Why all eyes are on Trevor Ross and the bellwether seat of Lindsay

As millions of Australians head to the polls on Saturday, Labor candidate Trevor Ross aims to win the bellwether seat of Lindsay.

As a firefighter for nearly 40 years, Ross describes himself as a working-class man but says he is up for the challenge of becoming an MP.

“Over the last 40 years, I’ve got to know people on the worst day of their life, and I’ve got to know what people need,” he says. “I think politics has enough academics, so I think we need someone like me.”

In 2019, the Liberal Party’s Melissa McIntosh won the seat by a margin of five per cent, but a poll in News Corp papers this week suggests the seat is “too close to call.”

Ross launched his campaign in March, which, since then, has been run almost entirely on volunteers. With a significantly smaller budget than his Liberal counterpart, he formed a team of ALP members who have donated their time to support his plan for a better future.

He says becoming a politician felt like a natural next step to follow in the footsteps of his mother and grandfather, who were well-known for their background in politics.

If elected, he plans to support the “big issues” that the ALP plans to tackle by improving aged care and Medicare.

Ross says it’s time to get more people involved in the decision making of politics. “I think that we can make a good team,” he says. “We can have our academics, but I think we need working class people in there as well.”