Former Greens candidate for Richmond, Dawn Walker, has been chosen to replace retiring MLC Jan Barham as the party’s newest MP in the NSW Parliament.
Ms Walker won an internal ballot at the weekend involving thousands of NSW Greens members and is now set to join the Upper House.
She told media she was ‘very humbled and excited to have been chosen to represent the NSW Greens through an amazing grassroots process involving thousands of Greens members’.
Both Ms Barham, a former Byron shire mayor, and the Greens’ Ballina MP Tamara Smith welcomed the selection.
Ms Barham said had worked closely with Ms Walker for years ‘and know that she is a strong campaigner and that she stands up for nature and community with great passion and integrity’.
‘Dawn will be a strong advocate for the north coast as well as serving the communities across the state’, she said.
‘Dawn Walker brings considerable campaigning experience to Parliament after working on multiple community campaigns to save Murwillumbah Birth Centre from closure, stop CSG mining on the north coast and exposing contamination at the Gold Coast Airport.’
Ms Smith said Ms Walker was ‘the kind of person you can bank on – she says what she means and she follows through on every endeavour she puts her considerable passion behind’.
‘The NSW people and the parliament have gained a total asset of a human being and I know that the grit and determination she has shown us time and again as a representative of her community will flow on to benefit us all,’ she said.
Ms Smith said the new MP’s preselection came after two high-profile campaigns for the federal seat of Richmond where Ms Walker increased the Greens at both the 2013 and 2016 federal elections.
‘Dawn Walker brings considerable campaigning experience to Parliament after working on multiple community campaigns to save Murwillumbah Birth Centre from closure, stop CSG mining on the north coast and exposing contamination at the Gold Coast Airport.’
Ms Walker said she was ‘passionate and ready to stand up for the environment and communities right across NSW’.
‘I will stand strong against Premier Mike Baird’s creeping privatisation agenda, defend our community services and push for the greater protection of our environment, as well advocating for urgent action to address climate change and an end to coal mining and fossil fuels.’
Ms Walker praised Ms Barham, saying the former MP and Byron shire mayor had been ‘a tireless campaigner for NSW, especially the North Coast’.
The new MP is expected to take her seat in the NSW Upper House in late February following an official notification to the NSW Governor General.
Congratulations Dawn. Baird’s government has embarked on an unprecedented callous relentless and destructive attack on our environment and on our public assets. Please hold this untrustworthy government to account!