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Max Chandler-Mather

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Max Chandler-Mather
MP
Member of the Australian Parliament for Griffith
Incumbent
Assumed office
21 May 2022
Preceded byTerri Butler
Personal details
Born (1992-02-15) 15 February 1992 (age 32)
South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia[1]
Political partyGreens (since 2016)
Other political
affiliations		Labor (until 2013)[2]
Residence(s)Woolloongabba, Queensland[1]
Alma materUniversity of Queensland[3]
Signature
Websitewww.maxchandlermather.com

Max Chandler-Mather (/-ˈmeɪðər/ -⁠MAY-dhər;[4] born 15 February 1992) is an Australian politician and trade unionist. He is the Greens member for the Division of Griffith following the 2022 Australian federal election, having defeated the incumbent Labor Party member Terri Butler.[5]

A resident of Woolloongabba, Chandler-Mather is a member of the Queensland Greens and worked for the party prior to being elected to parliament.[6]

Early life and career

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Chandler-Mather grew up in the suburb of West End.[6] His parents, Tim Mather and Kim Chandler, were members of the Australian Labor Party (ALP).[3] He attended Brisbane State High School.[3]

Chandler-Mather completed a Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours in History at the University of Queensland.[3] While at university he was a member of the Labor Party, and a member of the Labor Left faction, after being encouraged to join by his parents.[3] During this time, he worked part-time as a call centre worker at the trade union United Voice.[3] Chandler-Mather quit the ALP in 2013, stating in 2022 that he could not remain as a member of the party following Julia Gillard's reestablishment of off-shore detention centres in Nauru.[3]

After graduating, Chandler-Mather was a trade union organiser for the National Tertiary Education Union.[7][8]

Despite not being a member of the Greens at the time, Chandler-Mather was employed as Jonathan Sriranganathan's campaign manager for his successful 2016 campaign for Brisbane City Council.[7][8] Chandler-Mather and Sriranganathan organised their campaign around the left-wing social theory of the right to the city, arguing that property developers and banks have turned cities such as Brisbane into 'the new factory', resulting in people believing they do not have power over local communities.[8]

Political career

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After Sriranganathan's successful campaign, Chandler-Mather was employed as a full-time campaign strategist for the Queensland Greens, and aimed to take the seat of Griffith.[3] Chandler-Mather contested Griffith at the 2019 Australian federal election and achieved a 6.6% swing, but failed to get elected.

Chandler-Mather re-contested Griffith at the 2022 Australian federal election, and won with a 10.9% swing. His campaign was aimed at community engagement with politics, particularly local aircraft noise and housing affordability campaigns, and reportedly had over 1,000 volunteers who door-knocked 29,000 homes.[3] Following his election to the Australian parliament, Chandler-Mather was appointed as the Greens' spokesperson on housing and homelessness.[9] In this role he advocated for rent caps and government-built affordable housing, but voted to delay legislation to establish a housing fund and to establish a Help to Buy scheme.[10][11][12]

In May 2023, Independent MP Helen Haines and Liberal National MP Michelle Landry made complaints to the Speaker regarding personal attacks against him by Labor MPs in parliament, described as "vicious" by Haines. The attacks occurred in the context of dispute between Labor and the Greens about housing policy and rent caps.[13]

On 27 August 2024, Chandler-Mather took to the stage of a rally in Brisbane, protesting legislation passed the previous week to force the CFMEU into administration. With Prime Minister Anthony Albanese the target, some placards in the crowd portrayed the prime minister as Adolf Hitler with the word "Albanazi" which Chandler-Mather asked to be removed. Coffins were propped against the stage in front of each speaker. Each coffin displayed a picture of Albanese featuring the words "Bury the ALP".[14][15]

Political positions

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In a 2020 interview with Tom Ballard, Chandler-Mather expressed a desire to turn the Queensland Greens into a mass party that was primarily supported by the working class, though he stated he did not identify as a socialist ideologically, instead claiming that his priorities merely overlapped with what is often perceived as socialism.[8] Chandler-Mather's positions were deemed by the Green Left Weekly to be firmly on the left-wing of the Greens, noting his support for a four-day workweek and the public ownership of the electricity and telecommunications industries.[16] Chandler-Mather describes his politics during his time at university as supporting democratic socialism.[3] He has also been described as a "left populist". [17]

In 2023, defending his party's transitional demand that Australian rents should be frozen then capped, he said that passing the Housing Australia Future Fund bill would mollify renters and set back the Greens' campaign.[18]

Electoral history

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House of Representatives[19][20]
Year Electorate Party First Preference Result Two Candidate Result
Votes % ±% Position Votes % ±% Result
2019 Griffith Greens 23,562 23.65 Increase   6.67 Third Excluded
2022 36,771 34.59 Increase 10.94 First 64,271 60.46 Increase 60.46 Elected
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References

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  1. ^ a b "About: Hi, I'm Max and I'm your MP for Griffith". maxchandlermather.com. 2022. Archived from the original on 29 October 2022 – via Wayback Machine. I live with my partner in an apartment in Woolloongabba. I was born in the Mater Hospital in Brisbane and grew up in West End, Highgate Hill and Kangaroo Point.
  2. ^ Caldwell, Felicity (18 May 2018). "One in five Labor voters must defect to make Griffith Green: Candidate". The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH). Archived from the original on 2 June 2022. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Walker, Jamie (25 June 2022). "The Max factor: how Max Chandler-Mather and the Greens ambushed Brisbane". The Australian.
  4. ^ Chandler-Mather, Max [@MChandlerMather] (6 April 2022). "If you feel like it's getting harder to tell Labor and the Liberals apart, you're not alone. But there's hope. We only need a 3.5% swing to win Griffith and push the next government to tackle the housing and climate crises and bring dental into Medicare" (Tweet). Retrieved 29 September 2022 – via Twitter.
  5. ^ Trajkovich, Marina (22 May 2022). "How Queensland voted: Greens win key seat in parliament as Peter Dutton in line for leader of the opposition". Nine News. Archived from the original on 21 May 2022. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  6. ^ a b "Candidate Profile: Max Chandler-Mather for Griffith". Westender. 3 May 2022. Archived from the original on 19 May 2022. Retrieved 21 May 2022.
  7. ^ a b "Griffith (Key Seat) – Federal Election 2022". Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). May 2022. Archived from the original on 28 May 2022. Retrieved 28 May 2022.
  8. ^ a b c d Ballard, Tom; Chandler-Mather, Max (27 October 2020). "How Australia's Greens Are Winning a Left-Wing Vote in the Heart of "Conservative Queensland"". Jacobin. Archived from the original on 2 July 2022. Retrieved 20 June 2022.
  9. ^ Marsellos, Brad (22 June 2022). "Rent caps, Airbnb limits and a million homes: Greens push from city to bush in housing crisis". Wide Bay. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Archived from the original on 24 June 2022. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  10. ^ Ferguson, Sarah (21 June 2023). Greens’ Max Chandler-Mather on blocking the Housing Australia Future Fund bill (Television Production). Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Archived from the original on 21 June 2023.
  11. ^ Worthington, Brett (19 June 2023). "Federal government a step closer to early election trigger as Senate rejects housing bill". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Archived from the original on 6 October 2024. Retrieved 18 November 2024.
  12. ^ Yussuf, Ahmed (3 October 2024). "Now the Help to Buy bill is returning to parliament, here's how shared equity works for first home buyers". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Archived from the original on 7 October 2024. Retrieved 18 November 2024.
  13. ^ Sakkal, Paul (26 May 2023). "'Vicious' personal attacks on Greens MP draw complaints from cross-party MPs". The Age. Archived from the original on 9 June 2023. Retrieved 8 June 2023.
  14. ^ Crowley, Tom. "Greens leader defends MP's CFMEU rally attendance but says Nazi sign 'offensive'". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Archived from the original on 28 August 2024. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
  15. ^ Knott, Matthew (27 October 2024). "'Buyer's remorse': Defeated Labor takes solace in Greens' losses in Queensland". Brisbane Times. Nine Publishing. Archived from the original on 20 November 2024. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
  16. ^ Bainbridge, Alex (11 May 2022). "Greens make a strong push to win Griffith in Qld". Green Left. Archived from the original on 14 June 2022. Retrieved 14 June 2022. Chandler-Mather, among the most left of all Greens candidates, has also championed a four-day work week and "bringing whole sectors of the economy back into public ownership [including] electricity and telecommunications".
  17. ^ Clark, Benjamin (28 March 2024). "Australia deserves a better left populist than Max Chandler-Mather". Crikey. Private Media. Archived from the original on 28 March 2024. Retrieved 14 May 2024. Enter Max Chandler-Mather — a new kind of Greens MP employing explicitly left populist rhetoric.
  18. ^ Chandler-Mather, Max (2 June 2023). "Australia Is Facing the Biggest Housing Crisis in Generations, and Labor's Plan Will Make It Worse". Jacobin. Asher Dupuy-Spencer. Archived from the original on 30 September 2024.
  19. ^ "Griffith, QLD - AEC Tally Room". AEC Tally Room. 6 June 2019. Archived from the original on 30 March 2024. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  20. ^ "Griffith, QLD - AEC Tally Room". AEC Tally Room. 11 June 2022. Archived from the original on 8 December 2023. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
[edit]
Parliament of Australia
Preceded by Member for Griffith
2022–present 		Incumbent
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