CANDIDATE Q & A – Douglas McFarland – Australian Independents candidate for Robertson

What motivated you to run for the seat of Robertson?

The first and foremost issue was that of marriage equality and it’s something I’ve been incredibly passionate for about a number of years, and after, I guess, essentially complaining a bit too much that nothing was getting done I decided to put my hat in the ring with that as my lead issue.

You’re running with the Australian Independents, can you tell us a bit about that and why you are running with them?

We came in contact with them just through a mutual expression over a number of different issues, and they were looking for candidates to run and after going through the party’s policies we obviously had a few collective issues that we joined together on so I accepted their endorsement.

What skills do you think you can bring to Robertson?

The first and most important part is the transparent representation for the local area. Particularly to do with the local issues, and presenting them in a manner that is not connected to a party so taking the electorate forward regardless of the party’s view of it, and truly representing the local electorate.

And what particular issues are there in the electorate?

Marriage equality is obviously a top runner, coal seam gas mining is a big issue for this area and our party and we’d call for a complete ban on coal seam gas mining and also looking to reduce as much red tape as we can for small business. Small business in this area represents 94% of business and we want to do as much as we can to make it easier for small businesses to do their part.

How do you rate your chances of winning?

Obviously this seat is going to be won by one of the major parties, but it is a marginal seat so what we are looking at is using the people who support us as a major voice to those major parties and making sure they are held accountable for a number of important issues that are important to Robertson and not so much on just what those big parties are going for.

How are you planning on preferencing?

We are in discussions at the moment, there’s a number of good candidates on the ticket and first and foremost we’ll be preferencing towards the candidate that supports marriage equality, and I’m in those discussions at the moment with other candidates, but also just looking at who is going to best represent the Coast in line with what we’re talking about. A lot of the preference deals are being done as to how people can get into the seat, I’m not looking at it like that at all. What I’m looking at is going to be a number of people who are voting for what I stand for so my preferences are going to go directly to the people who come close to what myself and what the Australian Independents stand for.

One of the big issues in this campaign has been marriage equality – obviously you think same sex marriage is a big issue.

I’m an absolute, massive supporter of it, major campaigner for it. And as I said it will be what decides where my preferences go, I have been talking with all the other candidates as to where they stand on marriage equality, so far there is only myself, Jake Cassar and Kate Da Costa from the Greens who are willing to back marriage equality, I’m hoping over the next couple of weeks that will change. Good to see the Labor party, on the national level, have obviously come towards backing marriage equality. I think what is really important with this is whenever there is a decision made by government, that you segregate a certain part of the community based on views, particularly with marriage equality and religion, what it’s doing is saying our government is prepared to make decisions based on whether or not somebody likes something and at the end of the day a civil right is not something that can be decided on whether someone likes it or not, it is a civil right and it’s an entitlement to anybody who exists within the community. So anybody who is looking for marriage equality this election, the Australian Independents is the number one choice.

And where do you stand on the asylum seeker issue?

It’s a really difficult one, it’s a hard policy to get right, I want to see the most humane manner of processing asylum seekers because I do believe Australia is big enough to house genuine refugees. I don’t like the idea of sending asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea particularly in terms of if there is somebody who is seeking asylum because they are being segregated from their home based on sexuality because Papua New Guinea, homosexuality is illegal. So I definitely don’t support sending somebody who left their country based on sexual orientation…and then being sent to a county where homosexuality is illegal. So we don’t support the current policy but we do what to see the most humane way of processing asylum seekers and integrating them into the community.