Perth Voice Interactive

Independent candidate Ant Clark has put his hand up for the federal seat of Perth.

With Kevin Rudd’s resurrection heralding a Labor resurgence, it’s tipped to be a close contest and independent preferences are now more likely to come into play.

The 45-year-old Bayswater resident has three main platforms:

• Affordable housing;

• Raising Australia’s international aid budget; and,

• Ending offshore detention.

A fundraiser for the charity Opportunity International Australia, Mr Clark’s day job sees him negotiating with potential donors. He aims to pull in $1 million a year for the micro-financing charity.

Mr Clark, who says his Christian faith and experience living in Indonesia led him to his work, says both major parties have failed to increase Australia’s overseas aid budget. Despite signing onto the United Nations’ Millennium Goals program in 2000 and promising to spend 70 cents on aid for every $100 of gross national income, Australia is languishing at 37 cents.

He’s optimistic that current anti-asylum seeker sentiment will turn out to be “a blip in our handling of these issues.

“We have a very good track record on migration: The country’s built on migration.

Human rights

“I firmly think that Australia could be known—like the Scandinavian countries are known—for human rights leadership.”

At the 2010 federal election, minor parties accounted for more than 20 per cent of the vote in the Perth electorate. The bulk was from Greens candidate Jonathan Hallett (which largely went to Labor), while most preferences from the Christian Democrats’ 2.6 per cent flowed to the Liberals.

by DAVID BELL