Sign wars in Bullwinkel: Trish Cook votes to put Keep The Sheep signs in the bin during council decision

Labor candidate Trish Cook has been caught out, wrongly claiming she excused herself from a council vote on election signage that has become a sore point in the fight for Bullwinkel. The Keep The Sheep campaign urging voters to “put Labor last” has been told its corflutes are illegal and must be removed, due to Shire of Mundaring rules that changed in January — four months after Ms Cook was endorses as Labor’s candidate. The West Australian can reveal Ms Cook, a Mundaring councillor, voted in favour of the new election signage policy which passed five votes to three after she was publicly endorsed as Labor’s candidate for Bullwinkel. “I can’t remember. I guess. I’m sure I did,” she said on Friday, when asked if she recused herself from the vote. Ms Cook also spoke in favour of the overall motion at January’s meeting, saying she detested election litter. “We acknowledged an interest, as did all the councillors because, as you know, the presidents of the Shire are now community elected, so all the councillors did that same acknowledgement,” she said on Friday. “It was a unanimous decision from recollection.” The policy restricts when signs can be placed, who can place them and where they can be, and limits signage to registered candidates or political parties, which Keep The Sheep is not. “The draft policy was presented to Council by the officers based on extensive research,” Ms Cook said. “We take advice from public servants and the Council unanimously agreed on that.” Organisers of the vocal campaign against a looming ban on live sheep exports have so far resisted calls to remove their signs, but claim hundreds have been stolen or defaced. The issue has been a major battleground in Bullwinkel, WA’s newest seat which extends from the outskirts of Armadale east into the Wheatbelt. National candidate Mia Davies and Liberal candidate Matt Moran have both vowed to fight the live export ban, with the Coalition promising to overturn it if elected. “A vote for Mia Davies and the Nationals is a vote for Peter Dutton,” Ms Cook warned, at a press conference in Forrestfield. “I do not want to see Peter Dutton as Prime Minister. I remember when he was Health Minister and he ripped money out of hospitals. I do not want to risk Peter Dutton.”