Liberal Senator Zed Seselja faces a real threat from just-announced Greens candidate Christina Hobbs because Labor Senator Katy Gallagher will attract a higher vote for Labor than was the case at the last election, according to ACT Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury.
“Those middle-of-the-road voters who move between the Labor and the Liberal parties will be strongly attracted to the Labor Party given Senator Gallagher’s popularity,” Mr Rattenbury said at the announcement of the Greens Federal candidates.
“The great challenge for Zed Seselja is actually getting to the quota, getting to that 33%. We saw last time that that was a very near issue, and certainly from a Greens point of view, once Senator Seselja goes below that threshold for winning that seat in the ACT, that ups our chances of getting [Ms Hobbs] across the line, particularly if we’re successful in securing Labor Party preferences.
“We have a fantastic Federal Election candidate team to run a strong campaign against Zed Seselja who is dragging Canberra backwards on so many issues that our community cares about.”
Australian Greens Leader Richard Di Natale was also at the announcement and said Canberrans had a real choice at the upcoming Federal election.
“They can choose a Liberal Senator who has threatened to move even further to the right than the rest of his party by tearing down our racial discrimination laws, or Greens candidate Christina Hobbs who is committed to standing up for our diverse community, genuine action on global warming and economic policies that support the whole community,” he said.
Ms Hobbs said there were many Canberrans who did not feel represented by the existing ACT Senators.
“Senator Zed Seselja is on the extreme right of his own conservative party. He failed to stand up for the people of Canberra when his old boss Tony Abbott gutted our public service, and he’s made it clear that he’s determined to keep pushing his own ultra-conservative agenda,” she said.
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