March 12, 2014
Euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke to be a candidate in WA’s Senate election re-run
EUTHANASIA advocate Dr Philip Nitschke will be one of the many micro-party candidates to stand at the re-run of the Senate election in Western Australia – but not Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Dr Nitschke and his Voluntary Euthanasia Party announced they would be running on April 5 to “lead the charge in pushing politicians to take a stance on voluntary euthanasia”.
“We are so excited that we’ll soon have passionate VEP members and community leaders speaking with Western Australians to spread the word of why a vote for the party is so important this election,” Dr Nitschke said.
Dr Nitschke, who performed the world’s first legally assisted suicides in the Northern Territory in 1996, ran senate candidates in NSW, ACT and South Australia, as well as in the Northern Territory lower house seat of Solomon in last year’s federal election. The party did not field a senate candidate in WA in September.
“We’re looking to build on our efforts last September and bring together thousands of Australians to run a powerful campaign in our country’s biggest state,” Dr Nitschke said.
Meanwhile, the Wikileaks Party has confirmed Mr Assange would not run, amid reports he was not eligible to contest in WA as he had not spent enough time in the state in past six years.
The Wikileaks founder remains in diplomatic asylum inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Local candidate Gerry Georgatos, who ran in WA for Wikileaks in September, has been selected by the party to lead their campaign.
“In September, WikiLeaks came ever so close to being elected to the Senate from WA but went from the certainty to being elected to missing out due to several reasons now no longer newsworthy,” Mr Georgatos said.
“However, what Western Australians can realise from the September election is that a micro-party, preferably a progressive one, can be and will be elected.”
Meanwhile, Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten today denied his party’s number one Senate candidate and former shop union state secretary Joe Bullock has been kept away from the media and public.
Mr Shorten said all Labor candidates were working hard ahead of the WA Senate by-election on April 5, including Mr Bullock and the second-ticketed Louise Pratt.
Mr Bullock, the former state secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association (SDA), has yet to make any media appearances in the lead-up to the re-run election.
“Joe’s a very good candidate, as is Louise, as are all of our candidates,” Mr Shorten told reporters in Perth today.