Published: 8 April 2022
Last updated: 4 March 2024
ANNE SUSSKIND: In the murky world of social media, Dave Sharma and Allegra Spender are in the trenches over BDS, allegiances, campaign colours and more
HE SAYS, SHE SAYS. She says, he says. One street in Tamarama is festooned with Wentworth MP Dave Sharma’s smiling face and a parallel one sports his challenger, Independent Allegra Spender. She’s on the cover of the Wentworth Courier, and a couple of weeks later, we see Sharma.
There are stories about who’s lining up where. One family, at least, has brothers who differ: Lyndell Droga and her financier husband Daniel are two of Spender’s main backers, while The Australian reported that investment adviser Marcus Droga was spotted at a post-budget “nibbles” gathering in Sharma’s office.
Sharma says Spender is on a “mid-life vanity project”, which her supporters think is unbelievably patronising, and on it goes… Spender says Sharma is copying her campaign colour, teal, and next it will be her policies.
He replies that he’s always been on the blue spectrum and no-one owns a colour, and claims she is riding on the coat tails of his very pro-Israel stance, taking it as her own, while not having spoken to him about it.
This week, when The Australian raised a connection between Spender and Blair Palese (a climate activist who is also a reported BDS supporter, and was part of the now-defunct Wentworth Independents group that recruited Spender), Sharma said Spender “must state clearly her own position on this issue”.
Spender, who emphasises her strong record of support for Israel, said in an online statement on Tuesday: “I have always opposed BDS… To be absolutely clear, I stand with Israel.” To which she received an Instagram reply from a ron.dowd, reading: “Thanks for being absolutely clear, I’ll be unable to vote for you.”
It’s early days still, but this is how it is in Sydney’s eastern suburbs as the two battle it out in house meetings, forums at the pub, outside markets, in halls and the media.
The Jewish Independent took a deep dive into the media coverage, in print and online.
While Sharma gets ridiculed on Twitter for including his perfect TER of 100 in his campaign flyers, Spender is chastised for a video endorsement from her Ascham school headmistress Rowena Danziger.
