Apr 4, 20222 min read

Ryan Shaw Withdraws Candidacy for Federal Election

Updated: Jul 17, 2022

Ryan Shaw was previously the Liberal National Party candidate for Queensland's seat of Lilley in inner-Brisbane. Mr. Shaw is an army veteran and trained sniper, who had spent over ten years in the Australian Defence Force and served in both Afghanistan and East Timor.

Mr. Shaw was also a former employee of Eddie Kocwa at SCD American Vehicles and allegedly utilised Jamie Whitehead as his campaign manager. Mr. Whitehead served as Mr. Kocwa's lawyer in a Twitter Defamation case and allegedly served as campaign manager for a number of other Liberal National Party figures.

The friendlyjordies team reached out to the office of Mr. Shaw with questions regarding his connections to SCD Remanufactured Vehicles. These questions were sent prior to February the 22nd.

His office eventually replied on February the 23rd with a response attributable to a spokesman for the LNP, as follows:

Questions about the workplace culture at SCD Remanufactured Vehicles should be addressed to the management of the business directly. Ryan Shaw has denied all knowledge of the events that you have alleged. He worked at SCD for 12 months between November 2020 and November 2021 before changing to a part time role with Australian Owned. The questions suggesting that Mr Shaw was witness or party to events as described by you is extremely distressing to him. I am advised that he does not accept that any of these events occurred as you have described them, and he is not aware of any of the claims that you assert have been made against one of the owners. Like many Australian Army veterans who saw active combat, Mr Shaw battles with ongoing mental health issues. Mr Shaw has over the past few weeks been considering whether he should continue as the candidate for Lilley. Mr Shaw has withdrawn as the LNP's candidate for Lilley in order to take care of his mental health and we hope that you are respectful of that. I refer you to Mr Shaw's statement on his Facebook page.

On the 23rd of February 2022, Mr. Shaw made a Facebook post announcing that he was withdrawing his candidacy for the electorate of Lilley at the upcoming Federal Election.

According to Mr. Shaw's Facebook page, it appears that he was actively campaigning up until the day before, the 22nd of February, as he made another Facebook post expressing his thanks to MP Karen Andrews and her team for meeting with Women's Service Providers to hear of their concerns.