WA teal Kate Hulett aiming for another Labor scalp in Fremantle

Kate Hulett, who secured a 26.4 per cent swing against Labor earlier this month, will retain her existing campaign headquarters and infrastructure and will not even need new corflutes.

Independent Kate Hulett is aiming to wrest the federal seat of Fremantle from Labor. Picture: Colin Murty

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

The teal candidate who almost brought down a Cook government minister will now set her sights on toppling Labor in the federal seat of Fremantle.

Kate Hulett, who achieved a whopping 26.4 per cent swing against Labor in the West Australian seat of Fremantle, will announce on Monday that she is going to run in the federal seat of the same name.

That seat is held by Labor’s Josh Wilson on a comfortable margin of 16.9 per cent, although that figure is much lower than the swing Ms Hulett secured against Labor at the state election.

In a statement, Ms Hulett said it had become apparent there was an “overwhelming desire to convert the energy and enthusiasm” of her campaign to a tilt at the federal level.

She will retain her existing campaign headquarters and infrastructure and will not even need new corflutes, given the shared name of the state and federal electorates.

“I have had literally hundreds of people contact me in recent days asking me to maintain this extraordinary momentum to keep challenging the major parties and provide proper representation for Fremantle in gov­ern­ment,” she said.

Kate Hulett, front and centre, at a campaign event during her run for the WA state seat of Fremantle, which she very nearly won from Labor at the March 8 election

Ms Hulett made the most of perceptions in the Fremantle area that Roger Cook’s government was too close to the state’s mining and oil and gas industry and had not done enough to address ­climate change or protect the ­environment.

She initially looked set to win the seat from Labor minister Simone McGurk, but postal and absentee votes tipped the count in Ms McGurk’s favour. The minister, who won by just 430 votes, benefited from the Liberals’ decision to preference Labor ahead of Ms Hulett and the Greens.

Labor’s near-defeat in the seat also highlighted the political implications surrounding the approval of Woodside Energy’s North West Shelf gas plant extension.

The Cook government approved the extension late last year, providing momentum for Ms Hulett’s campaign, and Ms Hulett previously noted that a similar approval of the project by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek could cost Labor support in inner-city electorates across the country.

While the state and federal seats share the same name, the federal seat takes in a much bigger area than the electorate previously targeted by Ms Hulett.

Beyond the inner-city area of Fremantle itself, the seat takes in a broad range of working-class and middle-class suburbs including Bibra Lake, Jandakot, Coolbellup and Coogee.

Asked earlier this month about the prospects of a teal campaign against him, Mr Wilson noted the demographic differences between the state and federal seats.

“I’m fortunate to represent a large and diverse south-metro electorate across Freo and Cockburn, and I’m glad to be part of an Albanese government with a clear focus on climate action and environmental protection,” Mr Wilson told The Australian.

Federal Labor member for Fremantle Josh Wilson. Picture: Gary Ramage

“That’s always been a priority of my work as a matter of my personal values and because it’s critical to Australia’s future.”

Ms Hulett has some more extreme positions than many of her federal teal counterparts. She has called for Perth billionaire Kerry Stokes to divest either his media assets or his oil and gas assets, and has as her campaign adviser, activist Jesse Noakes.

Mr Noakes was among the Disrupt Burrup Hub campaigners fined earlier this year after attempting to stage a protest at the home of Woodside Energy chief executive Meg O’Neill.

In her statement, Ms Hulett indicated she would campaign against the AUKUS defence program, which is set to inject billions of dollars into the shipbuilding hub of Henderson, which sits in the south of the federal Fremantle electorate.

Ms Hulett said she believed the people of Fremantle felt misrepresented and uninspired by the major parties.

“People feel unheard, disconnected and ignored, but my campaign has shown how we can make the government pay attention to us,” she said.

“We have already sent the WA government a message they won’t forget, and now Fremantle will make its voice heard across Australia. The energy our campaign has generated so far is extraordinary, and we are just getting started.”

The state seat of Fremantle was one of several to experience controversies on election day, with a number of voting booths in the electorate reportedly running out of ballot papers.

That meant a number of voters were directed to booths outside the electorate, where Ms Hulett did not have any volunteers or promotional material.

Ms Hulett and key backer Simon Holmes a Court had both previously flagged the possibility of a legal challenge against the ­result, but that now appears to be on the backburner.

“I have joined calls for an independent parliamentary inquiry to ensure the irregularities in the WA state election never happen again. But after asking the community what they want to do next with this incredible people-­powered campaign, they have overwhelmingly asked me to focus on the future rather than ­litigating what has happened,” Ms Hulett said.