Both new and familiar faces are among the Labor Party candidates pre-selected to stand in the seats of Point Cook, Tarneit and Werribee at this year’s state election.
While veteran Werribee MP and state treasurer Tim Pallas looks set to re-contest his electorate at the polls on November 26, Altona MP Jill Hennessy last year announced that she would retire before the 2022 election.
Star Weekly understands that Tarneit MP Sarah Connolly, who was elected in 2018, will potentially stand in a different electorate at the upcoming election.
In her stead, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) organiser Dylan Wight has been preselected for Tarneit.
Mat Hilakari has been pre-selected for Point Cook, a new electorate created during the redistribution of electoral boundaries in 2021, which takes in parts of the Wyndham and Hobsons Bay municipalities.
Mr Hilakari, who previously lived in Melbourne’s south-east with his family, last year said he was in the process of moving to the Point Cook electorate.
Mr Hilakari said he has served as a board member for several disability advocacy organisations, a company director, a researcher and writer.
“I’m glad to be moving to an area so close to many of my family and friends, and with a growing vibrant multicultural community,” he said.
“My first political involvement in the area was the 2010 Altona by-election to support Jill Hennessy.
“It is an honour to be Labor’s candidate for Point Cook and I am committed to working every day to deliver for the community.
“My priorities are to be an advocate for ongoing and secure jobs, great schools, quality health care and ongoing improvements to infrastructure and transport.”
Mr Wight said that before working for the AMWU, he worked a range of blue-collar jobs while putting himself through university and raising his two young sons.
“In (my) seven years as a union official, I have campaigned unceasingly for manufacturing jobs in Melbourne’s west,” he said.
Mr Wight said he planned to move to the Tarneit, if he was elected.
“It’s hard to describe how honoured I am to be given the opportunity to contest the electorate of Tarneit at the next election,” he said.
By Alesha Capone
