AFTER narrowly missing out on being elected to Mildura Rural City Council both in 2020, and in a countback to fill a vacant seat in 2022, Katie Clements has vowed to change things up.
Set to nominate for the new City Gate Ward for October’s local government election, the public school teacher has thrown her hat in the ring once more.
After previously running as a candidate for The Greens during local and State elections, she enters this race as a fully independent candidate this time round
“It’s just giving me lots more scope to really be myself, for people to get to know me,” Ms Clements said.
“I want to make it on, I want to get elected, so I’m changing things up to hopefully get that chance.”
Ms Clements lives in the City Gate Ward, a electoral division none of the nine current Mildura councillors live in.
She said there were many issues that needed to be addressed in the ward, and throughout the municipality.
If elected, things she said she would advocate for include hard rubbish collection, more activities for senior citizens, better waste mitigation, a reduction in hoon driving behaviour, and the potential introduction of a 24-hour cat curfew.
“I actually own two cats myself, and firmly believe that 24-hour cat containment is something that Mildura Rural City Council can look at,” she said.
“Perhaps if the people of my ward agreed or were in support of that, that would be something I would definitely be looking at.”
Ms Clements said her values were based on social justice, environmentalism, and creating local solutions to benefit community members.
She said she was eager to begin conducting surveys and hosting community meet-and-greets, to get a sense of issues voters in her ward want taken to October’s election.
One thing she is passionate about is the exploration of better shelter arrangements for the region’s homeless.
“Other people have said in the past that ‘that’s a State Government thing, leave it to the State Government’. What I am interested in is breaking those barriers to actual local solutions,” Ms Clements said.
“We’ve got local issues that need solutions, why shouldn’t the council be looking at that?
“I think it’s the council’s responsibility to look at those local issues and try and improve those people’s lives for the better.”
Once preferences had been fully distributed Ms Clements was 109 votes away from being elected to Mildura Council in 2022’s countback to fill Cyndi Power’s vacancy.
Two years prior, she had the 10th highest first-preference vote of the 18 council candidates, and had the 11th highest votes once preferences were distributed.
She said she was disappointed to have come so close.
“Last election I announced my candidacy exactly six months before the election, and I wasn’t successful,” Ms Clements said.
“There’s obviously something that perhaps I didn’t do, or maybe it was because I ran as a Greens candidate that maybe that was the reason I wasn’t successful.
“I’m changing things up this time because I’m really interested in advocating for our local community and I want a place on council to do that, to advocate for locals and to work for the community that I love.”
In the lead-up to the 2020 election, Ms Clements was one of multiple female candidates who were targeted locally with death threats, vandalism, and intimidation.
She said she hoped the temperature of the political debate would be lowered for the coming election, and that respect would be provided for all candidates.
“Threatening behaviour does not put me off, and I’m certainly not inviting it, I would certainly hope we don’t see those kinds of things again,” she said.
