Sydney Power 100 | Daily Telegraph

Dai Le

Federal Independent MP

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Independent Fowler MP Dai Le has established herself as a force to be reckoned with.

Two years after her remarkable victory in western Sydney at the 2022 election, which saw her independent campaign knock out high profile blow-in Kristina Keneally’s effort to win the seat for Labor, Le is not resting on her laurels.

Instead, she is teaming up with close local political ally, Fairfield mayor Frank Carbone, to drive a push to elect local western Sydney candidates to parliament and break the stranglehold of a two party system that she says either ignores the region or takes it for granted.

Under the rubric of the Western Sydney Community Party, an idea which she admits is still “early days”, Le says “the intention is to build momentum for candidates to run in future elections to represent the region”.

“I think for decades, this region has been considered safe Labor,” she says.

“And as a result of that safe tag, the community has not been very looked after.”

“From my perspective, we have missed out on funding and resourcing and opportunities to grow and prosper.”

Securing that support is all the more important in the face of a booming population.

While Le understands the need to accommodate more people in Sydney and work to solve the housing crisis, she says her area “already is pretty dense … I don’t know how much more dense we can make it here.”

“We don’t’ want to cram everybody in here if there’s no investment in roads, in our local schools, in our hospitals.”