A community-backed independent “teal” candidate has emerged for the marginal state seat of Caulfield, as two former Bayside mayors consider challenging sitting Liberal MPs in Melbourne’s south-east at the November state election.
In Caulfield, lawyer Nomi Kaltmann – an active Labor Party member until a week ago – will take on deputy Liberal leader David Southwick, who holds the seat by just 0.1 per cent.
Kaltmann is the founder and president of the Australian branch of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance and works as a correspondent for Tablet Magazine, the largest Jewish newspaper in the US.
The mother of three, who has also worked for two Labor MPs, has the support of the Voices of Caulfield community group, which emerged from the Voices of Goldstein campaign that backed federal independent MP Zoe Daniel’s victory in the once-safe Liberal seat.
Recent polling commissioned by Climate 200, the funding vehicle that backed the successful teal independents in the federal election, found that progressive independent candidates would receive strong support in the state seats of Caulfield, Kew, Sandringham, Hawthorn and Brighton.
Bayside councillor and former mayor Clarke Martin is likely to run as an independent candidate for the seat of Sandringham, which is held by Liberal MP Brad Rowswell.
Read the article by Annika Smethurst and Paul Sakkal in The Age.