What motivated you to run for the seat of Charlton?
A big desire to improve the region. Newcastle, Charlton and the Western Side of Lake Macquarie are great places to live and I just want to improve. I love living up her with my family and that’s why I got into politics and that’s why I’m running for Charlton.
And hope to carry on Greg Combet’s legacy?
Yeah absolutely, I worked with Greg for 6 years and I learnt a lot working with him and I just want to keep working on the key projects he started. Which is getting federal funding for the Glendale Transport Interchange.
There has been some issues in the seat in the last few weeks after the resignation of Kevin Baker, how are you feeling about your chances?
I’ll leave it up to the voters to decide who wins. But I’m just running my campaign and getting out to meet as many people as possible, talk about the Glendale Transport Interchange, the National Broadband Network, and our Better Schools plan. Ultimately they’ll make their decision on the day and nothings changed from that mode.
What would be the first thing you would want to work on?
The first priority would be to work on getting the Better Schools Plan through because that means on average $1.5 million per year for schools in the area and that’s vital funding for the schools that often are poorly resourced. So that would be my first priority and finishing work on the Glendale Transport Interchange.
How do you rate your chances?
I’m hopeful, I’ve been doing a lot of door knocking, and street stalls and most people are being really positive. They are worried about Tony Abbott’s cuts if he got into Government they agree with a lot of our policies such as school funding, National Broadband Network and finishing the Glendale Interchange. So I’m hopeful but you never take anything for granted.
Is this the first time you have run for federal government?
Yes it is the first time I have been a federal candidate.
And before that you were working for Greg Combet?
Yes I was Greg’s principal policy advisor for 6 years before then, and I’m an economist by trade.
And do you think that will help you in this role?
I’ve had a lot of experience doing policy development and I worked very close with Greg on our billion dollar Aussie job plan and that was released earlier this year, so a lot of policy experience which I am hopeful I can bring in to representing the people of Charlton if I’m lucky.
What does a vote for you mean to voters?
A vote for me is a vote for Labor policies such as more funding for schools, more funding for infrastructure, a stronger economy and more jobs into the region.
What would you say to people who might be disillusioned with the Labor Party?
I’d say that politics has been negative, fairly negative in the past 3 years, but Labor is a united team, we are going forward, we’ve got a positive plan for the area and people are worried about what Tony Abbott will do if he got into Government in terms of cuts, because he’s made a lot of promises. He’s got a $70 billion black hole that he’s got to fund and that means cutting services for people.
