Australian Sex Party to Field Candidates in Marginal Seats

AUSTRALIA—Sex Party president Fiona Patten has announced that the party will run candidates in a wide range of marginal lower house seats in the coming election. Last week, she announced that the party would field a record number of candidates in 25 electorates in Victoria, up from only three candidates at the 2010 election. “Today, I can announce that the party will also run candidates for the seats of Chisholm, Aston, Ballarat, Indi and Wannon, making a total of 29 Victorian seats altogether,” she said, adding, “We have also decided to run in the marginal seats of Greenway and Macquarie (NSW), Longman and Herbert (Queensland), Hasluck in Western Australia, Soloman in the Northern Territory and Denison in Tasmania. “In addition,” she said, “there are at least another six marginal seats in which we are seriously considering running candidates. Our internal polling indicates that we stand to get quite a good primary vote in a number of bellwether seats in Queensland and NSW.” Patten said that the party is fielding Senate teams in every state and territory, and added that The Sex Party has polled an average of 7 percent over the last four elections it has contested, and that the party’s preferences have been vital to the winners of two of them—the state Victorian seats of Melbourne and Lyndhurst. A list of Australian Sex Party candidates for the 2013 federal election can be found here.