Social commentator tells independents in ex-PM’s seat that whoever their candidate is, they must not split the vote

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Jane Caro, the social commentator and possible independent candidate in Warringah, has made a pitch to voters by outlining her views on climate change, representation of women in parliament, strengthening democracy, and treatment of refugees.

But she stopped short of announcing that she would be an independent candidate against the sitting member Tony Abbott at the next election, telling the Voices of Warringah campaign group that it was important not to split the vote.

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“Whatever you do, don’t split the vote,” she told about 150 people at a meeting at the Freshwater Literary Institute on Sydney’s northern beaches.

“I think you have to find the person that you think represents you the best. You want somebody who believes in things.”

To an audience suggestion that maybe Alex Turnbull, the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s son and a ferocious critic of the government on social media, was going to fund the independent campaign in Warringah, Louise Hislop, from Voices of Warringah, said he had offered but had not yet made a donation.

Caro vowed to help any other candidate chosen by the group, saying there was much at stake and she was happy to lend her marketing expertise.

“You have to give credit to Tony Abbott, he’s been the most effective opposition leader we have ever had – he has brought down four governments including his own,” she quipped.

“We need someone who looks to the future, rather than tries to return us to the past.

Speaking about Abbott’s stance on climate change, she said: “It’s a stupid thing to defy facts and evidence, because they come back to bite you on the bum.”

Caro told how she had grown up in a family of Liberal voters and was possibly the only person interested in politics at Forest High.

Her mother had run for preselection in the Senate, only to be defeated by Bronwyn Bishop. Her father had been defeated by one vote in a preselection against Nick Greiner, who went on to become premier of New South Wales.

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But she said her parents – both immigrants from Manchester – had stopped voting Liberal (and refused to vote Labor) because of the major parties’ stance on offshore detention.

“That’s because they said they would not stand by after what happened during the second world war. We are not running death camps, but we are running camps like the concentration camps we saw in Britain.

“Its not a crime to seek asylum. It’s legal.”

Caro praised the newly elected independent member for Wentworth, Kerryn Phelps, saying she had hit the ground running.

Despite the setback for Phelps of having her medical evacuation legislation blocked on Thursday, Caro predicted the new MP would get laws through that would make it easier to remove children and sick people from Nauru.

Caro herself had handed out how-to-vote pamphlets at the age 16 for the Whitlam government. “I got yelled at as it was a conservative seat,” she said. “But mostly I think there is very little aggro in Australian politics, and I think that’s partly due to compulsory voting.”

She said because voting was compulsory, it had become a community event and governments had attempted to make it easy to vote.

She criticised the Morrison government’s move to insist on seeing identification at the ballot box: “There is not much evidence of voter fraud, so that makes me suspicious about why they want this rule.”

It would tend to disenfranchise homeless people and the marginalised might not have ID, she said.

Caro also revealed that she was a dual citizen, owing to her parents being immigrants.

“Isn’t that a great rule in a country where 50% of us are migrants, or our parents were migrants!” she said of section 44 of the constitution, tongue in cheek.















































































