FOUR candidates will contest the seat of Flinders in the August21 federal election.
Incumbent Greg Hunt - Liberal opposition spokesman on climate action, environment and heritage - faces challenges from the ALP, Family First and the Australian Greens.
The candidates gathered at the Australian Electoral Commission office in Hastings on Friday to declare their candidacy and watch the draw of the ballot, a quaint but serious ceremony in which a blindfolded person draws numbered balls from a cage to determine the order in which candidates appear on the ballot paper.
The coveted first place on the ballot, considered an advantage for collecting 'donkey' votes from uninterested voters, went to the ALP's Francis Gagliano-Ventura, a last-minute replacement for Adrian Schonfelder, who withdrew from the contest on July 23, saying he had been in a car accident and could not continue campaigning.
He had earlier got into hot water with comments suggesting opposition leader Tony Abbott's conservative views were driving people to suicide.
Mr Gagliano-Ventura, 21, who lists his address as Southbank, appeared to struggle when asked what he thought were the important issues for Flinders electorate.
He said the Hastings pier obviously needed some work, at which point Cr Reade Smith, who is running for Family First, pointed out the pier was being renovated by Parks Victoria.
Mr Gagliano-Ventura said there was "a footpath in Rye" that he would lobby to have built, although he could not say where in Rye it was. He said he had been involved in politics since he was a toddler, going to meetings with his mother, a single parent.
"It being the party of social justice, she was drawn to the Labor Party," he said.
Mr Gagliano-Ventura resigned from his job at Medibank Private, a government agency, to run for office. He seemed undaunted by the prospect of pegging back Mr Hunt's comfortable lead.
Second on the ballot is Cr Smith, who has been a Mornington Peninsula Shire councillor for 10 years.
Cr Smith said his involvement in Dads in Distress, a support group for divorced men, had led him to Family First. "As a parent and husband and a contributor in our community, I am passionate about seeing family values brought back into Australian politics.
"The south-east is an under-resourced area when it comes to reducing the cost of living and crime.
We have suffered long enough."
Mr Hunt drew third on the ballot.
"My priorities include securing an aquatic centre for Rosebud, establishing trades training centres for students at Hastings, Dromana and Rosebud, and getting a 24-hour police station for Somerville," Mr Hunt said.
"I will continue the fight against plans to build a bitumen plant at Crib Point and work to protect the peninsula from inappropriate development.
"I will also continue to work with Baxter residents on the fight to get the Peninsula Link freeway run as an underpass through the town, rather than an unsightly and intrusive overpass."
Final spot on the ballot went to teacher and singer-songwriter Bob Brown, a long-time Mornington Peninsula resident who is standing for the Greens.
Mr Brown, not to be confused with the Greens leader and Tasmanian senator, stood in the 2007 election and garnered 8.48per cent of the primary vote, an increase of 2.21per cent on the previous election. While Flinders is unlikely to register a high Greens vote, Mr Brown will be hoping to capitalise on the party's increasing profile.
"I think this time around people are starting to appreciate what the Greens stand for – a compassionate, progressive party that provides the only real alternative to the Labor and Liberal parties who are both starting to sound pretty much the same," he said.
"The Greens are the only major party with policies that really address the problem [of climate change]," he said.
The other "great threat" facing Australia and the world was dwindling oil supplies.
"The Greens recognise that alternative technological solutions are urgently required and that much more money must be channelled towards research and development."
He said the Greens supported free tertiary education.
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