Candidates with a twist

The 2010 Federal election will see a number of Greek candidates run for smaller political parties or as independents.

18 year old Benjamin Walsh, who is of Hellenic descent, is the youngest candidate running in this year's federal election.

He is standing for the Liberal Democrats Party (LDP) seat of Deakin, Victoria and says he represents the Hellenic vote.

Mr Walsh attends the Greek school of the parish of St. Vasillios in Coburg and is studying year 12 VCE Greek.

He told Neos Kosmos he believes Hellenic contributions to the world and to Australian society and culture have been considerable and that he would lobby for the inclusion of Greek in the national curriculum.

"I myself am an advocate for the teaching of the Greek language in the schooling system and I attend the Greek school at St. Vasillios because the Greek program at my school lost funding."

"I feel that the Greek community at large would appreciate knowing they have an option to choose an advocate for Australian Hellenism in this election," he said, adding that the LDP are strong advocates for liberty, freedom, democracy and the individual right to choice.

Abraham Seviloglou is also running as an independent candidate in the seat of Deakin.

The major parties have lost touch with normal people, Mr Seviloglou said, which is why many of them are not enrolled to vote.

He said job security still has not been addressed, and small businesses have been overlooked.

The independent candidate believes that Tony Abbott's proposed tax cut for small businesses (from 30 percent to 28.5 percent) would only affect incorporated businesses or businesses that are a company.

"Not all businesses are set up as proprietary limited companies, there are some that are sole traders which is simply you as a person, you have a business," he said.

Mr Seviloglou said sole traders pay the same tax as a normal person and would be paying a lot more tax than a company.

"The small fruiterer or newsagent wouldn't be getting these tax cuts that any of the parties are promising," he said.

"If Labor or Liberal get in there will be no change in the small trader; they're pawns for bigger companies so the big companies can get concessions but they try and get the vote from the small business person who is not really benefiting."

He wants increased funding for public schools, which he says have been starved at the expense of the very big private schools.

"I think education is very important... Education is what is needed to get a country forward, if you don't have education you don't have entrepreneurship you can't have small businesses because no one has got any good ideas," he said.

"You've got to broaden your mind, if you look around you'll notice all the high-tech countries, like South Korea, Singapore, or even Germany once upon a time, they are all very education minded and they're the ones that have successes, even though they don't have the resources; they have the brains."

Mr Seviloglou said his three highest priorities are help for small businesses, affordable housing, and reducing and managing the cost of living.
Manny Poularas is running for the Christian Democratic Party in the seat of McMahon in NSW.

His main priorities are health reforms; better hospitals, border protection - meaning "controlled migration", job creation, Australian ownership and national self-sufficiency.

The CDP are committed to high ethical standards, which Mr Poularas says have declined in politics in the last 55 years, since he moved to Australia.

"We'd like to restore ethics and put politicians in parliament who actually represent people rather than parties, which is the way it is now," he told Neos Kosmos.

Mr Poularas, who speaks six languages and understands two more, said inclusion of Greek in the national curriculum was important.

"Greek as a language is very important for anyone who wants to understand the new testament, etymology, science, especially biology," he said, adding that the origin of many scientific and political words comes from Greek language.

"There are many benefits for studying and learning Greek, when you're learning Greek you're actually learning English."