4 August 2005

Media Advisory (as written for Australian media)

Maori Green MP campaigning in Sydney tomorrow

New Zealand Green MP Metiria Turei will be campaigning in Sydney tomorrow ahead of the 17 September General Election across the Tasman.

Mrs Turei will host a breakfast at The Post Café in Marrickville for Kiwi voters and will visit Bondi Beach and 'Culture @ the Block' later in the day.

"I feel strongly that our country is at a very serious crossroads," Mrs Turei says.

"We can follow the path towards a sustainable and secure future or go backwards to the right-wing policies that have failed miserably in the past. I'm looking forward to meeting New Zealanders, particularly my fellow Maori, to hear what they think about issues in Aotearoa."

Mrs Turei, 35, was elected to Parliament in 2002 at number eight on the Greens' Party List under New Zealand's two-vote Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system. For this year's election she has been promoted by the Green membership to number six on the Greens' List and is standing in the Maori electorate of Te Tai Tonga (Wellington and the entire South Island). In the last term of Parliament she led Green opposition to the Labour-led Government's Foreshore and Seabed legislation.

In this year's election the Greens have a Sydney-based candidate, James Diack, who is campaigning for the Party Vote among Kiwis living in Australia. Twenty-one thousand New Zealanders are enrolled to vote in Australia, with a strong concentration in Sydney. In the 2002 General Election, the Green Party won 14 percent of the votes of Kiwis living overseas, lifting their total vote to seven percent. Mrs Turei's visit follows Co-Leader Rod Donald's tour of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane last week.

Mrs Turei is visiting Sydney on the way back from the Third Asian Women Parliamentarians' and Ministers' Conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where she delivered a keynote speech on behalf of the NZ Parliamentarians' Group on Population and Development.

What: NZ Green MP Metiria Turei meeting Kiwi voters
Where: The Post Cafe, 274 Marrickville Rd, Marrickville
When: 8.00am - 10.00am, TOMORROW Friday 5 August 2005

ENDS

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