The Liberal Party candidate for Macarthur may be only 24 years of age but he’s already an election campaign veteran.
Riley Munro answered the call of the party to fly the Liberal flag on March 23 this year in the state seat of Campbelltown – and now here he is up against Labor again.
In the NSW election Munro faced the formidable Greg Warren in the seat of Campbelltown, who went on to win four more years.
This time the young Liberal from Ingleburn is up against another popular Labor man, Dr Mike Freelander, who is also seeking a second term in Canberra.
Munro says he’s being doing a fair bit of doorknocking around the electorate as part of his campaign and quite a few people comment on his youth.
“You are a bit young to be running for election, they say to me.
“I have been doorknocking as much as possible, a little bit in every suburb, and most people are very happy to have a chat,’’ says Munro.
Being a young person, the South West Voice in Macarthur asked the Liberal candidate whether we are doing enough as a country to reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere to tackle climate change.
“I know the general vibe is that we are not,’’ Munro said.
“But in my opinion we are meeting our international obligations, and acting alone is not going to make any difference.
“Not when you have some much overpopulation across the world and other countries contributing so much more to emissions.
“This is a global phenomenon and what we need to do is be smarter, adopting and investing in technologies that help reduce emissions,’’ he said.
By Sunday morning, May 19, Riley Munro will be a veteran of two elections, so would he consider making it three in a row and seek election to Campbelltown Council when the local government elections roll around in September 2020?
“This is a year and a half away but I would be honoured to run if I was selected,’’ he says.
“There’s certainly plenty of local issues that need attention – for example there are streets in Ingleburn that still don’t have footpaths.’’
