Johnathan Davis, the Greens candidate who has been elected to the fifth seat in Brindabella after an incredibly tight race, wants to spend as little time at the Legislative Assembly as possible.
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"I don't think you have a read on your community and I don't think you can effectively represent your community from an ivory tower in the city," Mr Davis said on Saturday morning.
"The people of Tuggeranong are furthest away from the Legislative Assembly as the crow flies, by driving, by public transport. And getting on the Parkway everyday and taking myself as far away from my community as possible and working in a nice air-conditioned office as much as I possibly can does nothing for my electorate."
Mr Davis wants to be the first Assembly member in the history of self-government to establish an electorate office and will start hunting for the right office this weekend after taking the seat by just 82 votes.
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"I've wanted this job for a long time, but more than that I really want to be very, very good at it. And that's a huge burden that I'm hoping I can overcome with time," he said.
"I'm hoping once I'm in there, the office is organised, aces are in their places and we have a plan, that things can start to happen quickly. But the awesome responsibility my community has placed on me isn't lost on me at the moment."
Mr Davis said through the campaign people in Tuggeranong accepted the Liberal Party's hypothesis that the cost of living was too high and people were doing it tough, but looked to the Greens for real policy solutions.
"And people in Tuggeranong specifically, but across Canberra more broadly, I think want us directing our time, effort and resources into those who are doing it the toughest, those who are facing homelessness, those who are living in poverty," he said.
Mr Davis, who was born and raised in Canberra and has worked as a real estate agent, said he hoped to bring his sales experience to the Greens six-member party room and agitate from the crossbench.
"One of the difficulties for Greens past has been getting traction in the community on policies that we know to be popular. The Labor and Liberal parties have a much bigger and more organised marketing machine and marketing and sales has never been a strong suit of the Greens. We're policy nerds, we're detail-oriented. We get the plans right," he said.
"In a party room of six, I'm hopeful I can utilise some of my skills to really get out there in the community and talk about what we've done and what we are doing to the people that it most affects."
Mr Davis' interest in politics was sparked by Labor's 2006 decision to shut 39 government schools, at a time when Mr Davis was a student at Kambah High.
"I was personally affected by a bad government decision and I got active in politics in an effort to overturn that decision. So for anyone who ever says Greens and Labor are exactly the same, I always like to remind them that I would not be active in politics were it not for my campaign against a Labor minister's bad decision," Mr Davis said.
Mr Davis first ran for the Greens in the 2012 ACT election, when he was 20, before running again in 2016 and as the party's 2019 federal candidate for Bean.
He found out about his election win on Friday night, after an "horrendous" week of waiting, when he was at a friend's house, watching the Disney film Pocahontas, eating Kingsley's Chicken and Goodberry's.
"It doesn't get more Tuggeranong, let me tell you. Between Kingsley's Chicken and Goodberry's ice creamery, that's where you take someone who hasn't been to Tuggeranong before and give them a cultural experience," Mr Davis said with a laugh.
Since the election result was informally declared, Mr Davis said his phone notifications had been blowing up.
"I am not ignorant to what politics is going to look like and I don't pretend there won't be trying days. And it is very reassuring on a personal level to know I have so many people that care about me regardless and who will be a huge emotional support particularly on the tough days," he said.
Mr Davis had been locked in a tight battle with Labor's Taimus Werner-Gibbings to secure Brindabella's fifth seat. Liberal Andrew Wall lost his seat after a 3.4 per cent swing was recorded against the party in the electorate.
Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
