He’s one of the most controversial candidates in the race for Cootamundra: A self-described nationalist who was verbally attacked by the Deputy Premier in parliament last week.
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But Australia First president Jim Saleam thinks the Nationals need to take a good look at themselves before going after opponents.
“He said that I’m not fit to be in parliament, well if that’s the case… he should look more closely at some of his ex-colleagues,” Dr Saleam said.
“(John Barilaro) called me a racist, a bigot, an extremist; that’s up to him, because I actually deal with issues that I think a lot of Aussies understand.”
Among the hot topics in the Cootamundra campaign were council mergers and mooted changes to policing, but there were bigger issues at hand for Dr Saleam.
He criticised increasing numbers of Syrian refugees in the region, saying the civil war was over and that they should return home. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, considered by many to be a dictator, would welcome them back, Dr Saleam said.
An end to Muslim immigration is one of the policies listed on the Australia First website, some of which are set to feature in a campaign leaflet along with one of Dr Saleam’s biggest concerns: Chinese imperialism.
“Council amalgamations and the decline of a lot of Australian towns are caused, quite deliberately, by policy,” he said.
“When the state sold a lot of our public assets to Chinese capitalists this money was supposed to produce an infrastructure bonanza, but that was never the intention, they’re spending this money largely in Sydney and it’s designed to facilitate global growth corridors.
“They’re pushing for the development of eight large cities of 400,000 people – most of whom are not in Australia yet. We believe this is colonisation.”
Voters in the Cootamundra by-election are widely tipped to “protest vote” against the government after the Cootamundra-Gundagai council election saw anti-merger campaigner Abb McAlister lead the field by an impressive margin.
While the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party were tipped to lead the protest vote on October 14, Dr Saleam believed they were too close to the government.
“The election is likely to boil down to a choice between an establishment candidate and a group which on the surface is non-establishment,” he said.
“But when you look at the voting record of the SFF… they’re satellites of (the government). It’s also possible people will register more than a protest vote but a concern vote about issues we raise in this campaign… the main aim is to put particular issues before the public.”