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Mayor blasted for nude pose
NuTex
Mayor blasted for nude pose
By JOHN ANDERSEN
11mar04
A NORTH Queensland mayor who stripped to raise funds for a cash-strapped junior rugby league club has become a target in a political campaign being waged by a one man anti-nudity band.
Bowen man Karl Reye has taken up the political sword against Bowen Mayor Mike Brunker who posed as a nude Mr January in Collinsville Uncovered, a 2002 fundraising calendar for the Collinsville Junior Rugby League.
Collinsville resident and calendar photographer Wayne Munro said Cr Brunker and other local residents who posed raised $5000 which saved the Collinsville Junior Rugby League from financial oblivion.
In the photo Cr Brunker, a former Collinsville Junior Rugby League player, was pictured speaking on the phone in his office while wearing only his mayoral medallion. His modesty was protected by a strategically placed mayoral computer.
Mr Reye has faxed copies of a December 2002 editorial and letters to the editor from Proserpine's The Guardian newspaper to both the Townsville Bulletin and the Bowen Independent newspapers. The letters, of which there were two, and the editorial, were critical of Cr Brunker's nude pose.
On the cover sheet of the fax Mr Reye has written: "I think these should be printed."
In the faxed editorial from The Guardian, the paper's editor, outraged by a suggestion from Cr Brunker in 2002 that the Proserpine Mayor should also disrobe to raise money for his local football club, wrote that selling nudity was allied to prostitution.
"Selling nudity for profit is nothing new. Such a trade has been exercised down the centuries by those willing to profit by exhibitions of the flesh in varying degrees. There is no need for the mayors of shires to add their positions to this particular culture, which is allied to the oldest of professions," The Guardian editor wrote.
He wrote that if mayors started to vie with one another in nudity exhibitions there was no telling "how far it will develop".
"If his challenge was taken up by other mayors, would it be only the following calendar before full nudity, even if only a rear view, was offered as a further challenge?" the editor wrote.
At least two people in the Proserpine-based Whitsunday Shire did not see eye-to-eye with Cr Brunker on the nudity issue. Writer M. Stephenson was "thankful" that Whitsunday Mayor Mario Demartini had "good moral principles" and "would not entertain the idea of lowering his standards in a shameful photograph".
Writer Nev Lewis said Cr Brunker "had lowered the dignity of his office by acting like a juvenile idiot".
Others who posed for the Collinsville calendar included shire councillor and publican Neil Stone, butchers Warren and Heath Fletcher, and truckie Tony Pattel.
Mr Reye said the people of Bowen and Proserpine did not want a mayor who posed nude while wearing only the mayoral medallion.
"You might call me mad, but I want a decent council in Bowen and I can't have a decent council while Mike Brunker is there," Mr Reye said.
Cr Brunker said the football calendar had been a worthy fundraising project and no harm had been done.
"Old Karl is trying to stir up trouble," he said.
Mayor blasted for nude pose
NuTex
Mayor blasted for nude pose
By JOHN ANDERSEN
11mar04
A NORTH Queensland mayor who stripped to raise funds for a cash-strapped junior rugby league club has become a target in a political campaign being waged by a one man anti-nudity band.
Bowen man Karl Reye has taken up the political sword against Bowen Mayor Mike Brunker who posed as a nude Mr January in Collinsville Uncovered, a 2002 fundraising calendar for the Collinsville Junior Rugby League.
Collinsville resident and calendar photographer Wayne Munro said Cr Brunker and other local residents who posed raised $5000 which saved the Collinsville Junior Rugby League from financial oblivion.
In the photo Cr Brunker, a former Collinsville Junior Rugby League player, was pictured speaking on the phone in his office while wearing only his mayoral medallion. His modesty was protected by a strategically placed mayoral computer.
Mr Reye has faxed copies of a December 2002 editorial and letters to the editor from Proserpine's The Guardian newspaper to both the Townsville Bulletin and the Bowen Independent newspapers. The letters, of which there were two, and the editorial, were critical of Cr Brunker's nude pose.
On the cover sheet of the fax Mr Reye has written: "I think these should be printed."
In the faxed editorial from The Guardian, the paper's editor, outraged by a suggestion from Cr Brunker in 2002 that the Proserpine Mayor should also disrobe to raise money for his local football club, wrote that selling nudity was allied to prostitution.
"Selling nudity for profit is nothing new. Such a trade has been exercised down the centuries by those willing to profit by exhibitions of the flesh in varying degrees. There is no need for the mayors of shires to add their positions to this particular culture, which is allied to the oldest of professions," The Guardian editor wrote.
He wrote that if mayors started to vie with one another in nudity exhibitions there was no telling "how far it will develop".
"If his challenge was taken up by other mayors, would it be only the following calendar before full nudity, even if only a rear view, was offered as a further challenge?" the editor wrote.
At least two people in the Proserpine-based Whitsunday Shire did not see eye-to-eye with Cr Brunker on the nudity issue. Writer M. Stephenson was "thankful" that Whitsunday Mayor Mario Demartini had "good moral principles" and "would not entertain the idea of lowering his standards in a shameful photograph".
Writer Nev Lewis said Cr Brunker "had lowered the dignity of his office by acting like a juvenile idiot".
Others who posed for the Collinsville calendar included shire councillor and publican Neil Stone, butchers Warren and Heath Fletcher, and truckie Tony Pattel.
Mr Reye said the people of Bowen and Proserpine did not want a mayor who posed nude while wearing only the mayoral medallion.
"You might call me mad, but I want a decent council in Bowen and I can't have a decent council while Mike Brunker is there," Mr Reye said.
Cr Brunker said the football calendar had been a worthy fundraising project and no harm had been done.
"Old Karl is trying to stir up trouble," he said.
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