FRANKSTON deputy mayor Liam Hughes is standing by his decision to pose next to a notorious local conspiracy theorist during a Herald Sun photoshoot.
The Herald Sun article published last week detailed Frankston Council’s plans to build a kindergarten at Long Reserve. The photo accompanying the story showed deputy mayor Liam Hughes standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Darren Bergwerf, a failed political candidate and the founder of an organisation called My Place.
My Place purports to be a “supportive and caring community” group on its website. In reality many of its members are conspiracy theorists, self-proclaimed “sovereign citizens”, and anti-vaxxers masquerading as grassroots activists. They use a private Facebook group to regularly share anti-vax posts, advice about alternative medicine, and baseless claims about the legitimacy of local government.
The My Place website states that the goal of the group is to “implement a project that allows us to step away from the current systems that are not serving our best interests”. Bergwerf has also encouraged people to set up My Place groups outside of Frankston.
Bergwerf falsely claims that Frankston Council is an illegitimate council. He has set up a group named the “Frankston People’s Council” and calls himself the mayor.
Bergwerf contested both the state and federal elections last year as an independent, using public candidate forums to espouse anti-vax views and sensationally claim that “there should be a royal commission into our governments, and they should be removed and put in jail.” After comprehensively losing at the federal election, he took to social media to share false claims of electoral fraud.
Frankston Council deputy mayor Liam Hughes has defended his decision to pose alongside Bergwerf for a photo. “I stood with and supported over a hundred residents who are against their beautiful reserve potentially being taken away from them. A photo of me supporting the Long Street Reserve residents should be seen by anyone and everyone,” he said.
When asked by The Times if he condemns Bergwerf’s baseless theory that council is illegitimate, Hughes said “as an elected member of council, I believe that Frankston City Council is legitimate.”
“I will tell you what legitimises a theory – the media’s obsession with this group. Whether it be the Frankston Times, Crikey, or any other social media posts, every single person who ignores the issue of the reserve and instead focuses on this particular group is promoting and amplifying that same group’s cause,” Hughes said. “The irony of the media aiming to minimise a group of people by relentlessly promoting that same group of people through articles is baffling.”
The Times is not suggesting that Hughes shares Bergwerf’s beliefs.
A Crikey story published last week read that many of the protesters who attended the protest gathering at Long Reserve were members of the My Place group. The Times has confirmed that the My Place Frankston Facebook group was used to organise attendance at the protest.
My Place members attended multiple Frankston council meetings last year – one of those meetings was temporarily stopped so the public gallery could be thrown out after repeated interruptions.
Frankston mayor Nathan Conroy has not condemned Hughes for being photographed with Bergwerf. “Frankston City Council is committed to engaging widely to deliver the best for residents and community groups in building Frankston’s future. The proposed bush kindergarten at Long Street Reserve in Langwarrin is no exception,” he said. “We want to hear views from right across our community as we develop and design this much needed and exciting new community asset, which will ensure local families have access to local kindergarten services into the future.”
Darren Bergwerf was contacted for comment.