FLABBERGASTED: Melbourne TV news reporters duped by "concerned resident" with hidden socialist past

Profound embarrassment has been caused in Melbourne’s TV news fraternity today after several of them presented an angry socialist activist as a seemingly apolitical concerned resident annoyed about Victorian government plans to build road and rail infrastructure to unblock congestion on the Westgate bridge.

TV news reporters Brendan Donohue, Brett McLeod and Gareth Boreham in Melbourne interviewed residents directly concerned by the prospective compulsory acquisition necessary to build the new transport plan. These interviews included a chat with a woman identified as Natalie Zirngast who described herself as a “new Footscray West resident and mum” while wielding her new-born child like a cheap prop. Her property is not affected by the plan.

She complained on-air that Footscray would be wedged by cars and trucks and made other general attacks on Labor’s transport plan. She was gravely worried about the impact on “her” community.

What’s caused a huge stink in Melbourne newsrooms is that Zirngast did not disclose her radical anti-Labor radical leftist past or the fact that she has fewer ties with the Footscray community than the average blow-in. VEXNEWS understands that interviews were suggested and arranged by Colleen Hartland, the Greens party Member of the Legislative Council.

VEXNEWS can reveal that in the 1998 federal election Zirngast was an unsuccessful Democratic Socialist Party candidate in the Northern Territory. She was Darwin’s organiser for the extremist left-wing movement “Resistance.”

She descended on Melbourne shortly after and ran again under the socialist banner in the Darebin council election. She polled 1.8% of the vote, a fact gleefully reported as a triumph by the clearly not very discerning Green Left Weekly.

These weren’t youthful indiscretions either, with the Socialist Alliance site showing that she was agitating against Australian troops at Victoria University as recently as 2008 for Resistance and the Socialist Alliance.

Documents obtained by VEXNEWS reveal that the militant also agitated for the release of convicted rioter and ratbag unionist Craig Johnston, whose most recent exploits include racial attacks on Tongan security guards at the West Gate freeway picket.

Hopefully Seven’s Iron Chef Brendan Donohue (not normally easily fooled), earnest Brett McLeod of Nine and slick Gareth Boreham of the TEN Network will not be so easily duped by far-left extremists again. The fact that interviews were arranged by the Greens party heavyweight Colleen Hartland probably should have given them pause. We hear they are all fuming at being played. A quick check on Google will usually be enough to save future embarrassment, lads.