Agricultural Region MLC Sandra Carr takes down her Facebook page to avoid any election distractions

Labor MLC Sandra Carr says she took down her Facebook page to avoid any distractions from helping her colleague Lara Dalton get re-elected. It comes after a social media controversy involving the Upper House MP last month.

The Agricultural Region MLC, who is also vying for re-election, has been prolific on social media during her first term, but her page has been recently removed.

“Lara Dalton is Geraldton’s strong voice in the Cook Labor Government. I am focused on delivering for the community and supporting Lara in her campaign and I don’t want to be distracted from those efforts,” Ms Carr said.

On his visit to Geraldton on Friday, Premier Roger Cook said he was unsure of why Ms Carr had chosen that course of action.

“You know this is an election campaign, we want to make sure that our messages get out there, but those messages are fundamentally a responsibility of the party,” he said.

Ms Dalton, Labor’s candidates for Mid West and the Federal seat of Durack Jenna Denton and Karen Wheatland, and fellow Labor Agricultural Region MLCs Shelley Payne and Darren West all maintain active Facebook pages.

Last month, Ms Carr apologised to a Nationals staffer over a Facebook post. The MLC responded to the staffer’s post on a Geraldton community page that asked what businesses were doing to help keep their staff safe and reduce loss after an incident in the Nationals’ campaign office made her feel unsafe.

Ms Carr then accused Nationals candidate Kirrilee Warr on Facebook of not knowing what was going on in Geraldton regarding local crime.

Amid an online backlash, Ms Carr deleted the post and conceded she had misread the intention of the staffer’s post and reached out to apologise.

Ms Warr said while initially disappointing, the matter had been resolved amicably.