THE federal election campaign in the Riverina took an ugly turn last week with two candidates involved in a physical altercation outside the Wagga pre-poll centre.
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Palmer United Party candidate Lex Stewart and Australia First’s Lorraine Sharp were embroiled in the fracas, with Mr Stewart alleging that Ms Sharp took his mobile phone before he grabbed her by the wrist to get it back.
Mr Stewart claims he was at the pre-poll booth yesterday to collect election leaflets and to take photos of the posters on display.
He’s accusing Mrs Sharp of instigating the incident.
“I did not realise she was there,” he said.
“She snatched my mobile phone camera out of my hand unprovoked.”
Mrs Sharp rejects the allegation that she snatched Mr Stewart’s phone from his grasp and claims he sparked the altercation by chasing her daughter Gabby around and shoving his phone in Mrs Sharp’s face.
“It was all a setup to cause trouble and disrupt,” she said.
The scuffle between Mr Stewart and Mrs Sharp was witnessed by a number of people who were at the pre-poll booth yesterday to hand out how-to-vote cards.
One witness, Eric Jellert, who was at pre-poll to hand out how-to-vote cards for Paul Funnell from the Democratic Labour Party, said: “he (Mr Stewart) wasn’t being a gentleman at all.”
Both later attended Wagga Police Station where a report regarding the incident was made by police, but they do not intend to investigate the matter further.
Mrs Sharp lodged a complaint with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) over the incident, but an AEC spokesman said that incidents outside the pre-poll booth were beyond its jurisdiction.
The altercation between Mr Stewart and Mrs Sharp is the latest incident in a long-running feud between the pair.