Talk:Steve Fielding

Untitled

That last edit was by me - I didn't notice I had been logged off. Adam 23:58, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Labor's decision to swap preferences with Family First, which caused Labor's Senator Jacinta Collins to lose her seat, became a source of acrimony within the party after the election.

Labor's preferences come into play after their last senator gets eliminated, so this sentence doesn't make sense, unless the preference deal made people choose not to vote Labor. Andjam 09:54, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Please explain how writing on someone else's walls without their permission is not vandalism. Xtra 22:04, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

We don't need to characterise stuff we don't like, just report it. See WP:NPOV. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 02:49, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

That doesn't answer the question. How is it not vandalism? It is not POV to call it vandalism. Read up a dictionary and it clearly falls within the definition. Xtra 03:53, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

You're correct to call it vandalism, but protest is a more neutral term than attack. For example, if you look at The Age's article, the headline is "Fielding target of student protests", there is no use of the word attack. Even looking at the Herald Sun's article, we see that the headline is "MP office vandalised in VSU protest". --Brendanfox 00:50, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Article name

I don't think I've ever heard of him being referred to as "Steve", shouldn't this be moved to Steven? 220.236.93.193 08:32, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Check his official page http://www.stevefielding.com.au/ he calls himself Steve. Rocksong 09:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Risstrom/Preferences

Paragraph removed:

He received 1.9% of the vote on first preferences (significantly less than Greens' candidate David Risstrom). However, a preference deal with the ALP resulted in most ALP preferences falling to him instead of Risstrom, giving him the final Victorian Senate seat. This has led to controversy about his legitimacy as a senator, given that many ALP voters would not have realised that their preferences would go to a conservative candidate (Fielding) over a progressive candidate (Risstrom).

Original paragraph located directly beneath the removed one:

Since he polled less than 2% of the popular vote, Fielding's election was a surprise. He gained quota under the Senate's proportional representation system by receiving preferences from other parties (see Australian electoral system). The Australian Democrats and the Australian Labor Party agreed to swap preferences with Family First in the belief that Family First could not win a seat. But Fielding benefited from the larger-than-expected surplus of Liberal preferences, and stayed in the count long enough to receive Democrat and Labor preferences, defeating the Australian Greens' lead candidate David Risstrom for the last Senate place in Victoria.

They're essentially the same thing, with the exception of some point-of-view original research/unsourced conclusions in the paragraph that has been removed. Why repeat information needlessly and throw some unrequired spin on it? michael ^talk 06:42, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The two really need to be merged - the first is biased, and the second is inaccurate. Ambi 07:08, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

VSU

Care to cite your comment about the majority of fees going to the union coffers?

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 04:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Full name

I was surprised to see the American spelling "Steven" in the first paragraph; I was expecting to see the normal "Stephen". So I did a search to verify and I can't find a reliable source for "Steven" OR "Stephen".

Is it possible that "Steve" is his full name? That's what the AEC uses (but they also refer to Heffernan as Bill, so they're not using full names) APH too.

Anyone have a reference? Nick (talk) 19:33, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Sexual Abuse Claim

A very disturbing but odd claim. Obviously very sad if true, but we must be careful with such material. Although The Age is given as a reference, it was simply reporting what Fielding said to Neil Mitchell, a tabloid shock jock. Not an ideal source. Fielding's story is that the perpetrator, allegedly a Scoutmaster AND a family friend, could not be traced by police, hence no prosecution. So no evidence. That a Scoutmaster could not be traced is hard to believe. Thorough records are kept of such appointments.

In light of the last section of the article, Stunts, I believe we need to be very cautious with this claim. HiLo48 (talk) 07:04, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

The story has already changed less than a day later. According to The Age today there was no secret about who the alleged paedophile was...

"THE man Steve Fielding accused of sexually abusing him died several years ago after retiring to Queensland, the senator's father said yesterday...

...many families known to one another through the Reservoir Scout troop had been represented at the man's funeral''."

Clearly, the man could be named, but hasn't been (the Scout Troop has), and still no charges or prosecution. Not great encyclopaedic material. HiLo48 (talk) 01:35, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't view this as a stunt, and the source was Fielding himself, irrespective of the shows on which he discussed it, so there shouldn't be a problem there. I would also ask if it should be here, though, on the grounds that my general attitude would be to leave child abuse out of a BLP for the sake of the victim's privacy, unless the abuse is clearly public knowledge and is generally needed for proper coverage of the subject. In this case, it feels borderline to me - Fielding made it public himself, when he was under no obligation to do so, but at the same time I'm still feel privacy concerns. I'm leaning towards leaving it in, though, given the minimal coverage we give the topic (thus avoiding any significant undue weight concerns). Any other thoughts? - Bilby (talk) 15:46, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Everything we have on this issue is from a newspaper report of a random, seemingly impromptu telephone call made by Fielding to a shock jock. OK, its a source, but not a great one. We don't know the name of the perpetrator, although clearly there is no secret about it, despite the initial claims to the contrary. Fielding and/or the media chose to vilify Scouting with his outburst, rather than emphasising the "family friend" aspect, the latter being the most common source of child abuse. This man is a loose cannon, seemingly contacting the media willy-nilly as it suits him for publicity purposes. Perhaps what he said should be there, very carefully reported, not so much as a comment on what actually happened, because there must still be serious doubts about that, but more as a commentary on Fielding's overall style. HiLo48 (talk) 20:33, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

In re-reading The Age piece, it seems the 3AW interview happened after he had revealed the abuse to reporters at Parliament House. But I guess that's not really the concern. While it is possible that his choice of revealing it then was a stunt, (the timing may well support that claim), unless we get some sources making that connection that's probably not something we can use. I don't see much reason to doubt his claims, especially as his father supported him, but my concern is still whether covering this is respectful of Fielding's privacy, (given that he made it public himself), or if it would be better left out. That said, if there been some decent coverage questioning the timing, that could potentially be worked into the article as well, presuming that the topic is accepted. - Bilby (talk) 05:36, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Since Fielding aired the matter very publicly himself, I don't think privacy is an issue. What is of concern to me is what the issue really is. There was never a court case to clarify the "facts" of this story. The alleged perpetrator could be identified by some rigorous research, but he was never formally found guilty of anything. My perspective is that Fielding's public airing of the matter is the significant fact here, not what actually happened, because we will probably never know that. Overall this is such an odd and unclear story that perhaps the whole thing would be best omitted completely. HiLo48 (talk) 06:00, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Alcohol - "last man standing"?

"Last man standing" is a cliché. I think I know what it means, but can we put this in plainer English please? HiLo48 (talk) 17:21, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

A Christian, eh? What's that mean?

Fielding is described as a Christian in the article.

At Australia's census around 70% of the population typically declare themselves to be Christian. I think Fielding would put himself in a much narrower grouping than that. For starters, he would be part of the 15% who attend church regularly. Can we come up with something better than just Christian? HiLo48 (talk) 11:54, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

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External links modified

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I have just added archive links to one external link on Steve Fielding. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

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