Campaigning to ramp up for Voices for Forrest following $20,000 donation from teal-supporting Climate 200

A group which has thrown financial support behind independents defeating Coalition MPs, has thrown its support behind a campaign in the Forrest Electorate. Voices for Forrest have received $20,000 from the Climate 200 group, who backed a litany of ‘teal’ independents during the 2021 Federal election, to support their campaign to find a community-minded candidate. The Voices for Forrest spokesperson Gita Sonnenberg confirmed the funding, which will be split in half. Part of the money will go towards advertising for a candidate in The West Australian, while the remainder will be spent on other campaign expenses including t-shirts, flyers, and volunteer activation. Ms Sonnenberg said the money would make a big difference. “It’s massive, without this grant we paid for most of the other costs ourselves and that was already substantial,” she said. “Fundraising really takes a lot of time so this saves us a massive amount of time and especially because we’re using it towards the ads it can really help us get more recognised.” The group will be looking to cause a major upset in the South West seat, which has been held by the Liberal Party since 1972. With the retirement of long-standing MHR Nola Marino, the Voices campaign could have their best shot of taking away votes from the conservative party. According to Ms Sonnenberg, the search for a candidate is still ongoing and she was not able to say how many people had put their hand up. She did say support from the community had been heartening. “We’ve had a huge amount of support from the community over the past months and that is really why we are doing this,” Ms Sonnenberg said. “We’re not doing this for us, we’re doing it because so many people in the community say it would be fantastic to have a choice at the next election of a local community independent. “So, we feel very encouraged by the community response so far.” The funding came as part of Climate 200’s Community Accelerator Fund, which according to its website is to help community independent campaigns who can prove they have a genuine chance at the next election.

Campaigning to ramp up for Voices for Forrest following $20,000 donation from teal-supporting Climate 200

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