News
Election trickery in Willoughby
​
Our story reported by the Sydney Morning Herald - 30/8/24
Our story has today featured in the Sydney Morning Herald, along with other incidents in Sydney relating to local council elections.
Regarding our Willoughby Community Independents website redirecting to Mayor Tanya Taylor's website, the article has further revealed that "Two hours after the Herald first made inquiries about the issue, the URL that was redirecting traffic to the mayor’s website sent users back to the original community independents page." (SMH, 30/8/24)
​
Read the article here (about half-way down the article):
​
​
Sudden change in website link - 29/8/24
​​
​As detailed in our Open Letter and referral to the NSW Electoral Commission, we have alerted our community to the registration of www.willoughbycommunityindependents.com as a misleading domain name in recent days.
After investigation today, we have discovered that the misleading website redirecting readers to the website of Mayor Tanya Taylor has been changed. It now redirects to our own website www.willoughbycommunityindependents.com.au. This change has not been made through any actions by our IT team, as they have no access to the misleading website.
The change has occurred at some point between 10:30am and midday on 29 August.
We welcome the change that alleviates any misleading of voters. However, we remain disappointed that such tactics were employed in our local government elections, and that only by making it public and referring it to the NSW Electoral Commission was the issue resolved.
Kind Regards,
​
Willoughby Community Independents
www.willoughbycommunityindependents.com.au​​​​​
​​An Open Letter to our community - 27/8/24
Dear Willoughby community member,
​
The Willoughby Community Independents wish to bring to your attention a concerning development.
Our website domain name www.willoughbycommunityindependents.com.au was registered on 7 August this year. Recent searches have shown that 3 days afterwards, on 10 August, another very similar domain name was registered www.willoughbycommunityindependents.com instead of our “.com.au” domain extension. The searches show that whoever registered the “.com” domain has deliberately kept their name and contact details secret.
​
Anyone entering the “.com” domain is automatically taken to the website of Mayor Tanya Taylor. We don't imply that Mayor Tanya Taylor is responsible for linking these sites.
As the Willoughby Community Independents are concerned to ensure that voters are not misled, we will be referring what has happened to the NSW Electoral Commission. Our referral letter will be posted to our website and we will provide further updates.
We have contacted Mayor Tanya Taylor to inform her of our concern.
Although we are aware of similar behaviour in relation to federal and state elections, such as recently in Tasmania (Jacqui Lambie says she's 'absolutely ropeable' about a Liberal Party website - ABC News 14/3/24), we never imagined such low standard in a local government election campaign.
We strongly encourage our readers to share or post this Open Letter to inform fellow voters about what has happened with the registration of the misleading domain name. There is no room for this type of behaviour in our elections.
Kind Regards,
​
Willoughby Community Independents
www.willoughbycommunityindependents.com.au
​​
​
Referral letter to NSW Electoral Commission - 28/8/24
​
Click here to read our letter to the NSW Electoral Commission on this matter.
​
​
