Local independents Dai Le, Frank Carbone to take the fight to Kristina Keneally in Fowler

A highly successful local independent team will campaign against Anthony Albanese’s hand-picked candidate, Kristina Keneally.

The deputy mayor of Fairfield in Sydney’s west, Dai Le, is taking on Labor’s Kristina Keneally in Fowler. Picture: John Feder

A highly successful local political independent team will campaign against Anthony Albanese’s hand-picked candidate for the Western Sydney seat of Fowler, former NSW Premier and Labor Senator, Kristina Keneally.

Fairfield city mayor, Frank Carbone, and deputy mayor, Dai Le, who got 90 per cent of the western Sydney local government area vote last December, have decided to campaign against Senator Keneally who lived in Sydney’s salubrious northern beaches areas.

Kristina Keneally is running in the seat of Fowler. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

Ms Le, a Vietnamese refugee who has lived and worked in Fairfield all her life in Australia, will be the independent candidate supported in the campaign by Mr Carbone.

Ms Le told The Australian on Tuesday: “I have been humbled by my opportunity to represent the local people so far and want to fight for locals here is Western Sydney.”

“It would be wrong of me to go to the rich northern suburbs and try and get elected there and it is the same for Kristina Keneally to try and run here in Western Sydney,” she said.

The revelation came as Scott Morrison campaigned in the neighbouring Labor seat of Parramatta where another outside candidate, former Kevin Rudd adviser, Andrew Charlton, was parachuted into the candidacy from the Eastern suburbs.

The Prime Minister spruiked the local ties for the Liberal candidate, Maria Kovacic, and said: “She’s from Western Sydney, she’s run businesses in Western Sydney. She’s raised her family here in Western Sydney.”

In Fowler, the retiring Labor MP, Chris Hayes, wanted a local woman to replace him and supported lawyer Tu Le but she was dumped by the ALP national executive and replaced by Senator Keneally who was living in Scotland Island but is now renting in Liverpool and has promised to buy in the western suburbs electorate if she is elected.

Mr Carbone and Ms Le ran an independent team for the Fairfield City council elections and won 10 of the 13 spots.

Labor Party MPs have appealed to Mr Carbone, a former Labor member, not to run amid speculation the two local politicians would pair for the federal election on May 21.

Mr Carbone told The Australian he had decided not to run himself because of family reasons but, he said, he would be campaigning fully for Ms Le as part of a strategy they have been working on for months.

“We will run a big campaign, we have videos ready, posters and local campaigners because we believe it is an insult to the people of the west to have an outsider forced on them,” he said.

Ms Le said that during the Covid-19 lockdowns Western Sydney had been treated as outcasts and “demonised by the affluent and privileged suburbs of Sydney”.

“I want to represent local people and as an independent get federal funds directed to this area,” she said.

Based on local government and state government elections Mr Carbone thinks Ms Le can get 30 per cent of the primary vote, and given the number of other independents and the Liberal candidate, Senator Keneally will find it difficult to reach a primary vote which will give her victory.