I have submitted my application to register a political party with the Australian Electoral Commission!
Doing this in less than a month is not how it usually goes for a first-time campaigner, and I am very grateful to everyone who shared, donated, registered, and supported me. I am also acutely aware of the responsibility. You trusted me with your registrations and donations. I will repay that trust by working as hard as I can to get elected.
If I win (and that is an outside chance at best) I will not forget the trust you gave me. I will do my best to live up to it.
Now, the hard part begins.
Elections are stacked towards the major parties. They have the money, the time, the media exposure, and the public recognition. Their fight is with each other.
Along with all the other independents, I will have to fight for all those things before I even think about the competition.
But if it is going to happen in any election it will be this one. Women, particularly, are fed up with government that doesn’t represent us, care about us, listen to us or even think about us when they’re making policy.
The original plan was to call my party the Fix It party. That works really well for people who know me and my work. But I need half a million people to vote for me if I’m going to win. I need to reach more than just the people who follow my work. I need women, non-binary people and men who care about women’s rights and gender equity to vote for me, even if they’ve never heard of me before.
The name of the party needs to tell them what they’re voting for.
This is why we decided at the last minute that we had to change the name of the party.
Women’s Rights and Gender Equity (WRAGE) sums it up. That is the lens I will put over every piece of legislation that comes to the senate if I win a seat.
