The former Olympic skier Zali Steggall is to run against Tony Abbott as an independent in the seat of Warringah with the support of several grassroots groups that have campaigned to convince voters to dump the former prime minister as their sitting member.
A formal announcement was made on Sunday morning at a rally organised by several grassroots groups including the Vote Tony Out group and Voices of Warringah.
“I am in this to win it,” Steggall told Fairfax on Sunday. “I want to beat Tony Abbott, who has been a handbrake on Australian progress on many fronts but, particularly, effective action on climate change.
“I know what I am getting into but I am not a wallflower – I am tough. I learned from sport that you have to put the work in, and can’t just turn up on the day hoping for the result. I will do the work for this, just as I did the work for sport and law.”
Steggall, born in Manly, is a well-known figure locally. She won a bronze medal in slalom at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, and a World Championship gold medal in 1999.
Post-Olympics she studied media and then law and was admitted to the New South Wales bar as a barrister in 2008.
Steggall holds director roles on several Australian sports bodies and was appointed to the International Council of Arbitration for Sport in 2017. She also serves on the governing council of the exclusive Queenwood school in Mosman.
Steggall has adopted the rallying cry of independent Kerryn Phelps, who won the blue-ribbon Liberal seat of Wentworth in a byelection last year and has promised to operate from the “sensible centre”.
“I support sensible centre economic policies for a strong, stable economy and will resist proposed changes to negative gearing, franking credits and capital gains tax,” Steggall said.
Steggall said in a statement her policy priorities include effective climate strategy, the economy, healthcare and improving politics.
“The most common concern is the lack of action on climate change,” she said.
Her campaign has enlisted well-known scientist and recently appointed climate change expert at the Australian Museum, Tim Flannery, as an adviser on climate policies.
“People are also worried about the state of politics in this country, the lack of compassion on human rights, how rising congestion is disrupting our commutes, mental health and domestic violence,” Steggall said.
At a doorstop in Sydney on Sunday, Abbott said the Australia Day weekend was “not a time for heavy politics” but made his case for re-election based on policies including lowering power prices and his “120% support” for the northern beaches tunnel.
“Apart from that, we’ve just got to have the best possible government in Canberra and the best possible government is a Liberal government that keeps our country safe and our economy strong,” he said.
Asked about Steggall’s attack on his record on climate change, Abbott said he would “not get into tit-for-tat arguments with any particular candidate”, but argued Australia only contributed 1.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
“We could close our economy down tomorrow and it wouldn’t make a scrap of difference,” he said.
The education minister Dan Tehan, appearing on Sky News on Sunday, said Abbott would put a strong case forward for his re-election.
“People underestimate what Tony does within the community, for the community, they underestimate his ability to campaign,” Tehan told Sky News on Sunday.
“There was talk before the last election that Tony might have been in trouble in Warringah, he was re-endorsed by the voters there quite strongly.”
Tehan later told reports in Melbourne that Abbott has a “very good record to stand on” and will put a compelling case to voters because he has “more to offer in politics”.
Two other women – Indigenous Australian Susan Moylan-Coombs and Alice Thompson, a former employee of Malcolm Turnbull – have also said they would run as independents in Warringah.
However, Steggall is likely to have the backing of several grassroots groups that have been running a campaign against the former prime minister, including selling anti-Abbott T-shirts and posters.
The groups have been liaising with GetUp, which has vowed to work to remove Abbott and other climate change deniers from their seats at the forthcoming election, likely to be held in May.
Abbott has vowed to take on GetUp and the groups seeking to oust him, and has begun a social media campaign using the title of his first book, Battlelines.
An email from Vote Tony Out endorsing Steggall as the independent candidate for Warringah in the next federal election said: “More and more details will come out about Zali in the next couple of days but I can tell you she is an amazing woman who will make Warringah proud. She has been through quite a process to get to this point.”
Warringah has voted conservative since 1922 and Abbott, who first won the seat 25 years ago, holds it with a margin of about 15%.
Additional reporting from Australian Associated Press
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