Michelle Milthorpe campaigning in Moama. Photo: Facebook.
An independent candidate for the seat of Farrer has hit back at Liberal Party claims she’ll help Prime Minister Anthony Albanese retain power if she is elected, saying she will only support good policy and won’t “pick a side”.
Jindera-based Michelle Milthorpe, a prominent campaigner for sexual abuse victims, is running against the incumbent, Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, for the vast rural electorate that extends from Albury through to Griffith and all the way to Wentworth on the South Australian border.
Opinion polls and betting markets are predicting the Albanese Labor Government will lose its majority in the upcoming election, meaning it would need to rely on support from independents and the Greens to cling to power.
Liberal Senator Holly Hughes claims Ms Milthorpe could be one of those the PM relies on.
“The Climate 200 Teal has been a candidate for the seat of Farrer for six months and yet she still continues to mislead communities across the seat as to how she might vote in a hung parliament [where neither major party secures a majority] after the next election,” Ms Hughes wrote in a letter sent to the media.
“This Climate 200 Teal continues to refuse to answer a very straight question: if you are elected, will you support Anthony Albanese or not? The only conclusion Farrer can draw from this ongoing equivocation is that the Climate 200 Teal is trying to trick them.”
Climate 200 is an interest group that supports independent candidates who promote action on climate change. The media have called the candidates ‘’teals’’, meaning they are blue (conservative) on economic issues but green on the environment and social causes.
Ms Milthorpe says she is not a teal.
“I am an independent candidate for Farrer,” she said.
“The narrative that a teal party even exists is the narrative of the major parties to distract voters from the fact that independents exist because they are not doing their job.”
She said she would not favour either the Prime Minister or Opposition Leader Peter Dutton if she won Farrer.
“I have made my position clear multiple times on social media and in person, that I won’t be suggesting preferences other than to vote for me first, and to number every box according to the preference of the voter. It is a democratic right of voters to be able to choose their own preference,” she said.
“Regarding who I will support in the event of a balanced (‘‘hung’’) parliament, I will vote for the people of Farrer, I will vote for policy that ensures the sustainability of regional Australia. It is another scare-mongering myth by major parties that independents have to pick a side.”
The seat of Farrer is one of the safest in the country for the Liberal Party. Ms Ley has held it since 2001 and currently has a margin of 33 per cent.
The date of the federal election is not yet known but it must be held before 17 May.
