Tough task: Former Cairns councillor Kirsten Lesina expects a hard fight to hold the seat of Cairns for Labor.
With polls showing the LNP is set to trounce Labor in the election, the former Division 4 Cairns Regional councillor faces huge pressure to win the seat. Labor holds Cairns with a margin of 4.2 per cent."No doubt it’s going to be tough and I’m in for the fight of my life," Ms Lesina said.
Long-time Labor MP Desley Boyle held Cairns in the 2009 election scoring 45.8 per cent of the vote compared with LNP candidate Joel Harrop’s 39.8 per cent.Ms Boyle is not standing for re-election this year.
Ms Lesina (pictured) is running against former The Cairns Post journalist and LNP candidate Gavin King, Katter’s Australian Party candidate and police officer Darren Hunt and John Piva of the North Queensland Party.
The 25-year-old, who set a record as the youngest councillor elected in the Cairns region, said her four years of local government experience sets her apart from her competitors."It’s a great training ground because you do have that experience of managing a large budget," said Ms Lesina, who won a seat on the council in the same year she graduated from law school at James Cook University."I’ve had four years of experience on council managing a $330 million business."
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Once again, another sloppy journalist who doesn't get off her backside to bother checking facts. Cairns has not been a "Labor stronghold for more than a century." Cairns has had three conservative members since the seat was created. The last non Labor member, was the Independent, Joe Barnes who held the seat of Cairns during the war years 1942 to 1947.
ReplyDeleteJust saw where The Cairns Post journalist made another false claim about Kirsten alleging she was the "youngest person to be elected to local government" in the Cairns region. I believe Ross Parisi was 21 when elected to the Mulgrave Shire Council in the 1970s and George (Watty) Wallace who went on to become State Member for Cairns between 1956 and 1964 was only 21 when elected to the Cairns City Council. Why the hell don't these so called "journalists" get off their backsides and cross reference their facts which is what they are SUPPOSED to do. Sitting there on their fat fairies and making up facts as they go along seems to be what is coming out of The Cairns Post these days.
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