Ackery targets Taylor’s hefty Hume margin with a little help from her friends

Independent candidate Penny Ackery says she will make Hume marginal after the upcoming federal election at the very least.

The former school teacher says a groundswell of opposition to the Minister for Energy and Emissions Angus Taylor will be enough to dislodge him from Hume.

But she’s realistic about the difficulty of shifting the entrenched Liberal’s 13 per cent margin. Mr Taylor has held Hume since 2013 and increased his margin at the last election. Conservatives have held the seat since 1974.

The electorate follows the Hume Highway north of Canberra and includes Goulburn, many mixed farming communities and the metropolitan areas of Camden and Narellan where commuters proliferate.

Ms Ackery says making the seat marginal will lead to more infrastructure spending, including roads around the new airport in Sydney’s west.

She says Mr Taylor isn’t addressing climate change and that’s why people from Canberra, outside the Hume electorate, delivered 1500 flyers to Goulburn letterboxes on her behalf on Saturday. She says they are typical of supporters from Queensland, Perth and Melbourne donating money to her campaign.

“They want the people in Hume to vote this chap out because they are unhappy with the performance of the Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister,” she says.

Ms Ackery says community members regardless of their political affiliations have told her the government’s lack of integrity, transparency and accountability underline the need for a federal anti-corruption body.

Journalist Kerry O’Brien and former independent Cathy McGowan have supported her in Goulburn where television presenter and comedian Julia Zemiro launched her campaign last year.

“We haven’t expected any money from Climate 200 (which is funding many independents) and don’t have any major donors or corporations or anyone like that,” Ms Ackery says. “But people from all over Australia, as well as within the electorate, are donating to us.”

She sees no need for a preference deal with Labor at this stage of the campaign.

Labor candidate and school teacher Greg Baines says it’s too early to comment on preferences.

“In the Labor Party, preferences are decided by the organisation and it’s difficult to do,” he says. “I have input into that process.”

Mr Baines says the main issues of environment and integrity in government intersect.

“The way the government has been run over the last nine years has left us behind the rest of the world in coping and doing our bit to stop climate change,” he says.

Labor lost ground in Hume at the last poll but Mr Baines says there is a mood for change.

“People realise because Hume has had a conservative government for so long – about 50 years, and I’m 50 this year – it has really missed out. Hume should be a lot more developed. We should have a lot more green energy and infrastructure, and we don’t.”

Mr Taylor did not answer Region Media’s questions and declined to comment on whether he will campaign for other Coalition candidates elsewhere given his safe margin in Hume.

In a statement, he says the government has invested more than $4 billion in infrastructure since the Coalition came to power.

“The other side of politics never has and never will invest in the regions,” he says.

“Whether it’s with a Greens-Independent-Labor coalition, whatever form it comes in, it’s not capable of making those investments because it doesn’t have the representatives from these regions in the Federal Parliament.

“Only a re-elected Coalition Government can maintain this momentum.”

Mr Taylor says the main issues are the rising cost of living and national security.

“I stand by my track record of delivering for the people of Hume. Practical local outcomes are what people in our region care about – that is my focus every day.”