Damien Cole rises from the grassroots

INDEPENDENT candidate for South Barwon Damien Cole is hoping the winds of change can blow him past both major parties and into office at November 24’s state election.

Mr Cole is a committee member of the Greater Torquay Alliance and said becoming the group’s candidate (or a candidate generally) was “never part of the plan”, but he decided to take it on regardless.

“If this is for the benefit of the community, I’m happy to throw everything I’ve got at it.

“I don’t consider myself a politician –I will always consider myself, if I get elected, an elected community representative. I don’t have necessarily the career aspiration mentality, I really want to help our community and people and our environment.”

Mr Cole said he had received messages of support from around the world.

“It’s a grassroots movement; this is bigger than just one election campaign.

“For me, it’s trying to get a movement from everyone, a grassroots movement from people to start standing up and going ‘You know what? We can do better than this, and we deserve better than this’.

“It’s a challenge, it’s a challenge to the whole system, but it’s something that’s happening – people are sick of this two-party duopoly. People want change, and change for the benefit of the community.

“All I’m doing is voicing what I’m hearing on the ground.”

He cited independent Shepparton MP Suzanna Sheed as a model of how he would use his vote in Parliament if elected.

“She’s got hundreds of millions of dollars for Shepparton because she’s focused on looking after her community, and her community is her number one priority.”

He listed overdevelopment in Torquay, climate change – “I think we’re now in a climate emergency” – gender equity and social wellbeing– “the fact we still have this gender inequality in 2018 in a prosperous country blows my mind, it’s heartbreaking” – and support for new jobs (particularly small business) as his key platforms.