Assange upbeat on chances in Oz poll
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Tuesday he has a good chance of winning election to Australia’s upper house and pledged to give lawmakers a whistleblowing tool to report corruption.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Tuesday he has a good chance of winning election to Australia’s upper house and pledged to give lawmakers a whistleblowing tool to report corruption.
Assange, who is standing along with six other WikiLeaks Party candidates in the September 7 national poll, said his numbers were strong.
“We have polling over many polls now including the (ruling) ALP’s own polling company UMR showing that I have 25 to 28 percent of the voting intention — 40% of the voting intention for people under the age of 30,” Assange told Australia’s SBS television.
“That’s a really very significant result,” he added in an interview at the Ecuadoran embassy in London, where he has been holed up for more than a year.
Assange’s WikiLeaks Party has vowed to be an “independent scrutineer of government activity” on a range of issues including tax reform, asylum-seekers and climate change policy.