Sue Etheridge is no stranger to campaigning for political elections. The 2025 Federal poll will be her fourth time running for the seat of Fairfax as The Greens candidate since 2016. This election will also be her fourth facing off against incumbent LNP MP Ted O’Brien.
When she isn’t campaigning or volunteering as Treasurer for both the Queensland Greens and the Australian Greens, Sue is busy running a construction business and an aviation theory school. Sue started her career at the Commonwealth Bank, eventually becoming a Lending Manager while also dabbling in politics as a union representative. “My dad was a staunch Labor man and so I grew up supporting Labor as I thought Labor was the party of the working class, and in my early years I did a lot of volunteering,” she said.
However, Sue grew disillusioned with the Labor Party after Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister in 2007. Sue said Rudd promised so much but delivered so little for Australians. “I decided that we can’t be tinkering around the edges anymore, so I joined the Greens in 2009 and my first campaign was in 2010 where we got Larissa Waters elected to the Senate for the first time,” she said.
During the 2016 and 2019 elections, Sue won 12.6 per cent of the total vote, while in 2022 her margin increased to 13.4 per cent. This time, however, Sue says she is confident that widespread disillusion with the major parties, the success of the Teal Independents at the previous Federal election, and the influx of younger voters will shift voters towards alternative parties like the Greens.
“If we’re elected, the Greens will put dental into Medicare, we’ll impose rental caps on rental properties, and we’ll put an end to all new coal and gas initiatives, including the LNP’s ridiculous nuclear power idea,” she said. Currently, the Greens hold four seats in the House of Representatives (three in Queensland and one in Victoria) and 11 in the Senate.
While Sue is a political veteran at this point, the majority of her opponents for this election are newcomers, including Beatrice Marsh, the One Nation candidate. Beatrice is a registered nurse who graduated with a Bachelor of Nursing Science from the University of Wollongong. She built a career specialising in cardiothoracic surgery at Concord Repatriation Hospital and Westmead Hospital in Sydney, and was recruited in 1998 to help open the cardiothoracic ward at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane.
“While travelling around Australia in my motorhome [over the past two years], I saw firsthand the scale of homelessness in our country, especially among elderly Australians and families with young children,” she said. “I was shocked not only by the suffering I witnessed but by the media’s lack of coverage and even misrepresentation of these issues. That was the moment I realised I had to step up [as the One Nation candidate].”
Historically, One Nation has trailed behind the Greens at Federal elections. Currently, One Nation holds no seats in the House of Representatives and only two in the Senate, one belonging to One Nation founder Pauline Hanson.
Both candidates represent parties on two different sides of the political spectrum, so both have different visions for Fairfax and for Australia. Energy is one major topic of this election, with incumbent MP O’Brien advocating strongly for nuclear power. Sue said she believes renewable energy is the future, and that the longer Australia mines, burns, and exports coal, the more destructive it will be for the planet, the environment, and for future generations.
“We live on the sunniest place on Earth, we now have the technology to harness the sun and the wind and hydro to create cheap, plentiful and reliable energy that isn’t destroying the planet,” she said. “Affordable energy should not be a luxury, and that’s why something I really want to focus on is more investment into developing and installing community-owned batteries so everyone can access cheap and reliable solar energy.”
Meanwhile, Beatrice said One Nation believes that energy policy should prioritise affordability, reliability, and Australian jobs. “We believe in a balanced and sovereign energy policy, and that means embracing a mix of coal, gas, and renewables, and making decisions based on facts, not ideology,” she said. “One Nation strongly questions the validity of the IPCC’s catastrophic climate predictions and sees no clear evidence that CO2 is the driver of global warming. We also support withdrawing from UN climate agreements that place burdens on Australians while letting major polluters off the hook.”
Housing is another major issue, with both minor parties proposing their own ideas for solving the crisis. Beatrice said that the solution lies in slowing the amount of foreign and interstate investors from buying houses in the Fairfax electorate.
“One of my top priorities is tackling homelessness by addressing the root causes, including land banking and property hoarding by foreign and interstate investors,” she said. “Much of the high-end development in Fairfax is geared toward tourism and short-term holiday rentals, like Airbnb, which drives up prices and locks locals, especially young people, out of the market.”
Sue blames tax incentives for encouraging wealthy investors to buy and hold houses as assets and investments, driving up house and rent prices and locking younger buyers out of the market. “This housing crisis didn’t happen overnight, and regardless of what’s said in the media it’s not because there’s too many people moving here or its Labor’s fault or it’s the Liberals’ fault, this crisis started when negative gearing and capital gains on houses was introduced and that incentivised people to just buy houses and hold on to them for a year so they pay 50 per cent less capital gains,” she said.
“From a pure business perspective it makes sense, but it’s not fair. It benefits those who can take advantage of those systems, but what about people who can’t? One in three corporations pay no tax. The gap between the rich and the socially and economically disadvantaged is widening, it’s never been this bad since the Great Depression.”
Sue said the Greens are hoping for a hung parliament at this election, which will give them bargaining power to push their policies in exchange for support in order to form a projected minority Labor Government. Sue also acknowledges the Teal Independent movement and, while she thinks there are advantages, she is worried about the lack of checks and balances.
“As a party-endorsed candidate, I have to jump through lots of hoops,” she said. “I had to have a bankruptcy check and a police check, then there’s a lengthy interview with a panel to ensure that my personal views align with Greens policy. Voters know that my views are consistent with party policy.
“The teals don’t have that system. They campaign on a promise to only represent their electorate but they don’t realise that their job is to make decisions that impact the whole of Australia, not just their electorate. That’s my biggest concern. I think the teals have a lot of appeal, and where I hope the teals have their greatest appeal is attracting disenfranchised Liberal voters.”
Beatrice said while the Greens and Teals present themselves as progressive and environmentally conscious, their policies are deeply misleading. “The Greens in particular have strayed far from their original environmental mission,” she said. “They now support clearing native forests to make way for so-called ‘green’ energy projects, which destroy habitats and wildlife.
“Their affiliations and support for certain activist causes also raise serious concerns. The Teals claim to be independent, but many are backed by significant funding and act more like extensions of the Greens. They don’t offer real solutions for everyday Australians, and in some cases their priorities seem out of step with the needs of working families.”
Currently, O’Brien holds Fairfax on a 9 per cent margin, enough to consider it as a safe LNP seat. However, his comfortable majority, including preferences, fell from 63.4 per cent after the 2019 election to 59 percent in 2022.
Click here for a timeline of Fairfax’s MPs.
The electoral division of Fairfax was created in 1984 and named after Country Women’s Association founder Ruth Fairfax. It has only seen four MPs throughout its 40-year history. Evan Adermann held the seat for the National Party from 1984 until he retired in 1990. Alex Somlyay won the seat next and held it for the Liberal Party until he retired in 2013.
Following the 2013 election, Clive Palmer snatched the seat for his Palmer United Party by only 53 votes before losing to current O’Brien in 2016.
At this election, O’Brien is aiming for a fourth term, but to do so he needs to overcome seven other candidates, including Sue and Beatrice, who both agree it is time for change. “I believe One Nation is the only party willing to challenge the status quo and bring back common sense, compassion and accountability in politics,” Beatrice said.
Of course, Sue disagrees. “Only the Greens can keep [Peter] Dutton out and hold Labor to account,” Sue said. “It’s time to tax the billionaires and tackle climate change so that there is a future for all of us.”
