[Bermagui Community] Moderator Apology - Voter Education Program

[Geoffrey Grigg]

Hello,

Thanks to the comments supplied by readers of the community mailing lists,
it falls on me to issue a Moderator Apology for forwarding a post about the
Voter Education Program.


*1. Thank you *Thanks to the community members who clearly identified the
highly political nature of the Voter Education Program. I appreciate your
effort.

*2. Deep Political Connections*
The Voter Education Program 'Making Political History' zoom webinar I
forwarded from Rian Smith is clearly a trojan horse conceived by Reignite
Democracy Australia Pty Ltd.

Reignite Democracy Australia (RDA is led by Monica Smit) is closely aligned
with and have 'joined' Clive Palmer's UAP and Craig Kelly who are self
described right wing political activists using a staunch anti-vaxxer
platform to destabilise the COVID health response. Read more here.
<https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/craig-kelly-clive-palmer-and-reignite-democracy-australia-are-making-an-anti-vaxxer-super-group/ar-AAPoylV>
RDA
have been denied political party status by the Australian Electoral
Commission.

*3. Formal Moderator Apology*
Readers, I'm sorry I forwarded this content about the Voter Education
Program. I did check with Rian Smith prior to posting and specifically
asked if it was aligned to any political party, and was assured it was not
and that it was 'purely a voter education' project.

That is not true. It's highly politicised. I did not thoroughly check the
content because of time pressures, and because I have avoided the vax
debate (on purpose) I've never heard of the RDA. This was naive of me, and
lazy fact checking. Rian assures me she genuinely thought the project was
'as advertised'.

As has been pointed out, the community mailing lists are non-party
political (see our List Terms here
<https://cobargocommunity.wordpress.com/about/list-terms/>).

So once again, I'm sorry folks. I thought I was serving the community with
that information. I was wrong and I'm happy to admit it.


Geoffrey Grigg
Moderator
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