommended changes to American – and therefore Australian – foreign policy as a result of the crash.

This tweet is astounding for several reasons.

•       Rupert Murdoch tweets. As far as we know, he doesn’t hand it off to his minions to type. These thoughts are his.
• ·         This tweet was sent just over 24 hours after Malaysia Airlines announced that the flight was missing.
• ·         The plane, or wreckage indicating its location, had not been found – it still hasn’t. Authorities are still searching. No physical evidence of what happened has been located.
• ·         If the flight has been the subject of a terrorist attack, no-one has taken responsibility for the attack.
• ·         No evidence has been released to suggest the ethnicity or religion of the terrorists, if indeed terrorism is involved.
• ·         The purpose of the terrorist attack, if that’s what was, is unknown.
• ·         If all of Mr Murdoch’s assumptions above are accurate, he proposes that it’s an opportunity for America to realign themselves with China, leaving the Russians to crush Ukraine and make themselves look bad to the rest of the world.

That’s quite a lot of assumptions to cram into 140 characters, but Mr Murdoch has a track record of tweeting absurd missives, particularly in support of the Republican agenda, and with more than a touch of Islamophobia.

This garbled tweet is from March 2:

Obama should all Chinese President following today’s incident and say “we both have the problem of Muslim terrorism. Can we work together?”

Again, on March 2, he made his opinion on New York City Council known. This tweet follows a twitter rant at New York City’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio’s education policy. 

      

NYC now totally managed by leftist activists with no experience in running anything beyond protests. Big mess ahead.

This is, of course, an impertinent generalisation, nothing more than an especially vague form of trolling powered by sour grapes. Democrats won 48 of the 51 seats in the New York City Council elections.

From February 25, he weighs in on Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s close adviser, Cardinal George Pell, who is before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse:

Pope Francis appoints brilliant Cardinal Pell from Sydney to be no.3 power in Vatican. Australia will miss him but world will benefit.

And earlier, still singing the conservative Top 10, Mr Murdoch reveals himself as a fully-fledged climate change denier.

Wild winter in US, UK, etc. no respectable evidence any of this man made climate change in spite of blindly ignorant politicians.

Respectable evidence, Mr Murdoch? Like the NOAA, Australian Bureau of Meteorology, the CSIRO and about 97% of scientists publishing peer-reviewed papers on the subject? As the twitter iikes to remind people who deny climate change.

If 97% of doctors tell you have cancer and 3 doctors say you don’t, are you going to treat it, or just hope they’re wrong?

And on Australia’s economy, Mr Murdoch’s tweets are entirely in line with Treasurer Joe Hockey’s talking points. One could also believe that Mr Murdoch was pulling the strings:

Australia in deep economic trouble left by last six year wildly incompetent government. New govt must take quick, painful actions.

By every economic measure, Australia was doing fine when Mr Murdoch posted that tweet on December 23^rd. I wonder if the same can be said after a full six months of Coalition government.

I must congratulate Mr Murdoch on one fiercely accurate tweet, in which he argued with himself about the outcome of Australia’s federal election in September.

@rupertmurdoch “Tele wot won it”! No, Australians just sick of Gillard-Rudd incompetence and infighting wrecking great county.

At least he didn’t suggest that the Coalition had won the election…merely that the ALP had lost it.

But really, how much notice should we take of Mr Murdoch’s tweets? His credibility in the UK has been shot to pieces, and the one-sided commentary in his USA and Australian media is the thing of legends. 

I hope he's entirely wrong about Flight MH370, and that his tweet about it is nothing more than his personal nightmare where his people tap the wrong phones.

If he wants to tweet, I say “go for it”! No-one who isn’t already welded to his traditionalist right wing agenda takes any notice anyway.

Follow Mr Murdoch’s personal tweets at @rupertmurdoch.

Men Behaving Badly: Chamberlain Executive

Opinions are like arseholes. Everyone has one, but it's better that they remain private.

Last night, Joe Waddington, boss at executive recruitment firm Chamberlain Executive and conservative tweeter strayed from his usual anti-Julia Gillard-hating, climate change querying routine to venture into the world of personal insult.

Last night on Twitter, Joe Waddington called journalist and media personality Wendy Harmer "fucking ugly" and suggested that she needs plastic surgery.

Human Resources is a very special area in the world of business; HR practitioners must be absolutely discreet, sensitive and trustworthy, as well as being savvy business operators in a highly competitive space.

Chamberlain Executive's own website - which is linked from Joe Waddington's Twitter profile - makes the following claims:

"

Joe Waddington, Managing Partner of Chamberlain Executive, has over thirty years’ experience within the human resources consultancy and executive recruitment sector. During this time he has successfully delivered a variety of retained C level assignments throughout Australia and the Pacific Rim.

Joe is personally involved in ensuring the successful delivery of executive recruitment assignments and strategic consulting for a variety of clients, whilst also offering an ongoing career management service to individuals.

Chamberlain Executive is committed to providing uncompromising, discreet and dedicated support to ensure every clients objectives are achieved on each and every occasion."

Perhaps Joe Waddington and his team are discreet and professional in their business dealings. His comments regarding Wendy Harmer were neither discreet nor acceptable from anyone, and particularly not from anyone who makes their living in the 'people business'. His comments about Ms Harmer were so vile that even noted right-wing tweeter @Correllio backed away from them.

After copies of the offensive tweets started flying around Twitter last night, Mr Waddington started to block people who criticised his tweets. In fact, he blocked me, so it's been difficult to follow what has happened in the last 12 hours or so. Regardless, he should know that the Internet is forever. I suspect the offensive tweets have been deleted, but screenshots of the now-infamous tweets are easily available.

Right now, my role does not involve executive recruitment, but plenty of the people I interact with on social media could be needing the services Chamberlain Executive offers. I suggest you think before retaining Chamberlain: however glossy they may look on the outside, what are they thinking? Just how professional are they, if their Managing Partner thinks its appropriate to call anyone "ugly" on a public forum? If he would say this about Ms Harmer, what might he say about you, your staff and your business...and where might he say it?

Because Logan rhymes with ...

If you're sick of hearing about Andrew Laming, join the club. The Sydney Morning Herald is calling his tweet a "Twitter gaffe" - not what you'd expect from the Member of Parliament whose own Liberal Party website biography describes him as being "Australia’s most innovative user of social media in politics".

It’s the kind of tweet you should never see from an elected official.

I first became aware of Mr Laming’s “innovative” use of social media a couple of years ago when I saw that he was using Twitter to promote a competition he was running on Facebook. The concept was that he would use Twitter to attract followers, and tweet links to his Facebook page. If you followed the link, and then “Liked” his Facebook page, you’d go into the draw to win a weekend away on the Sunshine Coast.

Of course, once you’d clicked the Like button, you would then see everything that he posted to his Facebook page – Liberal Party statements and conservative comments, punctuated with pithy backhanders and sledges aimed at the ALP.

I heard on Monday night via Twitter that Andrew Laming was trending, and wondered what he had done this time. You see, this is not the first time that Andrew Laming has tweeted something controversial. It's fair to say that the majority of Mr Laming's tweets are controversial at best, ill-considered most of the time, and occasionally, downright offensive. In fairness, he's not alone is being a serial mistweeter; his colleagues Joe Hockey, Andrew Robb, Nick Sowden and Barnaby Joyce have all learned the hard way that sometimes, a mere 140 characters is plenty of space in which to make a complete twat of yourself. Mr Laming has been doing it for years.

In fact, I take an interest in what Mr Laming tweets - not because I'm a fan, but because I'm incredulous at some of the things he shares on social media. Yes, I used to mock him for his more foolish tweets, and his response was to block me so that I could no longer see his tweets.

Twitter isn’t that simple. I asked for a copy of yesterday’s “clarification” tweet, and nine different tweeters sent it to me. The only way to ensure that tweetable thoughts remain private is not to tweet them in the first place – which given Mr Laming’s history with social media, might be a good thing for the Liberal Party.

It was Andrew Laming who tweeted three days before Christmas:

“Gutless Gillard nowhere to be seen when ‘balancing the budget’ goes up in smoke”

A flock of tweeps leapt to the Prime Minister’s defence. Perhaps Mr Laming had forgotten that this would be the Gillard family’s first Christmas without their patriarch?

But back to Mr Laming’s tweet this week: the main question on social media has been around whether or not the initial tweet was racist.

I’d say yes, it is a mildly racist comment…although that’s not the most obvious source of offense in his tweet. Logan – which all too conveniently rhymes with Bogan – is one of the most multicultural areas in Australia, with about one in four residents being born overseas, and since the tweet was sent on Monday night, we’ve learned that the feud which lead to the violence is actually between two families who happen to be from two ethnic groups which often clash: Aborigines and Samoans.

That wasn’t what Mr Laming was getting at, though; his tweet was a direct insult to the people of Logan, challenging the sophistication of the population. We all know that in Logan, the demographic is a little different, and that expedient rhyme just makes it easier for people to associate Logan with poorer, less educated, less employable, less mannered people. Aside from the immigrant population, Logan has a 7.2% unemployment rate, which is high. Similarly, the median total personal income is up to $300 per week less than in Brisbane.

So why did Andrew Laming tweet about Logan anyway? By Monday night, it was common knowledge that the violence was occurring in Woodridge, a suburb of Logan. Despite Twitter limiting tweets to 140 characters, there were plenty left, so Mr Laming could have said Woodridge but chose not to. He chose to use the name Logan to ensure that we all understood that he was referring to a set of anti-social behaviours which are associated with Logan.

And if by chance he didn’t think of the connection and the whole thing was an accident, it’s still unacceptable. Mr Laming is an elected representative and should display far more care and maturity and less innovation when using social media.

My Favourite Tweety Things

There's not a lot more that anyone can say right now about sexism, discrimination, misogyny, or the role of the media in reporting it. I have my own views on that, and I daresay those thoughts will form themselves into a blog sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I get to say I told you so. Bernard Keane's take in Crikey is worth a look, if you're interested in why the media covered the demise of Mr Slipper while the rest of us clung to the story about Ms Gillard as the news of the day.

It's interesting to note that not one of the women I work with has mentioned Peter Slipper this week, but I can't count the number of conversations I've heard about Julia Gillard. Two of my co-workers who go out of their way to avoid anything political are fascinated. One asked me how to spell misogyny, and the other asked what it meant.

Most women seem to like what The Prime Minister had to say to Mr Abbott - even those who are rusted on conservative values voters. It reminds me a little of the pride so many women felt the day after Ms Gillard seized the Prime Ministership. Not too many liked the way she had done it, but we were so proud to have a woman at the top.

For now, while my thoughts untangle themselves, here are a few of the tweets I've seen in the past month that I marked as favourites.

Don't Feed The Trolls

I read with concern that Australia's Next Top Model judge and all around trans-Tasman media personality Charlotte Dawson has been hospitalised following a crisis linked to an avalanche of abuse on Twitter. I'm not a fan of Ms Dawson, and I'm not a hater; I'm entirely neutral, and I don't follow her Twitter account. Nevertheless, being hospitalised due to twitter abuse is extreme.

Time to find out what Ms Dawson has been up to lately, and to catch up on the story. 

It seems that from time to time, Ms Dawson adopts the 'Dicko' role on Australia's Next Top Model. She's often seen as the nasty judge, the one who is there to stop the entire judging process from becoming a saccharine love-in. That persona is also the one who tends to cut through the facade of glamour and provide some much needed reality when the fumes from the hairspray get to be too much. It's an important role that lends the show a touch of credibility.

Charlotte's role was probably the toughest on the show. The modelling industry is known to be superficial and bitchy, based around self-centred teenaged girls; the only possible outcome is exposed nerve endings and rivers of mascara. Put the whole thing into a competitive environment and then televise it and it's anyone's guess who survives...which is the point, I guess.

Did Ms Dawson overstep the mark in her criticism of some of the competing models? That's impossible to answer; everyone has their own ideas of what level of criticism is appropriate, but know this. It's irrelevant.

This isn't: Ms Dawson also made the mistake of criticising something to the media, and that something is her home country, New Zealand. Her criticism might well be justified, but I wouldn't encourage my clients to say it to a newspaper...in New Zealand. She told the Herald on Sunday:

"New Zealand is small, nasty and vindictive. It's a tiny, little village ... a tiny country at the end of the earth," she told the Herald on Sunday.

It's a brutal assessment, and has triggered this latest round of Twitter-hate from Kiwis and ex-pats. I don't advise you to read back through the twitter stream. It's literally hateful.

Ms Dawson is involved in the anti-bullying campaign. Mia Freedom said this morning:

Being an ambassador for the anti-bullying program Community Brave, Charlotte holds the firm belief that these trolls should be brought out in the public eye and held accountable to the awful things they say.

She takes a stand against the online bullying by retweeting abusive tweets to shame those that have sent them. Now setting aside whether or not this is the best way to deal with internet trolls (is there a good way to deal with unmitigated vitriol?), what happened to Charlotte this week was truly horrific. 

I've been the victim of bullying too, once in the schoolyard, and once in the workplace. I wish I'd been able to "retweet" all those instances when Mark Miller punched me in the stomach at the bus-stop, but I was five years old and the internet was decades away. The workplace bullying was a different situation: it was quiet, constant, hidden, but it destroyed my confidence while simultaneously leaving me without the emotional wherewithal to act. Eventually, I did blow the whistle. It irks me to this day that while I climbed out of the hole and she lost her job, it was classed as a "redundancy" and she walked out with close to a six-figure payout.

No-one ever deserves to be bullied. Not my five year old self with my curiously ethnic features, not the 30-something year old self was undermined by her boss at every opportunity, and not Charlotte Dawson, who is now in hospital as a result of Twitter bullying by mainly anonymous trolls. Unfortunately, even though no-one deserves to be bullied, some people seem to attract it. Ms Dawson's less than charitable comments about New Zealand, and her role as a judge on ANTM would make her a magnet for that kind of behaviour. 

So, how did a few mean tweets get to this point, a place where her last, desperate response was a vaguely suicidal tweet in the middle of the night?

It's my turn to dish the honesty. Ms Dawson mishandled the whole thing. I'm not blaming her, but I would suggest that she's been getting some terrible advice.

1. Don't feed the trolls. I understand her desire to shame Twitter trolls by retweeting them, thus bringing them into the light and exposing them to ridicule. I'd advise the opposite approach: ignore them. Bullies want power and to be seen as having power. Exposing them to hundreds or thousands of twitter users gives them what they crave, and encourages more of the poor behaviour. Ignoring them gives them nothing. No acknowledgement, no evidence that they've hit their target, no additional audience, no reason to repeat the behaviour.

2. Don't feed the trolls. Don't talk about it on mainstream media, particularly the tabloid kind. Avoid A Current Affair and Today Tonight in particular. Don't allow it to be that important, don't give it that credibility. Don't feed the trolls

3. Don't feed the trolls.Don't try to track down your haters and reason with them. They are, by their very nature, unreasonable. You can't beat stupid.

4. Don't feed the trolls. Don't track down your troll at work and report her to her boss. That's a tad stalkerish and obsessive. It's also a sign that the trolls are winning in their efforts to bully you. If your troll is threatening you, go to the Police, but meddling with someone's employment because they troll you on Twitter is unreasonable. If there are no threats and it's "just" trolling, block and report. 

5. Don't feed the trolls. If you're copping a walloping on social media, get off social media for a while. Seriously, you don't need to read that stuff. Staff it out, or get a friend to monitor your accounts, but step away from the keyboard for a few hours, or a day or a week or as long as you need.

I'm sure that Charlotte will be okay. I know she has great friends, and that she's being looked after. I hope that if she decides to come back to Twitter, she'll get a warm welcome, and she'll remember to not feed the trolls.

For now, as they used to say on Hill Street Blues, "let's be careful out there."

The Twit and Twisdom of Witter

A simple, informal collection of tweets that have made me think...or made me smile.


@Ozdoogie: Sarchasm  : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it. #qotd

@Clementine_Ford: "If you'd like to watch our interview with Barnaby Joyce tonight, drop some acid and watch a tree do an interpretive dance." #lateline

@Jess_Rudd:   Our Foxtel remote has carked it. No, it's not the batteries. It's pining for the fjörds.

@Richard_Schiff can't get myself to go.  And damn I look good in jammies

@TheTweetOfGod: Attention: Will the owners of a blue planet with plate tectonics please attend to your vehicle. It is overheating.

@Dom_Knight:  When the Tokyo Yakult Swallows get a home run, the fans open tiny umbrellas. Presumably to indicate it's rainin' balls. 

@latikambourke: As in oops? RT @jc_america: Santorum wins Alabama primary "We did it again," he tells supporters in Lafayette, Louisiana #GOP #Santorum

@JLLLOW WHY DO MARINES SUDDENLY APPEAR Every time, we spread fear, ... #ComCab #Darwin

@EvilCapnKirk: Roses are red,  So is bacon.  Poems are hard.  Bacon.

@MaggieA: Carrots are not the same as chocolate. They really aren't.

@Queen_UK: One's reigning men, hallelujah, one's reigning men, amen!

@Success_K1d: 2 + 2 = Fish. 3 + 3 = Eight. 4 + 4 = Arrow. 7 + 7 = Triangle. 8 + 8 = Butterfly. #Retweet If you get it.

@sweary_bear: Go easy on Clive Palmer. It's not his fucking fault the lizard people injected him with population-culling thought-control microchips.

@QPSMedia: #bnetraffic Cow running loose on Captain Cook Bridge. Avoid the area, slow down & take care. Jumped off a horse float #nobull

@HappySinger: Someone should totally do a website about Mitt Romney eating. They could call it romnomnomnom dot com.

@Theideaofnorth: What if there were no hypothetical questions?

@MisterShuffles: If you have more pineapples than you and your family could ever eat, why wouldn't you share them around? Humans are weird. #qanda

@EnjoyMedway: I've created a new laughing gas that is also a laxative just for shits and giggles.

@AlecBaldwin: Name one part of our society, our culture, that you still have faith in. That you believe is uncorrupted.



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Election Morning Through The Eyes of Twitter

The Queensland Election has been a trending topic on and off all morning. Here are a few tweets that caught my eye.

7am: 
The feeling in the air these last days of campaigning suggests that the ALP has all but given up. Almost. Politics is like sport: you don't give up until...well, you don't give up. Ask Karen Struthers. 
@KarenStruthers Anna's Labor want a future Qld that is strong &fair - dont risk an all too powerful LNP #dontvotenewman Support your local MP?

8am
CanDoCampbell, the fake Twitter account and star of the extended campaign on Twitter, had an unexpectedly zen moment! Que Sera Sera? 
@Can_Do_Campbell My thought for today. What ever happens &who ever wins, it's democracy in action, &on Monday life goes on. Just be grateful we get to vote

9am
Unbelievable. The nasty has started early in the day. There's no need for this. In fact, there's never an excuse for this, and it may even be illegal. 
@4CThinking Imbecile #LNP nutter ripping #ALP election banners off fence at Yeronga SS - way of the future for this mob with massive majority? #qldvotes

10am
What is it about Kevin Rudd & hope? I see his name...and I feel hopeful. That's how it was in 2007, and for some of us, it still is. 
@KRuddMP Kate Jones has done a great job for her community, now she needs their support. That's why I'm working to help #KeepKate  KRudd
Against all reason, I felt a tiny surge of hope, that if Kevin is there, helping, maybe Kate will get her miracle. 

Kevin isn't the only federal Pollie from the Government who is lending support via Twitter. I haven't seen any from the Liberal side (and I do follow both sides). Is that LNP confidence, complacency, or disinterest?In the meantime, some support for the ALP:
@JuliaGillard Ashgrove, Keep Kate today. @KateJonesMP is a local who has fought for your community for a long time. #QldVotes JG
@MikeKellyMP Find it funny that Campbell Newman can't even vote for himself in today's election. #auspol

11am
I spoke too soon. Tony Abbott has tweeted. Twice. I can't decide if his tone is so different because his team has this election locked, or if it's just his personality. Even in victory, he sounds less than engaged:
@TonyAbbottMHR @Campbell_Newman has run a great campaign. He will get Queensland back on track #qldvotes
@TonyAbbottMHR Every vote in every seat in Qld matters. The only way to end Labor's 20 years of neglect is to vote for your local LNP candidate #qldvotes

And one of my favourite Tweeps has some words of wisdom.
@SuperTriviaGuy When you go to vote please remember this is not a war. You don't win by being rude to people handing out How To Vote info. Be polite.

It's not all about the voting though. A lot of it is about the sausage sizzles and lamington stalls. Perhaps the food incentives should be compulsory.
@totalquailure: Ooh, cake stalls. I mean, DEMOCRACY Dammit #qldvotes
@its_Mella @couriermail there's cupcakes?! I'd rather cupcakes then snags. Gimme sweets any day!

And when you get crowds of people forced together, stuff happens.
@Couriermail LNP candidate David Chrisafulli's wife, Tegan, fainted after seeing an elderly voter, known as “Joy”, trip and fall, cutting her knee open.
But really, it's all about the voters. 
@MurrayWattMP Nice couple just told me they normally vote LNP but are with me because of what I've done locally. Now that's #electiondayfun!

A final note of TwitWisdom:
@scottspark Avalanche of angst over #qldvotes outcome on Twitter - guys, dolls, remember - politics does not rule your life unchecked. Breathe.