While many politicians’ friends are sick of hearing pleas to help hand out how-to-vote cards, George Grigas says his decision to run for state parliament was met with quite a different response.

Me being just a store man, being a politician would be shocking.

“My friends can’t believe it, I’m still waiting for them to get over the shock,” he says.

The forklift driver says he’d never been inclined to join a political party until a friend encouraged him to register as the Family First candidate for the seat of Oakleigh earlier this month.

The seat of Oakleigh, in Melbourne’s south-east, is a safe Labor seat, held by Ann Barker since 1999 with a margin of 12.4 percent. Grigas rates his chances of a surprise win as “quite low”.

“I don’t think I’ve got a chance, to be honest,” he says. He says his decision to get into politics was prompted by his discomfort with modern politics.
“I’m here to try and shake things up a bit,” he says.

“The last (federal) election proved Labor and the Liberals are out of touch.”

But Grigas says he’ll be telling voters on November 27 his experience as a store man in a wholesale factory makes him stand out.
“All these politicians, they make a lot of promises, but they don’t really do anything,” he says.
“I’m not an office guy; I’m a forklift driver, so that’s a different perspective.”

Mr Grigas says the main issues he’ll be campaigning on are public transport and safety.
“I think there’s too much violence in the area, and I think something should be done about the trains,” he says, adding that he’d like to see rail lines underground in Oakleigh.

Mr Grigas, who is single, has close relationships with his sister and her nine children, as well as with his retired parents.
He says his parents, who came to Australia from Athens before Mr Grigas was born, taught him to be hard-working.

“My dad brought me up to be honest, it was traditionally Greek, you have pride in what you do,” he says.

On election day, Mr Grigas hopes will be helping him hand out how-to-vote cards. But he says they’ll have to get over the shock of him being a candidate first.
“Me being just a store man, being a politician would be shocking,” he says.