Downsize dairy says candidate for Corangamite

Melbourne activist Adrian Whitehead will contest the seat as an independent. 

The former climate change researcher and public housing officer will contest the seat with the sole aim of drawing attention to climate change. 

“I’m not going to be 100 per cent candidate,” Mr Whitehead said. 

“I will be going to public debates and doing some door knocking.” 

Mr Whitehead has been endorsed by the Save The Planet party, which has not yet registered with the Australian Electoral Commission.

Mr Whitehead conceded running the election from Thornbury was not ideal and he would also be balancing it with serving as Save The Planet’s director. 

“It’s always better if someone is from the electorate but I have a strong association with the electorate,” he said. 

He said he worked in the Greater Otway National Parks Campaign in the 1990s and  spent two years living in Apollo Bay. 

He has also lived in Geelong. 

Mr Whitehead ran with the Australian Greens for Corangamite in 1998 and was a member of the Young Liberals during university. 

Asked about why he had not run with the Greens again, he said the party lacked “climate emergency policies”.

Questioned on what these policies involved, Mr Whitehead said entire systems of agriculture and industry needed to be dramatically overhauled if the world was going to step back from the brink of climate disaster. 

He said farmers needed to look towards soil carbon capture and graziers and dairies would inevitably have to become smaller. 

“We’d be looking to downsize it,” Mr Whitehead said. 

“It’s going to be difficult for the dairy people.

“If people are growing cattle they need to find ways to offset their emissions.”

Mr Whitehead joins the political race with six other candidates, including candidates who deny the existence of climate change altogether. 

s.mccomish@fairfaxmedia.com.au