A phone poll including Dubbo Regional Council mayor Ben Shields as a candidate for the March state election is being conducted around the electorate.
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The poll lists all five candidates who have already announced they would be standing alongside Mr Shields as an Independent when asking people who they would vote for.
Mr Shields didn’t answer when asked if he was reconsidering his decision to stand, but said again his focus was on his role as mayor.
“I don’t wish to add to further speculation,” Mr Shields said. “As I said before, my focus is being the best mayor I can be.”
In July Mr Shields said on social media that he had ‘seriously considered [standing in the election], but I’m out’, but didn't give the same response when asked by the Daily Liberal, instead saying ‘he wasn’t necessarily in to start with’, and he ‘didn’t want to put speculation out there.’
Mr Shields also did not answer questions when asked if he was conducting the poll, or who else might be.
The phone poll also asked a question comparing standing Independent Mathew Dickerson to former Queensland MP Clive Palmer, asking if voters were concerned by businessmen such as the pair spending large amounts of money on election campaigns.
Mr Dickerson said he ‘wasn’t focusing on or reading into what anyone else was doing’.
“I am focused on getting around the electorate and talking to people. If I keep looking over my shoulder at what others are doing then I will stop looking at the people who are my focus in this electorate.”
Mr Dickerson said his polling was talking to people each day on the campaign trail.
WHO HAS CONFIRMED THEY ARE STANDING:
- Greens – Rod Pryor
- Shooters Fishers - Lara Quealy
- Nationals – Dugald Saunders
- Independent – Mathew Dickerson
- Labor – Stephen Lawrence