Duck Gate

Federal Seat of Dunkley

Former Liberal Party MP

and now hopeful pre-selection
candidate for the Federal seat
of Dunkley, Donna Bauer in
troubled waters over Facebook
post.
Opinion

Did ex-Victorian Liberal Member of Parliament, Mrs. Donna

J Bauer, who is now also a hopeful pre-selection candidate for

the Federal seat of Dunkley, both deliberately fabricate and
plagiarize someone elses work on Facebook as a shameless act
of self -promotion? If so, the implications are far reaching. At
stake is Mrs. Bauers integrity, honesty and credibility foremost.
In addition, it necessarily further damages the Victorian Liberal
Party brand and reputation which is in turmoil after what has been
described as corrupt and illegal behavior by the now disgraced
former Victorian Liberal Party state director, Damien Mantach.
Mr. Mantach was recently charged with the embezzlement
of around $1.5 million in election campaign funds from the
Liberal Party. How can the Liberal Party rebuild any notion and
appearance of legitimacy following its devastating 2014 election
defeat when a select few of its supporters, members and exparliamentarians continue to cause untold damage by adopting
unbefitting behaviour for self-interest purposes only?
On September 16, 2015, Donna Bauer uploaded a small
Facebook post, completed with a photo, to over 2000 of her
followers. Specifically, Donna Bauer claims she witnessed a
cute mother duck and ducklings crossing a road in Patterson
Lakes, snapped a quick photo and then took the time to sit
down, draft, and upload a Facebook post describing what she
had seen. It appears to be completely fabricated, however a
lie and deceptive behaviour? A quick Google search mother
ducklings brings up the picture and article used by Mrs. Bauer,
which clearly belongs to a 2008 report that appears in the UKs
www.telegraph.co.uk and www.dailymail.co.uk. Even more
damning is that one of her followers even applauded Mrs.
Bauers great photographic skills. God U get great photos, U
suc, said the follower. to funny... Mrs. Bauer replied
As well, numerous other followers also commented
on Mrs. Bauers post, completely unaware. This should have
been the moment when Mrs. Bauer credited use of the picture
and potentially elements of her post to the original media outlet
and author of the article to avoid not to mention deceptive and

misleading conduct. The right thing to do would have been for

Mrs. Bauer to delete the post with full knowledge that it never
happened. It should have also set off personal alarm bells for
Mrs. Bauer to question her motivation for deciding to knowingly
go down this path a path likely to further damage the Liberal
Partys reputation and her own.
However, this is not an isolated incident. Specifically,
examples of similar dishonest behaviour also emerged elsewhere
on social media suggesting a pattern of deliberate misleading
conduct and behaviour? The most glaring being around seven
months after she lost the seat of Carrum Mrs. Bauer continued

...further damages the

VictorianLiberal Party brand...
to assert she was a Member of the Victorian Parliament for the
State Government of Victoria under work on her Facebook
page from 2010 present. Under pressure from repeated calls
to correct it she eventually did. This ill-fated declaration was
clumsy because Mrs. Bauer was essentially claiming to be part
of the newly formed Daniel Andrews Labor Government - she
is a Liberal Member. As well, there are strong grounds to argue
that falsely claiming to be Members of Parliament is contempt
of the Victorian Parliament.
Similarly, Mrs. Bauer also claimed to work for the
City of Greater Dandenong as Marketing & Communications
Officer 2004 present also under her Facebook work profile.
The only way to interpret this is that during her time as MP in the
Baillieu and Napthine Governments from 2010 to 2014 she was
also moonlighting/working for the City of Greater Dandenong
however this also appears not to be true following calls to Council
Offices. These examples cannot be passed off as mistakes or
oversights. Mrs. Bauer implicitly knows the moral, ethical and
legal issues, ramifications and obligations of brazenly claiming
as your own someone elses intellectual property/work. As well,
we all know when it is time to amend key information on our
social media apps and what we should and should not post. In
addition, if the benefit of the doubt or sniff test were to the
applied here, to borrow former Liberal Treasure Joe Hockey, in
view of deciding whether or not Mrs. Bauers actions were silly
mistakes or oversight would fail both tests. Namely, Mrs. Bauer
has and continues to be a prominent social media actor, identity
and user and absolutely understands, maneuvers and deploys
large volumes of information on Facebook and Twitter from
multiple accounts daily.

Many people might think her post is innocuous or

harmless and not deserving of this level of scrutiny but the
opposite is true. Social media is now accepted globally as
a fierce domain in which political campaigns and careers are
won and lost. Mrs. Bauer understands this and has herself
incontrovertibly targeted people on social media. Moreover,
social media is working to expose and hold people to account
when they seemingly act dishonestly; attempting to leverage
social, economic and political gain and credibility based on lies
and deception. Social media is a space where ego and its pursuit
of self-image of maintaining a self-brand become distorted where
lies are effortlessly transformed into the truth a platform where
dishonesty becomes the new truth, where lies demand lies that
are purposefully designed to feed the idea of self-importance.

motivations. In her commentary on Ms. Gibson, Patrick points to

the idea that we love heart-warming stories..., that can work to
create emotional blinders that cause us to miss, misinterpret, or
discount red flags, she says. Perhaps it also reveals psychological
dimension and stresses seldom spoken about or recognised that
intensify when people move from public to normal life; where
ego, desire and popularity become intractable forces that must be
sustained at any cost by exploiting family, friends, community
and health issues. Toma and Hancock (2013) research into
Facebook suggest it holds as a useful instrument in individuals
efforts to preserve self-worth and self-integrity. They argue
that individuals seek psychological coherence, manifested as
a desire to be perceived by others in a way that is aligned with
self-perceptions.

Wendy L Patricks 2015 article on the plight of Belle

Gibson arguable provides a glimpse to Mrs. Bauers possible

In this sense, Mrs. Bauers Facebook duck post (duckgate) can arguably be considered as a calculated scheme of

deception and a strategy of manipulation that sustains her

idealized self as a prominent community identity. Shalvi,
Handgraaf & De Dreu (2011) point out that people will
consciously balance the potential for gain that will be generated
from lies against the likelihood of getting caught. As well,
when caught, people will invariable seek to tactically justify
morally bad actions like lying by:
1. Pointing to other examples of ethical behavior they can
demonstrate and/or
2. By drawing on personal issues as a defense / reason.

...suggesting a pattern of
deliberate misleading conduct
and behaviour...
Nonetheless, lies are costly and when uncovered the dogma of
our moral character and status is discovered for what it really is
and has become. In the end, there was no rightful justification
for Mrs. Bauer to post the duck story or to manufacture the
impression on social media that she was still a Member of
Parliament and worked for the Greater City of Dandenong. We
constantly teach our kids not to lie and get incredibly frustrated
when they do.
To this end, Mrs. Bauers post necessarily raises
serious questions and concerns about the credibility, truth and
honesty of her past and present Facebook posts and tweets and
critically her moral and ethical character to serve the public as
a politician in the future. Logically, it also raises question as to
whether or not her term in the Victorian Parliament was fitting
of the behavior that exemplifies the values the public expect
and of which various codes of conduct demand.
Does her post constitute plagiarism and breaching
copyright law together with an act of deception to her thousands
of followers? The flow-on effects are tremendous for such a
small post. For example, how truthful was her submission to
the report by the Federal Joint Standing Committee on Electoral
Matters Inquiry into campaigning at polling places in which
she claimed alleged Union intimidation. Does the Victorian
Liberal Partys most recent Good Government for Victorian
report, which she helped draft, now lack serious credibility?
This is remarkably paradoxical given the report was
designed to re-invigorate the party towards an existential
moment of truth following its defeat and ousting from

Government in the 2014 Victorian election after only one term.

Arguably, her actions only serve to drag down the Liberal Party
struggling to regroup ideologically, tactically and spiritually.
How does this bode for her new Public Relations business?
Subsequently, what appears to be blatant deceitfulness, not to
mention illegal, will undoubtedly cast a shadow over many
areas and organisations Mrs. Bauer has been, and is, involved
with. These are all important questions that need answering
because Mrs Bauer is seeking pre-selection to become a Federal
Member of Parliament, in which trust, honesty and integrity are
pre-requisites. This has all come about because of her decision
to sit down, draft and then upload the duck Facebook post that
clearly comes from a six-year-old article written and published
by two prominent media outlets.
Yes, she might argue that the ducks did cross the road
but she couldnt get a picture in time so she just grabbed one
from the Internet. She might also, in response, bring forward
a witness to corroborate the ducks did in fact cross the road.
Again, she might seek to apologise to the original author
and organisation seeking retrospective permission to use the
picture. Yet all of these get-out-of-jail cards will invariably
fall short as excuses for someone being caught out by their
own omissions. The incontrovertible truth is undeniable when you view her original post, she claims outright that she
alone witnessed it, those were the ducks crossing the road in
Patterson Lakes and that she took the picture. Her interactions
with her followers substantiate this.
She and the most strident of her supporters might also
claim her work in the community should be looked at foremost
and that it only amounts to a silly mistake. However, at the
time it was arguably pre-mediated and deliberate and simply
shrinking the post to a small mistake is inexcusable. At the end
of the day, she simply should not have done it. Mrs. Bauers
post cannot be reversed, re-engineered or explained away.
All politicians past and present or people who put themselves
forward as community identities are subject to intense and
increased scrutiny by the public. We all accept this to be true no
matter who it is. This is particularly true in Federal elections.
It is important that we ensure our Federal candidates mirror
and reflect the kind of values we believe in.

...the incontrovertible truth is

undeniable...she simply should
not have done it
The duck post could still be viewed on Mrs. Bauers Facebook
account as of December 7th 2015.