Hannah Thomas, the daughter of former attorney-general Tommy Thomas, is giving the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, a run for his money in the country’s federal elections today.
Thomas has secured 17,400 first-preference votes against the 38,240 for Albanese in his parliamentary constituency of Grayndler with 43 of the 60 polling stations counted.
Australian election commission figures showed that the preliminary results were a 2.76% swing against the Greens party represented by Thomas, and a positive swing by a similar margin for Albanese.
Thomas, who migrated to Australia in 2009, said in a recent interview that she was spurred to challenge Albanese because of his failure to act on the genocide in Palestine and his attitude towards immigrants and refugees.
The lawyer-activist also said she was motivated by several factors to contest, including wanting to hold Albanese to account for his failure to take action against the genocide in Palestine.
Albanese led the Labor Party to a landslide victory, becoming the first Australian prime minister in 21 years to win a second consecutive term, while opposition leader Peter Dutton failed to win his own seat, the first federal opposition leader to suffer such a loss.
