Independent candidate for Braitling Kim Hopper gains third place in primary votes in NT Election
AN ALICE Springs business owner and candidate for Braitling in the NT Election isn’t giving up her political career aspirations yet
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ALICE Springs business owner and independent candidate for Braitling Kim Hopper has revealed she could put her hand up to run in next year’s Alice Springs Town Council elections after receiving overwhelming support at the weekend’s NT election.
Ms Hopper gained 14.9 per cent (583 votes) of the of the 69.2 per cent of first preference votes counted, behind CLP’s Joshua Burgoyne (1409 primary votes) and Labor’s Dale Wakefield (871 votes).
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Mr Burgoyne leads the two candidate preferred count with 2014 votes while Ms Wakefield has 1909 votes.
Ms Hopper, owner of Duyu Coffee and Outback Coffee Australia, said her campaign was targeted on “bridging that gap between Labor and the Greens”.
“I knew I would do well just based on the fact that I was representing the community so the issues fracking, climate change and school zones are all really current topical issues that I took on,” she said.
She said in the meantime she will keep herself busy in the small business community advocating for climate action, but said she will “probably continue the momentum and run for council and make sure that the issues that people have voted for me on keep getting pushed for in the community”.
“I assume we’re going to have a minority Labor government so it’s important we keep pushing them and putting pressure on them to address these issues.”
For her first time running in an NT Election, Ms Hopper said results slightly exceeded her expectations due to her low budget, grassroots campaign.
“I wasn’t exactly sure where I would come up in terms of the results but coming third and having 15 per cent of the primary votes I think is really significant and it really sort of shows people are looking for something outside of the major parties.
“I had to balance my campaign with still running my business and having small family.
“It took it took a lot of my time but there was also a lot of community support so I had heaps of volunteers supporting the campaign and doing letterbox drops in particular. I think that really contributed to how far and wide I was able to reach, especially being able to do two major letterbox drops.”
Ms Hopper said she thought her policies on fracking gained her votes and during her campaign she had Liberal and Labor voters who said they were supporting her this year based on the issue.
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“I think that issue actually cuts across the whole section of section of the community and the whole reason that I ran as this sort of like a small business independent with the fracking issue was to highlight that it’s not a left issue.
“Fracking and water security cuts across the whole community.”
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