Lyons residents Janet Lambert and Jenna Butler have announced their intention to seek pre-selection for the Labor Party.
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Ms Lambert, a Northern Midlands Councillor, and Ms Butler, a political and community activist, revealed their pre-selection plans for the Lyons electorate on Saturday.
Ms Lambert grew up at Ravenswood before becoming a teacher and moving to the Northern Midlands.
She said her background as both a teacher and a councillor had made her determined to make a difference.
Ms Butler, who grew up at St Helens, said she appreciated the large and unique electorate of Lyons and that she would focus on employment and the health system.
“I don’t want to take anything away from the workers in the health system, I think they are doing the best that they can do,” she said.
“I think it’s time that we were honest about how many people are waiting and about how we go about better funding and better managing the system.
“I think we could look at the way in which the services are delivered … the best way to go about it would be to have an honest conversation about service delivery and how it’s not working.”
Ms Lambert said she wanted to be a part of making Lyons a better place to live, work, and a place where people wanted to stay.
“Everything that I’ve been doing in my life, my work, careers, community-wise, has got me to this point where this is really what I want to do,” she said.
“I want to help make the policies and make change and make things better for people in the communities.
“I’ve learnt that you have to listen to every side of the story, you can’t just go in to make a decision and not have the whole story.”
Ms Lambert said the issue of education within the Lyons electorate was especially important for the future.
“I am passionate about seeing kids in Lyons meet their full potential, and for me that means finishing year 12 and having an opportunity to have a direct pathway to either a TAFE course that is actually going to result in a job at the end or to a university course or to secure employment,” she said.
“I also think we need to be looking at some more preventative health strategies in our communities to take the pressure off the health systems and our hospitals before it even starts.”
Ms Butler said more needed to be done to grow employment opportunities for those living in regional communities.
“We need to start looking at decentralising the decisions all coming from Hobart, we need to provide better services to the rest of Tasmania,” she said.
Labor’s full line up of candidates is set to be revealed next month.