A frustration with the world’s issues is what drives Eric Kerr everyday to get out and campaign for change.
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At 22 years old, the Labor candidate is the youngest in the Indi field by more than a decade and has tried to use the point of difference to his advantage.
“I can’t stop now because I have to be in – I wake up in the morning and I must act,” he said.
I can’t stop now because I have to be in – I wake up in the morning and I must act.
- Eric Kerr
Mr Kerr’s youth and inexperience meant he did not have what he called the “politician waffle” of other candidates.
“I can open and honestly say I don’t know everything about everything,” he said.
To counter this inexperience, Mr Kerr has spent much of the election campaign travelling around the district to talk to voters about issues affecting them.
Bill Shorten has released “Labor’s 100 positive policies”, but Mr Kerr said Indi has 100 individual issues of its own.
One big issue was the North East’s train woes.
The federal candidate defended the rail plan of his Victorian state counterparts, saying it was a good first step and he hoped commuters could be patient.
“I don’t think it’s meant to be received as the whole solution,” he said.
“You need to respect there’s a deep frustration on this.”
But Mr Kerr has not always agreed with the party – he was firmly against Labor’s policy to process asylum seekers off-shore.
As a low-profile candidate nationally, he has not received any public backlash. The young man’s most passionate cause was marriage equality, based on his upbringing with two mums, as revealed in The Border Mail in March with mostly positive feedback.
He said the issue was a weakness in Cathy McGowan, who supported marriage equality in principle while maintaining support for what he said would be a divisive plebiscite.
“I’m willing to stand up and be an advocate,” Mr Kerr said.
His main challenge will be winning back Indi’s Labor voters who walked away from the party, after the primary vote fell from 27.2 per cent in 2010 to 11.6 per cent in 2013, when Robyn Walsh ran, and Ms McGowan’s surge in popularity.
“We’re here to stay for the challenge … we’re staying and we’re starting to build,” he said.
Mr Kerr was thrown by surprise two weeks ago when the Labor Party told him he had to resign as a Wodonga councillor, instead of merely taking leave, but he was soldiering on.
“At this juncture, I love Wodonga and I intend to stay here and grow here,” he said.
“It’s a beautiful part of the world.”
