A Greens candidate standing for the seat of Fowler in New South Wales has been forced to close off comments on their social media pages after receiving waves of homophobic abuse.
Avery Howard has previously run for the seat and has also run for local council in the past too. The non-binary, anti-poverty campaigner and retail worker announced on Monday morning they’d be running in the 2025 election.
As soon as they posted the announcement, they go hit by a wave of abusive comments criticising their gender identity and appearance.
“Everyone deserves to have a home, food, and world-class health and education – and I’ve seen those goals get harder than ever over the last few years,” Howard said announcing their candidacy.
A few hours later they posted a follow up remarking on the reaction they’d received describing it as a “staggering uptick in homophobic, transphobic and just hateful responses”.
Avery Howard has previously spoken about how they were inspired to get involved in politics after their own experiences of poverty and housing challenges. As a 17-year-old they were living on youth allowance, staying in shelters and trying to complete their education.
Since news of the bullying and abuse was highlighted in the media Howard’s campaign Facebook page has been filled with messages of support.
The seat of Fowler is currently represented by independent MP Dai Le. There was a lot of focus on the seat at the last election when high profile Labor candidate and former NSW Premier Kristina Kenneally unsuccessfully ran for the seat. Labor had held the seat since its creation in 1984.
Located in Sydney’s outer south-west, the seat has a diverse population and a large Vietnamese community. Tu Le will be Labor’s candidate, and this time round the Liberal party is not running a candidate. Dai Le’s success in 2022 is attributed to Liberal preferences she picked up, which will make it a different competition this time round.
