Talk:Luke Hartsuyker

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From his website: "Following the 2010 election, he was appointed Shadow Minister for Regional Communications, Youth and Sport. He is also Deputy Leader of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives." lukehartsuyker.com.au 123.208.47.157 (talk) 09:24, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Hartsuyker's contributions

For a guy whose been in office for 16 years, this page doesn't really say much about him or what he has been up to in that time. I've been trying to find more info about him, but as I am not familiar with him (he's a blank to me), I'm not sure what is or isn't significant enough to mention or if there's more detail if I dig harder. Some things I found a little about:

1. In 2008 he was ordered out of parliament[1]
2. In 2011 he and several others were reprimanded for missing ballots, which led to a failed vote[2]
3. In 2011 he was one of several who called Julia Gillard names, "witch."[3]
4. In 2017 anti-adani mine protestors were arrested at his office[4][5]
5. On the topic of mining, he has at times voiced the position that coal seam gas mining shouldn't occur on agricultural land, where it can contaminate water, near residential, and that landowners should be compensated[6] however at other times he has supported mining that threatens Coffs Harbour water catchment area in favour of mining job creation[7] and doesn't seem that dedicated to implementing the nationals policy on the issue.[8] Being a Nationals representative, whose main support are farmers, and he's been in office for 16 years, probably important to have clarity on this issue.
6. While supporting the coalition policy regarding refugees, has also said he is happy to settle Syrian refugees in his electorate, and he had something to do with a report into how refugees contribute economically to rural areas.[9][10]
7. Wants harsher punishment for revenge porn [11]
8. Support for medical marijuana, but only products on the TGA. A medical cannabis trial run in his electorate [12][13]
9. Absent from a local discussion about climate change[14]
10. Was involved in designing the controversial backpacker tax, which many farmers and regional tourist operators were critical of [15][16]
11. A couple of issues related to privatisation and the free market where the private market rorted taxpayers - dodgy recruitment services[17] and vocational training[18] - which were related to positions he held in ministry, but n.b. is the result of successive government policies from both major parties.
12. In the lead up to 2010 election, a new local "newspaper" called Port Paper was started up... one of hartsuyker's staffers was the editor/writer, and other national party staffers were involved... the newspaper did a bit of a hatchet job on the independent candidate running in the Lyne electorate (neighbouring Hartsuyker's Cowper electorate). The newspaper articles, including a potentially biased poll they ran, was quoted in mainstream media, quoted by Hartsuyker in parliament, etc to put the boot into Oakshotte. The newspaper only ran for 12 weeks before it closed up shop.[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]
13. in the 2016 election there was a shortage of ballot papers in the southern part of the electorate so not everyone got to vote (area which, prior to redistribution, had belonged to Lyne - Oakshotte's heart land)[27]
14. in 2004 a local millionaire funded a campaign for people not to vote for Hartsuyker (supported no specific candidate but wanted people to put Hartsuyker last) because he was of the opinion that the Nationals no longer represented the needs of Copwer, and being a safe seat meant the region was losing out.[28]
15. His register of interests show that he owns 25% share of his father's caravan park/tourist attraction (T.R. L& J Hartsuyker business that owns it), and continues to draw a significant income from this partnership. He is director of Yenload Pty Ltd Trustee of Superannuation Fund. Holds shares in Telstra, AMP, IAG. His wife has wages from Diocese of Lismore Catholic Church, & NSW Dept of TAFE.[29]
16. His own communications have at times said he "pursued a professional career in real estate and institutional property investment and development." I can't find independent verification of this. (Though, hypothetically, the superannuation fund that he is director of the trustee of may possibly contain property that he has invested and developed).[30]
17. In 2016 was seen as a contender for the Nationals leadership position[31]
18. In 2017 he made gave an ultimatum that he would walk away from the Coalition if he wasn't given a portfolio, and this is how he gained the position of Assistant to the Deputy Prime Minister [32]
19. In 2014 as Assistant Employment Minister he was promoted the Work for the Dole scheme, and there was and continues to be criticism of the scheme[33][34][35] recently called "demonstratable failure"[36]
20. It's not citable, and biased, however seems there's some criticism of Hartsuyker in the comments of news articles, blogs, from other candidates, and protestors, that he says one thing 'on the record' for the media but doesn't actually do anything on the ground on issues. I don't know if there's fire where there's smoke or it's just normal complaints, however I am finding it hard to find his position on a number of issues which potentially suggests a lack of transparency. [37][38] It would be good to have tangible evidence of what he has worked to achieve and stands for (or doesn't).

Do you have any suggestions about what is worth including in the wiki page, or more information on his position on these things (or actions he has taken)?Powertothepeople (talk) 04:56, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind, but I changed your bullet points to a numbered list just to make it easier to refer back to. I would say straight away we can rule out 1-4, 9, 13-14 and 16 as completely trivial. 15 is original research. Some of the others can probably be mentioned very briefly (for example, 6-8 could probably be collectively dealt with in a single sentence). The rest can probably be worked in a little. I do want to caution, though - practically all of these are "negative" coverage, or at least are being given a negative spin. Be very careful of potential WP:POV issues here. It's been nice to see you getting involved, but I've also noticed this as an issue at Ann Sudmalis and some of the other pages you've been working on. Frickeg (talk) 05:08, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

@Frickeg: Thanks, numbered list is a better idea. I will think more on what you've said. I just wanted to quickly say that there seems to be a bit of 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' in editing Wikipedia - you think there's too much negative coverage, but when I add stuff to wikipedia that could be viewed as positive that is also accused of POV and possible COI (even though I do not have COI). No I'm not trying to pull a strawman arguement here, I just mean that everyone has bias even if they don't admit it, and even if I word something neutrally, if I am adding something that another person doesn't like beacause of their own position then they will see it as bias. And on topics that are controversial, or political, then it's more messy than if we were writing about maths theorums or species of dogs. With Hartsuyker I did want to know what his achievements are, and on his own website are media releases about money going to roads or local charities etc but I thought these might be considered trivial and like PR (even if I cited newspaper reports rather than his press releases, these style of newspaper articles are basically word for word press releases). If you know about what his achievements are - less negative stuff - by all means I want to know. At the moment his wikipedia page doesn't really tell us anything about what this guy has been doing in office for 16 years. [And I would also add, that I write things freely on the Talk pages in a way I wouldn't on his wikipedia page. I have already made some minor edits to his page, providing extra details where I could find them, and I do not believe there is anything non-neutral about what I have published. Regarding Sudalis' page, I have taken that discussion up on my talk page, but if anyone wants to actually review each of the edits I made to that page you will see that I have not been negative or non-neutral in my edits and the only bit of contention I can see is regarding same sex marriage and perhaps I didn't word that part as neutrally as I should have however I would argue neither did you in your edit. Everything I wrote was accurate and cited.] Thanks again for your feedback, I will think more on the points above. Powertothepeople (talk) 09:34, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Hey, no worries, and it can definitely be a challenge getting NPOV right in political articles, especially for currently serving politicians. It can be difficult to balance the PR-fluff they send out ("so-and-so secured funding in the budget for their electorate today!") with the fact that, to make the news, they often have to stuff up. Generally it's better not to think about achievements/controversies at all and just neutrally report significant things that they did, and that does involve judging whether certain things are significant, because not every time someone makes the news deserves inclusion. There are all sorts of policies around on this, but I try to think in terms of what I would expect to see in an ADB article one day, just a little more in-depth. Unless the issue is pretty black-and-white, it's often better not to include "comments" on it at all. I'm thinking of instances like #19 above - if we were going to include the "demonstrable failure" thing, then we would have to include a corresponding quote of someone defending it and it all starts to get very wordy for a minor incident, so it's generally better to leave that stuff out altogether.

For what it's worth, I don't for a moment think you're going into this with an intention to insert POV, and I fully understand that you wouldn't have put this all into the article as it's written above (and, for the record, I was misattributing lots of shabby edits to you on Ann Sudmalis that weren't yours at all, which was lazy and unfair of me). You are absolutely right that the page is undernourished in its current form and I fully support its expansion using a selection of the material above. Some more stuff on his frontbench role and role within the National party room might be helpful (if there is any). We also need to be careful about WP:RECENTISM - everything above (except the 2008 thing which is pretty minor) is from the last few years. The article already has this problem but we don't want to exacerbate it. It might be a good idea to go hunting for some older stuff from his earlier career to balance it out. Frickeg (talk) 09:58, 18 June 2017 (UTC)