⊸ News ⋅ By Emily Kulich
Published at 5:00pm on Friday 2 May 2025

Incumbent member for Cooper, Ged Kearney, is “fairly confident” she will be returned at this weekend’s federal election.

Above: Ged Kearney at the Thornbury pre-poll voting centre this morning. Photo: author

Speaking to the Merri Mirror at Thornbury’s pre-poll voting centre this morning, the Labor MP said community feedback during the campaign had been “really positive”.

“I’m fairly confident. I think, you know, it’s an interesting electorate,” Ms Kearney said.

“It’s a very progressive electorate and people feel issues very keenly.”

Some voters at the centre were heard citing the ongoing genocide in Palestine when declining flyers from Labor campaigners, and Ms Kearney’s campaign signage has been a frequent target for graffiti on the issue.

The conflict has been so contentious in Labor circles that it lost Senator Fatima Payman to the crossbench a year ago, for what she considered to be inaction.

Asked if she thought Labor’s response to the conflict could impact the vote in Cooper, Ms Kearney said there was “a lot of misinformation”, and she was “quite proud of my history of supporting Palestine.”

“It has been a very highly emotive issue and people do feel very strongly about it,” she said.

“I think there has been a lot of misinformation about me and my position in particular, and even about the government, which is disappointing, and there’s been a lot of vandalism.

“My office has been vandalised and there’s been a lot of, I think, violence around it, which … worries me. It doesn’t really contribute well to the Palestinian cause when it gets like that.”

Above: Kearney’s office, seen here in November 2024 with vandalised signage. Photo: author

“I myself have been a campaigner for Palestine since [the] Sabra and Shatila [massacre]. I think I was 19 when that happened in 1982, so 40-odd years I have been a really firm supporter of Palestine. I am part of APAN and APHEDA.

“I called for the funding to be restored to UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees). I am very proud to be part of a team that voted with Palestine at the UN and, you know, we shifted votes at the World Health Organisation.”

Australian funding to human rights group UNRWA was abruptly cut by Foreign Minister Penny Wong three months after the October 7 2023 attacks, following claims by the Government of Israel that some employees of the agency were involved. In March 2024, following pressure from multiple aid organisations and an UNRWA report alleging staff were coerced by Israel, funding was restored.

In May last year Australia voted in favour of improving Palestinian representation at the United Nations, ending years of abstaining from voting on Palestine.

“I think Penny Wong’s been a very responsible minister,” Ms Kearney said.

“She’s garnered support on the the international stage with the UK and Canada and New Zealand.

“I think there’s been quite a large shift in light of what’s happened. It’s been devastating, absolutely devastating.”

“As a government of the day, we are responsible to make sure that there is social cohesion and to try not to be polarising. You know, present the facts and and just work as a government should.”

Housing ‘absolutely’ a crisis

Asked if she was concerned about losing votes from renters during the housing crisis, Ms Kearney said the federal government had limited options to improve housing availability.

Analysis published by Guardian Australia shows 48.3 per cent of residents in Cooper do not own a home, which is higher than the national average. Liberal and Labor governments have been under pressure to improve supply for years, with an end to negative gearing often seen as part of the solution.

“Housing is a very difficult issue constitutionally for the federal government to deal with, because it is by-and-large state issue,” Ms Kearney said.

“The levers we can pull federally we have definitely pulled.

“I visited a fabulous housing estate the other day where the State Government owned the land and the Federal Government gave them the money to build the houses. And, you know, this is the type of partnership that federal governments can do.

“The leaver that we have is funding, and to do our very best to make sure that that funding goes to social, affordable housing.”

Asked if enough had been done to communicate housing policy, Ms Kearney said she has had “a lot of conversations with people about housing.”

“We recognise it as a crisis, absolutely.”

“It won’t happen overnight, as they say in the classics, you know, to build houses and increase supply; which is really our purview, to increase supply and then help young people and first home buyers get into the market.”

“You can’t do that overnight. It takes a little while to build a million homes, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Women’s health a point of pride

A former nurse and current assistant minister for two health portfolios, Ms Kearney’s campaign has focussed on Labor policies supporting women’s health.

“I’m really proud of what I’ve achieved,” she said.

“Nearly a billion dollars for women’s health, getting the first contraceptive pills on the PBS for, you know, 30 years, which is really great.

“And menopause, you know, the HRT therapy for women; oh my gosh, the number of women that have come up to me and said ‘thank you’ for that is just absolutely incredible, which makes me really proud.

“And of course all the endometriosis and pelvic pain stuff we’ve done.”

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