ROLE SUMMARY:

You will manage communications for Dr Kate Lardner’s campaign as an independent candidate for Mornington District in the upcoming Victorian election. You will manage webpages, social media accounts, assist in speechwriting, seek local media coverage, and utilise other strategies to make 40,000+ voters in Mornington District aware of who Dr Kate is and what she stands for.

POSITION DETAILS

• Location: Anywhere in an Australian timezone
• Hours: 0.6 FTE (21 hours spread out over the week + 3 hours’ paid break time per week), with potential for expansion depending on funds
• Salary: $40/hour (i.e. $83200 per annum pro rata) + superannuation and entitlements
• Contract Length: up to 12 weeks (start flexible, finish 4/12/22)
• Start Date: as soon as possible
• End Date: 4/12/22

BACKGROUND

Dr Kate Lardner has answered calls from her community to step back from her medical career and run as an independent candidate for Mornington, championing health, integrity in government and action on climate change. If elected she would be the first woman ever to hold the seat.

Your employer for this work would be Mornington Peninsula Independents Pty Ltd, a company created to manage Dr Kate’s campaign.

We are a small but rapidly growing team of mostly volunteers who are deeply committed to grassroots campaigning, community engagement and electing an independent candidate to represent the interests of Mornington District residents. So far our main community engagement strategy has been via doorknocking.

The only current staff member on our team is a full-time Campaign Manager and besides you we are simultaneously seeking to hire a part-time Organiser.

Our current communications assets include a website, Facebook page and Twitter account, as well as flyers, direct mail, corflutes, public signage, T-shirts, and a launch video not yet released.

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES

Develop and execute a communications strategy to make thousands of Mornington District residents aware of Dr Kate’s campaign, what she stands for and how they can support her. This will likely include:

• Management of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and potentially other social media platforms, including curation of any volunteer-drafted content and creation of other content
• Strategic use of Meta Business Manager ads to reach new audiences via Facebook and Instagram
• Publishing new content to Kate’s website (built using NationBuilder) and updating existing content where needed
• Seeking local media coverage of Kate's campaign (e.g. of events and policy announcements)
• Assistance in speechwriting
• Growth of, and emails to, Kate’s email list
• Any other tactics you see fit to help Kate reach new audiences
• Checking in at least once every work day with campaign management, and joining strategy meetings where appropriate.

DESIRABLE SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

1. Previous experience managing communications for a successful election campaign

2. Other communications experience in election campaigning or otherwise

3. Experience managing organisational social media accounts, including strategic social media advertising

4. Experience liaising with journalists and pitching media stories

5. Experience with NationBuilder, our website creation and volunteer management tool

6. Knowledge of Mornington District (Mornington, Mount Eliza, Mount Martha and surrounds)

7. Ability to assess political risk in copy content.

8. Existing understanding of the community-backed Independents’ movement