Nick Xenophon Team candidate, who has Sri Lankan and British heritage, vying to be the first woman to take the blue ribbon seat of Warringah

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A migrant woman has decided to take on the “David and Goliath battle” against former prime minister Tony Abbott for his blue ribbon Sydney seat of Warringah, standing for the political party of South Australian senator, Nick Xenophon.

UK-born Marie Rowland, who has Sri Lankan and British heritage and lived in New Zealand before arriving in Australia, announced her candidacy for the Nick Xenophon Team on Sunday.

“I’m sure it’s perfectly evident, I’m no triathlete but I’m planning to give Tony Abbott a run for his money,” Rowland told reporters. “It’s a blue ribbon seat and I’m going to give it a red hot go.”

Xenophon acknowledged that it would take a “political miracle” to win the seat, currently held by Abbott with a 13% margin.

Tony Abbott should quit parliament, voters in his electorate tell pollsters Read more

“It will be a David and Goliath battle. It’s also interesting to note since the seat of Warringah was established in 1922, almost a hundred years ago, there has never been a woman representing the seat of Warringah. We are hoping we can change that now,” he said.

The Liberal party has held the seat since 1951; Abbott since 1994.

In December, a ReachTel poll of Warringah residents found the majority of voters thought the former prime minister should stand down from politics and make way for fresh blood.

Rowland is a practising therapist and Warringah local who said her electorate is “ready for a change”.

“The Nick Xenophon Team is really where it’s at, at the centre. It’s about fair-mindedness, commonsense politics and that’s what Australia really needs at the moment.”



Xenophon argued that political allegiances are not as strong as they once were.

“In Australian politics, nothing is certain anymore. The electorate is prepared to vote for change if they feel that their local representative isn’t representing their interests,” he said.

“It’s not Red Team and Blue Team anymore. They want an alternative. I think people want to go to the political centre. It’s very much about grassroots community concerns, it’s about health, it’s about education, it’s about the environment.”

“So anything can happen,” he said.

Xenophon downplayed the suggestion that prime minister Malcolm Turnbull – who took the Liberal party leadership from Abbott in September – would go to an early election.

“I would have thought that the prime minister might be jumping the gun to call an election this early. If he says there are important issues on the agenda, then he should deal with those in the parliament for us to deal with them fairly,” he said.

“I think that he needs to articulate what he’s planning to do for the next budget. If we have an election before the next budget, we need to legitimately ask the question what horrors are waiting for us in a budget yet to be announced.”

Turnbull himself has shot down suggestions an election would be in the first half of 2016.

“I’m expecting it to be about this time – perhaps October. November is getting a bit late. I would say around September/ October next year is when you should expect the next election to be,” he said in November.