By Ethan Benedicto and Sahar Foladi
As the election looms on Saturday, 3 May, the electorate of Bruce is in the spotlight, with state-wide media outlets bearing down on Liberal candidate Zahid Safi.
Incumbent Labor MP Julian Hill has been more than active against his strongest opponent for the seat, with interviews and social media posts directly targeting Safi’s credibility as a candidate.
On Tuesday, 29 April, at a Dandenong early voting booth, Star News approached Safi walking inside the building and he indicated he was going to the toilets.
After a few minutes, Safi came out, speaking with his phone against his ear and eyes on the ground.
He walked straight out of the building with no sign of interest in speaking with Star News.
He was asked why he had been avoiding the media, if he wanted to give a statement about his businesses, and if he’d like to tell people more about himself.
With a frustrated look, he said, “I’m here to talk with the voters”.
Outside, he stood with his volunteers with his back against the journalist and phone still against his ear before walking to the side of the building and appearing to leave in a car.
Star News asked the volunteers about Safi’s whereabouts and if he would be back, to which one of them said, “your guess is a good as ours”.
This series of events stemmed from a recent article by The Age, which revealed that, allegedly, Safi and his wife’s independent small businesses were either defunct or littered with fake reviews and stock images.
Similarly, The Age journalist also managed to have a short encounter with Safi as he was leaving an event, where they asked “why have you been dodging my media requests”, as well as a series of questions that they had sent through.
Safi swerved from answering their questions, instead focusing on responses that highlighted the cost-of-living concerns of residents.
Likewise, Hill posted a Facebook reel with Federal Housing Minister Clare O’Neil, highlighting and featuring the video by the journalist.
He also posted a Sky News interview of Safi.
Safi said that “everyone (that) runs a small business struggles, and to the best of their ability, runs a successful business, creates jobs, employment, and I’ve done my best”.
Immediately after, it switches to Hill, who, in the same context, said that “as my mum used to say, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”.
The short feature touched on Safi’s overall qualifications, where they showed his LinkedIn profile page, touching on his Monash University degree that was allegedly finished in 2016, and his name not showing on the university’s graduate search page.
“I haven’t faked any qualification, what we see on LinkedIn, that’s what I put when I started my qualification with Monash and updated that,” Safi said.
“After that, I lost access to my LinkedIn until today.”
Hill also posted a photo of Safi that was captioned as ‘missing’, and stating “please report him to media, he’s got questions to answer’.
Before The Age broke the news, Safi was previously under fire after an article from The Guardian detailed that he was listed as a co-author on a 2021 Senate submission that suggested the Hazara community in Afghanistan was not persecuted on the basis of their ethnicity.
Neighbouring Liberal LaTrobe MP, Jason Wood, came to his defence then, saying that “his input into the report was on a health aspect”.
“There’s no way that he or anyone at the Liberal Party has the same view (as the report on downplaying Hazara genocide),” he said.
The calculated estimate margin for the Bruce electorate currently stands at 5.3 per cent, and despite Safi’s tumultuous situation, it’s still within reach, and could be a threat to Hill, who’s held the seat since 2016.
