THE state election looms closer each day and candidates are plastering themselves on every available surface.
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However, there is one face that has been noticeably absent from the Bega campaign trail and remains un-contactable and a complete mystery to voters.
Clyde Robert Archard of the No Land Tax (NLT) party is nowhere to be found, and when party leader Peter Jones did finally respond after a string of phone calls and emails, he did not have Mr Archard’s direct contact details available - he said he would try over the weekend to provide contacts for candidates.
“If it doesn’t happen you can receive our sincerest apologies,” he said.
“One thing we had a massive blind spot on is the contact details on the local candidates.”
He then promised that in four years’ time the details of each running candidate would be available to the public at large.
“When they call us a micro-party they aren’t joking - there’s only two of us running around,” he said.
The Bega District News has also been unable to contact Monaro NLT candidate Leslie Graeme Dinham from the wealthy Sydney suburb of Rozelle, and South Coast candidate Licio Mallia from Sanctuary Point, an eight-minute drive from Mr Archard’s listed residence of Vincentia.
Apart from the party’s website, which has been found to be using stock photographs of false identities posing as concerned landowners, the only other online presence is a Facebook page that now has over 100 likes since being created on Sunday.
Former president and NLT founder, Balmain-based architect Jeff Madden, said he and Mr Jones had “a falling out” recently, the nature of which he would not comment on until after the election.
Mr Madden said he had also never seen nor met Mr Archard or the Monaro and South Coast candidates.
The only Clyde Robert Archard the BDN was able to locate was born in 1921 to Hugh Robert and Elizabeth Ann Archard - and died in Borneo in 1945 as a Private in the 2/18th Battalion, Australian Infantry while a prisoner of war to the Japanese, at the age of just 24.
While there is no C Archard listed in the White Pages in NSW, a Clyde Archard is listed on LinkedIn as a chef at an undisclosed Sydney restaurant.
A spokesperson for the NSW Electoral Commission said all candidates must be enrolled to vote in NSW at the same address as is on their application form, which is later cross referenced by the commission.
The spokesperson said that parties can bulk nominate candidates and was unsure at the time whether photo ID was needed to apply.
The NLT party came to prominence last week after drawing the highly coveted first position on the Legislative Council ballot paper for the March 28 election.
It has also made the rare decision to fund candidates in all 93 state electorates, which will give Mr Jones the chance of being elected, and possibly hand him the balance of power, and the ability to recoup all of the money the party will spend along the campaign trail.
The party has been attracting criticism surrounding its candidates, including Mr Jones, who once held a position at NSW Australian Labor Party (ALP) head office, and is a former vice-president of the postal workers union.
Some of the party’s candidates such as Mr Archard have listed addresses many kilometres from their electorate, with Ballina candidate Greg Zylber residing as far as 751km away in Balmain, while other candidates include a Russian-born model and fitness trainer named Anastasia Bakss, in the Sydney seat of Heffron.
Ms Bakss has a very prominent presence on social media with almost 5000 Facebook friends, while other NLT candidates such as Clyde Robert Archard remain so much of a mystery to voters they may wonder if he even exists.
