The Greens have preselected Chippendale teacher Tony Hickey to contest the seat of Sydney at the next federal election.
Mr Hickey singled out a lack of affordable housing and public transport, homelessness, treatment of Indigenous people, same-sex marriage and climate change as key challenges in a statement.
“Climate change policy will be a key focus of our campaign. Under the current government we have seen a shameful lack of initiative at the Copenhagen conference and continuing support for the coal industry,” Mr Hickey said.
“Labor’s climate change policy has to change. Here we have Greens senators ready to genuinely negotiate with the government on the urgent task of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
In the 2007 federal election the Greens won over 20 percent of the vote in the seat of Sydney. “The Greens are clearly the underdogs in Sydney, but our campaign is ready to take on the older parties so that we can offer something better than Labor and the Coalition,” Mr Hickey said.
by Ehssan Veiszadeh
