{"id":12607,"date":"2021-08-20T16:08:55","date_gmt":"2021-08-20T16:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=12607"},"modified":"2021-08-20T16:08:55","modified_gmt":"2021-08-20T16:08:55","slug":"greens-announce-candidate-in-most-winnable-liberal-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2021\/08\/20\/greens-announce-candidate-in-most-winnable-liberal-seat\/","title":{"rendered":"Greens announce candidate in most winnable Liberal seat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Greens are thrilled to announce educator, NGO consultant and local mum Sonya Semmens as the candidate for the federal seat of Higgins in the next federal election.<br \/>\nHiggins is set to be a hotly contested battleground at the next federal election, with electoral redistribution picking up Windsor shifting the balance towards the Greens, and threatening a key Liberal-held seat.<br \/>\nThe Greens are set to run a campaign focusing on the failure of moderate backbenchers to shift party policy and the massive influence of Barnaby Joyce over the Coalition\u2013 pointing to the government\u2019s disastrous response on COVID, and highlighting that Katie Higgins MP was either silent or being ignored by Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce.<br \/>\nBooths in South Yarra and Windsor are progressive bulwarks, with the Greens leading the vote count in the last election. More conservative areas at the East of the electorate in Hughesdale and Glen Iris have moved into other electorates.<br \/>\n<strong>Greens leader Adam Bandt MP said:<\/strong><br \/>\n\u201cThis is a battle between a backbencher who will be told how to vote by Barnaby Joyce, and someone who will listen to the experts.<br \/>\n\u2018If you vote Liberal in Higgins, you get Barnaby Joyce.<br \/>\n\u2018Higgins voters want evidence-based policy but they\u2019re getting Barnaby Joyce\u2019s ramblings.<br \/>\n\u2018The voters of Higgins are powerful and they can send a message to the Morrison-Joyce government to listen to the science and the experts.<br \/>\n\u201cThe science deniers run the show in the Morrison-Joyce government, and despite Katie Allen\u2019s medical background, she has either been silent or ignored by the Prime Minister. The catastrophic failure to listen to experts in the covid crisis will be outstripped by the impacts of failing to listen to experts on climate change.<br \/>\n\u201cSonya Semmens is a fierce advocate for her electorate, a brilliant communicator, and we need her in parliament fighting for immediate, targeted and evidence-backed action on climate.\u201d<br \/>\n<strong>Greens Higgins candidate Sonya Semmens said:<\/strong><br \/>\n\u201cHiggins deserves an MP who has power in the parliament, and will not only listen to the experts, but take their advice to the floor of the House where it counts.<br \/>\n\u201cAs a vocal campaigner for climate action, I will push the next government to go further and faster on the climate crisis so we can secure a better future for everyone.<br \/>\n\u201cAs a local parent and educator, I understand what matters to our community and will fight for a more secure future for us and our children.<br \/>\n\u201cExperiencing homelessness as a single parent, made me confront the reality of housing instability in this country. It\u2019s not good enough, and it\u2019s getting worse. Everyone deserves a secure place to live, and that\u2019s what I\u2019ll be fighting for in parliament.<br \/>\n\u201cThe major parties can&#8217;t be trusted to fight the climate crisis. The climate crisis will utterly dwarf the pandemic and we need someone who has what it takes to protect people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Greens are thrilled to announce educator, NGO consultant and local mum Sonya Semmens as the candidate for the federal seat of Higgins in the next federal election. Higgins is set to be a hotly contested battleground at the next federal election, with electoral redistribution picking up Windsor shifting the balance towards the Greens, and &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2021\/08\/20\/greens-announce-candidate-in-most-winnable-liberal-seat\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Greens announce candidate in most winnable Liberal seat&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}