A high-ranking bureaucrat, a wildlife advocate and community activist, a university student, and a therapist will run as new ACT Greens candidates in next year’s election, alongside the current Greens politicians, party leader Shane Rattenbury announced today.

“It’s a fantastic team,” Mr Rattenbury said. “All of our existing MLAs have been pre-selected to run again. That’s a terrific endorsement of the work that’s been happening over the Assembly in the last four years.”

The Greens will put forward 10 lead candidates this election, compared to six in 2020. They will present 10 more candidates next year. Mr Rattenbury says this increase reflects the party’s growing support and impact in the community.

“We’ve seen through this term with six MLAs that the ACT Greens can make a significant difference for our community,” Mr Rattenbury said. “Our community knows that having Greens in the Assembly makes a concrete difference. The policies we took to the last election have become part of the government’s agenda this term. We’ve had three Greens ministers in cabinet rolling out that platform, and our three crossbench members actively reviewing our policy issues.”

The current Greens members will contest their electorates: Andrew Braddock in Yerrabi; Jo Clay in Ginninderra; Mr Rattenbury and Rebecca Vassarotti in Kurrajong; and Emma Davidson in Murrumbidgee.

They will be partnered with new candidates Soelily Consen-Lynch in Yerrabi, Adele Sinclair in Ginninderra, Harini Rangarajan in Murrumbidgee, and Sam Nugent in Brindabella.

“We’ve got a terrific, diverse group of candidates,” Mr Rattenbury said. “They come from a range of backgrounds.”

The ACT Greens are the first major party to reveal their candidates, less than 10 months before the next election.

“We’ve got in early because we really want to have this opportunity over the remaining months until the election to have our candidates out there chatting to the community as much as possible,” so the party can listen to voters, inform its priorities, and develop policy, Mr Rattenbury said.

The Greens were committed to tackling big issues like climate change, housing, the cost of living increases, and the inequality crisis.

“That’s something that all of these candidates are passionately committed to,” Mr Rattenbury said. “They want to force the pace of change. They want to see the pace of progress speed up, because these are big challenges, big questions, that require bold and decisive action.”

New candidates

Soelily Consen-Lynch is a senior public servant (Assistant Director Industrial Relations / Canberra Health Services) in the ACT Government. Born in Suriname, she lived in the Netherlands for 30 years and emigrated to Canberra in 2013. She was legal aid for FNV Bouw, the largest trade union confederation in the Netherlands, and union organiser for the Community and Public Sector Union.

“I want to be involved in politics because I believe it’s important for people to be engaged in the community on all levels,” Ms Consen-Lynch said.

The Greens aligned with her values: social justice, humanity, giving everyone a fair go, environment and climate change.

Adele Sinclair is chief operating officer for a plant biosecurity training centre. She has 20 years’ senior management experience in the corporate sector, higher education, and the not-for-profit sector. She was one of the founders of the Scullin Community Group and Wombat Rescue NSW/ACT, and was an ACT Greens party director and chief operating officer within the Australian National University and the University of Canberra.

“I’m standing for this next election because I’ve been very active in the community over the past five years or so, and really trying to lead community action and community consultation and collaboration,” Ms Sinclair said. “I see standing in this next election as another extension of serving my community…

“I’m really committed to involving the community in preparing government policies and legislation, and really having a voice for the community because that’s going to help us go further and faster and to make things fairer in this time of housing crisis and climate crisis.”

The Greens’ four pillars ­– ecological sustainability, grassroots participatory democracy, social justice, and peace and non-violence – drew her to the party.

Harini Rangajaran is a 20-year-old ANU finance student, and works as an associate with an accounting firm. Born in India, and a practising Hindu, she has lived in Canberra with her family for nine years. She campaigned for the Greens in the 2022 federal election; interned with an MLA in 2021; and was a school striker for climate and a sexual assault awareness activist.

Sam Nugent is a rehabilitation clinician and counsellor, specialising in complex injuries and illnesses combined with mental health conditions, for more than 25 years. She believes she can use her ‘lived experience’ and her training to serve her community. She will focus on climate change, the cost of living, and housing.

“When we did a doorknock the other weekend, that is what everyone was saying to me: no matter how much you actually have … cost of living for two people working full time, for your children, for your parents, for everyone, is a massive issue.”

Ms Nugent said she was born and raised Labor, but does not recognise the “centre right party” it has become.

“My late dad was a factory worker; he used to tell me Labor was the party of the working man. I cannot recognise these guys. They are not the party of the working man. This is why I see the unions turn up at Greens events. This is why I see working people. People have this misconception that the Greens are elitist PhD folk. No; there’s a lot of people who are tradies, who are working people, who work in retail that are now joining the Greens, working with us as champions of the real world issues.”

Will Laura Nuttall, Johnathan Davis’s successor, stand for Brindabella? Her name is not listed, but the electorate’s second lead candidate will not be preselected until next year. The contested ballot for each electorate’s candidates took place while Johnathan Davis’s replacement was uncertain; Ms Nuttall, elected barely a fortnight ago, was too late to enter into that process, Mr Rattenbury said. Greens members will decide early next year whether she runs.

Mr Rattenbury does not believe that Johnathan Davis’s resignation will damage the Greens’ chances. He maintains that the party took allegations of sexual misconduct against Mr Davis seriously, and acted quickly, decisively, and with integrity.