Labor has chosen their champion – Aoife Champion to be precise.
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Ms Champion will go up against Angus Taylor and others as Labor’s candidate in the battle for Hume in the Federal Election next year.
She was pleased to be pre-selected and knew the electorate well, having previously run against Mr Taylor in the 2016 Federal Election.
Ms Champion is a lawyer from Camden.
She is particularly keen to cross swords with Mr Taylor on environmental issues.
“The most interesting part is that now Angus is the Minister for Energy it brings the whole environmental conversation to the fore,” Ms Champion said.
“This is one of the issues I will be taking up to him because Labor has a clear energy policy.
“We now live in an era where we all have to be promoting renewable energy, and the reality is that in order to have a prosperous future we have to look after the environment.
“It is especially relevant in Hume, where there are so many wind farms and solar farms trying to get up.”
She said a major issue to emerge in the backlash from the recent Wentworth by-election coalition defeat was climate change.
“The lesson for the coalition is that 78 per cent of the electorate were in favour of taking action on climate change and it was one of the major issues that caused people to turn away from the coalition,” she said.
Secretary of the Hume Federal Electorate Council Ursula Stephens said Ms Champion would be a formidable opponent for Mr Taylor.
“Aoife is a very intelligent young woman who represents the next generation of leadership in our community,” Mrs Stephens said.
“She is a very experienced industrial relations and migration lawyer so she is a champion for better working conditions for people. She is concerned about the in creasing casualization of the workforce.
“She is disappointed about the lack of support for the CE4G Solar projectin Goulburn and has been advocating with shadow ministers to try and get Labor’s support for that project
“She is also a young mum and meeting all the challenges that goes with that.”
Mrs Stephens said Ms Champion has a keen interest in regional development and sees the potential for renewable energy to be part of an exciting mix to assist in regenerating regional communities.