Pat Sheil is a 59-year-old journalist, author, playwright and enthusiastic political maverick.
He is thrilled to be running as the Australian Sex Party's candidate for the NSW seat of Grayndler, having contested the past four Federal elections as an independent in the Federal Division of Wentworth, now held by the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, where, working from a small base, he managed to double his vote at each successive poll.
"While it was never realistic that I would win Wentworth," he recalls, "it was was satisfying to be able to introduce some new ideas, and some refreshing humour, into that rather staid and predictable contest. And I did derive a quiet satisfaction in out-polling the Palmer United Party candidate last time round.
"The outcome in Grayndler, on the other hand, is anything but predictable, and it is a thrill to be representing the Australian Sex Party in one of the two House of Representative seats we will be contesting in NSW - seats we have chosen because we are confident that we can make a significant and timely impact on the national debate, and present our policies to a thoughtful population who will view the candidates on how their ideas address their concerns, both locally and in a wider national context."
Pat has just left the Sydney Morning Herald, where until late last month he had been the editor of Column 8 for the past 12 years. He began his public life during his final year in high school, as a founding member of the jazz/rock/shock band Jimmy and The Boys with Ignatius Jones in the 1970s, after which he moved into music journalism, and freelance writing for a slew of radio stations, magazines and newspapers.
He also wrote books, and radio scripts among them the life-threatening diet book Cooking With Fat, an expose on the run-up to the Sydney Olympic Games, Olympic Babylon, and a peculiar history of the men and women who have died while having sex, entitled They Came As They Went.
He first met Fiona Patten, now the Australian Sex Party's MP in the Victorian Upper House, in the late 1980s after a stint at Playboy magazine, followed by many years at Australian Consolidated Press editing such illuminating titles at The Picture, People, and Sextra magazines. It was with Fiona and the then Eros Foundation that Pat found himself fighting bizarre and wildly inconsistent censorship legislation with various state and Federal authorities and bible-bashing wowsers of every stripe.
We won some battles, we lost a few more, and it indeed had its surreal moments. But we were in there swinging. Some of the disputes seem utterly absurd in hindsight (one state censorship classification board official, when asked what constituted an erection on a printed image, told us that "If you can hang yer hat on it, it's an erection"), but the Australian Sex Party exists today because the basic principles of freedom of expression, and protecting the rights of Australians to live the lives they choose to live, so long as they do so without infringing on the rights of others to do likewise, are still in need of protection and advocacy. The Sex Party isn't just about sex - it's about civil liberties and common sense in all aspects of life.
I f Pat Sheil has anything to be proud of, it is this - he has a deep belief in fair play, he listens to others, but will speak his mind if the rights of others to enjoy being alive are being trampled on by self-important busy-bodies and ignorant bigots.
Oh, and he's proud of something else, too - being asked to be the Australian Sex Party's 2016 candidate for the seat of Grayndler!