Bumpy Favell favellb@gmail.

com 0410191704 I come from a background of writing I was the childrens book reviewer for the Canberra Times from age 12 after I won a Canberra Times short story competition. I was fully encouraged by my mother who was a fairly well known fiction writer she had 4 collections of short stories and a novel published by UQP. I always thought I would be a writer so did my mother who made me promise to finish her last novel before she died. I havent kept that promise. I went into music composition and showbiz instead. Most of the time that I played in bands and organized drag and cabaret shows I also did freelance proofreading and editing as a side job everything from proofreading technical writing to editing film scripts and poetry collections for organisations from Spinifex Press to Monash University Dept of Accounting and Finance. When I was in my early 30s, after studying music composition at Southern Cross University, I did a Diploma in Professional Writing and Editing part time through TAFE, because I wanted some help with structure for writing a massive musical which was on my mind I realized through that broad ranging TAFE course that I have no huge interest in being a journalist or writing non fiction, even though I liked the information and the challenge of writing about the real world. I had a great time writing poetry, one of which was published in The Age, and another won the Cancer Council Poetry prize. I developed my idea for my musical its still coming From 2000 until 2011, I spent 10 intense years running the weekly cabaret King Victoria Drag Kings, which also involved writing, composing and performing endless shows. From 2011 I worked full time at National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA) as Short Course Coordinator. In early 2013, due to ill health, I had to temporarily stop work. I decided to volunteer for No Fibs as a proofreader whilst on medical treatment, because my brain still worked, and I actually love proofreading. I was very happy to contribute to No Fibs because I was disgusted by the MSMs blatantly biased and contemptuous coverage of politics and the generally degrading treatment of Prime Minister Julia Gillard in Australia. In June 2013 my partner and I met our local Greens candidate Alex Bhathal on a freezing windy day down at Preston market. We instantly loved Alex. She was big and strong, and totally engaging. We handed out some flyers for her and Preston locals seemed really interested in the Greens or maybe they were just intimidated by my partner... The Batman electorate, which Preston is part of, is not a trendy area. It is the most multicultural area in Melbourne and a low socio economic area. I started to wonder why someone would do what Alex does, day after day, year after year, confronting the public, being eternally charming and polite and being so staunch and forthright. I asked Margo Kingston if I could join her Citizen Journalism project and write about Batman electorate - because I was pretty restless being stuck at home, addicted to

Twitter doing a bit of proofreading and occasionally transcribing things like Christopher Pynes voice (traumatic!) for Margo and Tony. I needed to challenge myself because I am usually a really busy person. I contacted all the candidates in my local electorate. I rang them, I facebooked and tweeted those on social media. I dropped Margos name. Only the Greens, Save the Planet Party, Labor and Australian Sex Party (eventually) agreed to be interviewed. I got a thrill when I saw online comments on my introductory piece. I couldnt believe people would actually bother, so it was a great confidence boost. I was quite confronted by having to use my real name (I made it up, its legal) plus my photo and actual facts about myself. Anyway I ended up writing too much about myself and felt a bit embarrassed, but left it up online because I was thinking at the time that being vulnerable can be empowering. The first candidate interview I did was with Philip Sutton from Save the Planet Party, because he responded first. Save the Planet was not actually a registered political party and Philip had no expectation of getting any votes at all. SPPs reason for running in several electorates in Victoria, was not to win seats but to publicise their Plan for a Climate Emergency. I made the mistake of letting Philip speak for over 90 minutes. The task of transcribing the interview and picking out the relevant parts was painful. In the published interview I quoted him exactly - but obviously could not include everything he said. Philip really liked the interview after he saw it on No Fibs and only had one correction - I had missed out a word! So I learnt a bit about interviewing from this first experience ie; limit the time for the interview, be more prepared with the questions and more proactive during the interview. Throughout July and much of August, Liberal, PUP, Family First, Sex Party and other smaller parties running in Batman still did not ring me back or contact me via any of the other ways I bugged them. I noticed other No Fibs citizen journos were concerned that the project could seem unbalanced or skewed towards the left of politics because mostly left leaning candidates were agreeing to be interviewed first and Liberal candidates in particular were not responding at all. But I decided I didnt care, because its got to be honest, organic and its about reporting facts - no fibs. So if right wing parties would not be interviewed, we could report that. But I did wonder if my touting of No Fibs as my credentials had put them on notice. Then I thought, well, theres absolutely nothing about any of the minor candidates in any press, local, online or otherwise and no posters or flyers. There was a little reporting on Alex Bhathal and plenty on the issue of so called faceless man David Feeney, not a woman, winning the Labor preselection for the seat of Batman. I decided these minor party (and Liberal) candidates are not serious, they are not doing any work at all to be elected so maybe theyre just there to get numbers of candidates up for their party. It annoyed me, so I guess I was getting a bit more engaged in politics Batman has been a safe Labor seat for decades but this time the Greens, led by Alex Bhathal on her third attempt were in with a real chance, having grown in popularity over the years, both through Alexs high public profile and changing

demographics - plus Batmans Liberal preferences were assumed to be directed as usual towards the Greens. Alex Bhathal was next to be interviewed. Unfortunately she had a car accident while working on a Greens stall in Reservoir, so the interview got delayed for more than a week. I enjoyed interviewing Alex, although I found myself frustratingly shy and hesitant with some of the questions. She was articulate and well researched with her answers, as Philip Sutton had been. She seemed excited and very confident about winning Batman, finally. Again, I interviewed her for too long and edited out some great bits about her thoughts on Bob Brown, her history of activism, how her life would change after winning the seat. Friends of mine on Facebook who are POC (people of colour) activists were complaining that the Greens were exclusively white and middle class so they wouldnt vote for them. I put that to Alex and she (being of Indian descent) seemed genuinely sad to hear that people of colour were feeling disenfranchised from the Greens although she agreed that Greens membership and often its publicity is dominated by white faces. Alex said she has been trying to change that from within, by organizing activist meetings for Greens with non- anglo backgrounds. This part of the interview didnt make it to the final edit for No Fibs either, but it was good anyway because I got to convey to my friends her attitude and demonstrate that not all Greens candidates are white/anglo. A couple of days later, before I had completed transcribing Alexs interview, Liberals made a surprise announcement that they were preferencing Labor in Batman. Suddenly Alex Bhathals chances were over and Feeney was going to win. This news came the same morning David Feeney was booked in for his interview, finally, after numerous emails, telephone calls and twitter requests. David Feeney came with his minder and I think I was a bit intimidated by the suits and despite Feeneys initial charm and smooth talking - the underlying contempt I thought I could sense. I did not feel I did a good interview. At one point I started raving on about public transport - or something just as boring. And I forgot to ask him my most burning question, which was about his attitude to marriage equality. But I did enjoy the way he started off really diplomatically and by the end of the interview was getting a bit OTT with the way he was talking about the Greens (ie; calling them evil). I wanted to convey that morphing of his personality, but not sure if it came across. I was also a bit flummoxed because now Alex Bhathal would have to be interviewed again about the reversal in her chances. The preferences issue became a particularly important one during the 2013 election campaign. By the time the Australian Sex Party candidate finally got back to me in late August, a little over a week before the election, I had read up on the preference deals minor parties were doing to gain Senate seats. I was pretty disgusted by the Sex Party doing deals with the far right minor parties whilst touting their supposedly liberal anti-censorship pro-equality ideals. I read about the Eros Foundation and sensed some of Fiona Pattens underlying attitudes - and by the time I was to meet the candidate Lianna I was feeling like an argument! I quite liked Lianna though she was an enthusiastic young queer activist. But I was disturbed that she was either

unaware of, or obfuscating about the Sex Party preference deals. I suspected Patten was using GLBTIQ people to appeal to disenfranchised left leaning voters whilst not really having our interests at heart, as demonstrated by Sex Party preference deals. I think I did get too belligerent with Lianna and I felt a bit guilty about it afterwards. After the Sex Party interview was published though, and I put it up on my Facebook page, I was swamped with requests from my real friends to explain the preference deals and advise them on how to vote! Like I was now some sort of expert. I thought this was the most interesting outcome of being a citizen journalist. It was voluntary my contribution and research was pretty superficial, but none- the-less friends seemed impressed and were treating me like someone who actually knew more than them Heaps of people seemed confused by the above and below the line voting system and were genuinely worried that, for example, their precious Green vote might end up ushering in a Family First candidate. Then, with some friends we started challenging Fiona Patten on Twitter and Facebook about what the Sex Party had done re preferences. She ended up being everything I suspected a rude ambitious opportunist. These interactions were not on the No Fibs website, but were directly due to the chance I had as a No Fibs citizen journalist to do a little research, interview four candidates and actually get published. I enjoyed the project immensely and loved watching the project as a whole grow and evolve. My absolute favourite was Michelle Primmers interview with Buddy Rojek, a candidate for Corangimite. The No Fibs Citizen Journalism project was a healthy thing for me to do, as I was unable to work at the time. I am almost completely better now and looking forward to completing my musical - and going back to work. Thanks Margo and Tony for this interesting opportunity.