By GEORGIA WESTGARTH
ACCORDING to Australian Greens candidate for Flinders Willisa Hogarth, there’s a wave of swinging voters turning Green.
The 34-year-old mother of three from Pakenham and Greens State Convenor said voters from the safe Liberal seat of Flinders were swinging left, many for the first time.
Liberal MP Greg Hunt has held the seat since 2001.
The margin of 11.8 per cent between the ALP and the Coalition at the 2013 poll is set to tighten if Ms Hogarth’s local feedback is anything to go by.
“The past fortnight I’ve received about 10 calls a week from Flinders residents telling me they’re voting Greens for the first time,” Ms Hogarth said.
She said that the calls have been from residents 65 and over, which make up a large percentage of the Flinders demographic.
“After the first couple of phone calls before pre poll started, I thought that’s interesting,” she said.
“I’ve had about 30 now and they ask how to vote Greens and how the vote cards work – it was unexpected but fantastic.”
Ms Hogarth said the crux of the swinging voters’ phone calls was about the Coalition’s refugee policy – “people aren’t afraid of refugees”, she said.
“They’re saying they are voting Greens for the first time because of our refugee policy, they don’t want to see offshore detention anymore, they don’t think it’s working – they don’t think secrecy on the issue from the Government is OK.”
A passionate campaigner for the rights of refugees, Ms Hogarth said she is pretty excited about the reason for such a swing in Flinders.
“I wasn’t expecting it, it’s generally a conservative area, I did not expect issues around refugees to be the biggest vote changer,” she said.
Ms Hogarth said skilled refugees could help to revitalise areas of Flinders, saying “Shepparton is an example of that”.
The Pakenham mum also said other game changers for Flinders voters have been housing affordability and access to emergency healthcare.
Ms Hogarth said in just four days 1500 people voted pre poll in Hastings and said that she is looking forward to an interesting result on 2 July.
