The last thing any politician wants is a "dumpster fire" moment ahead of an election, but for one of Nick Xenophon's SA Best candidates, he's facing a dumpster fire moment of different kind.
An article — which has been labelled as fake news — has accused SA Best candidate for Morphett Simon Jones of being responsible for a smouldering pile of garbage in the middle of Trinity Road at Morphett Vale.
He told ABC Radio Adelaide he first heard about the fake report when the current member for Morphett, Duncan McFetridge, asked him if he was responsible for setting fire to a garbage truck.
"I kind of was set back by that a little bit and did a double-take not really understanding what he meant, because — as I say — it made no sense," Mr Jones said.
"When I got back to the office a bit later, I was actually speaking to my wife on the phone and she said yes, a friend of hers had actually... overheard a couple of people speaking about it and that's when I thought 'Oh crikey, this must be serious, I'd better look into it'."
What he found was an "exclusive" report by Nick Ipsen on the "Highlighter News" website, which blamed him for a pile of rubbish that had been dumped.
The real fire story — about a pile of rubbish that had been dumped by a garbage truck driver who noticed his load was on fire — had been reported by Channel 7 in Adelaide.
The "fake news" story stated:
"In this load was the contents of the bin of Simon Jones... This has been confirmed by garbage pick up maps provided to The Highlighter.
"Not long before the bin was picked up burned documents were dumped in the candidate's bin by the handful.
"One of the residents of his street noted, 'well, I guess you've got to hide the evidence somehow' referring to the not infrequent paper-based fires at the Jones property.
"If I had to keep up with those Joneses I would probably burn my house down.
"The only mystery here is whether the documents related to his business dealings or the SA Best Party."
But Mr Jones said there was no mystery, he did not live in Morphett Vale and had no reason to destroy documentation.
"No, I haven't been burning documents," Mr Jones said.
"I've no reason to burn documents.
I've got a shredder, actually. I haven't even been shredding documents."
Current MP labels the report as 'fake news'
Duncan McFetridge told ABC Radio Adelaide that the report on the dumpster fire was an example of "fake news" — an issue he said he had been following for some time.
"One of my media advisors in my office saw this... and I thought 'this is garbage about garbage'," Mr McFetridge said.
"I said 'look, you'd better check this out', because I realised it was fake news."
"I object very strongly to fake news... and that's why I warned Simon about this.
"Fake news is a real danger. I said in my maiden speech that it is killing democracy."
