Former Byron Shire councillor Asren Pugh has confirmed with The Echo that he will be seeking support to run on the Labor Party ticket for the NSW Senate (upper house) in the 2027 state election.
Pugh had served part of his second term as a councillor before resigning on 13 March this year saying that he had ‘business and other projects’ he needed to focus on and ‘I cannot dedicate the time I think is required to the work of Council and representing the community effectively’.
Pugh resigned on the last day that would trigger a countback rather than a by-election and he is most likely to be replaced by Peter Doherty who ran fourth on his ticket and is president of the Byron Labor branch. The countback is to take place on Wednesday, 22 April.
Ticket decided by delegates
‘We (Labor) have a democratic process to go through in the Labor Party and the Labor ticket will be decided by delegates to the NSW State Labor Conference in July,’ Pugh told The Echo.
‘I will be asking delegates for their support to be part of the Labor ticket for the Legislative Council for the 2027 election. I will be putting myself forward as a regional candidate. We have not had a Labor MLC from the North Coast since Janelle Saffin was first elected into the Upper House in 1995.’
Pugh has previously run for the NSW state seat of Ballina but was unsuccessful.
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