Meet Your Candidate

This guide has everything you need to know about setting up a meeting with candidates before the election on Saturday 21 May.

The election is the perfect time to meet your local candidate and make a difference. There are hundreds of candidates across the country who are asking for your vote. You can meet with them to share what matters to you and tell them what they should do if they’re elected. It’s easy to set up a meeting with candidates and this guide has everything you need to know.

 

Find your candidate

We’re focusing on meeting candidates for the House of Representatives in Parliament. These candidates will represent a local electorate if they get enough votes at the election. There will usually be a few candidates for each electorate. They might be running as a member of a political party or as an independent.

The first step is to find your candidate and request a meeting. You can use our form to see a list of all of the candidates in your electorate and send an email asking for a meeting. All you have to do is enter your address and make a few changes to the email. You can use this form to contact every candidate in your electorate, but it’s better to send an invitation to only one candidate at a time.

We recommend a follow up email or phone call about one week after you send your first meeting request. It sometimes takes a few weeks for candidates to respond to emails, so you may have to be persistent and contact them a few times.

Meet your candidates

There are a few things you should do to prepare for a meeting with a candidate. You should find out if they are a current member of parliament and if they are a member of a political party using the parliament directory. You should then try to find out more about the candidate by looking them up and learning more about their political views and ideas. We recommend preparing some talking points before the meeting.

The next step is to meet with the candidate. Meetings are usually about half an hour and you can meet online or at their office. In the meeting it’s helpful to be friendly and to ask the candidate plenty of questions. We usually follow these steps in a meeting:

  1. Introduce yourself and where you’re from

  2. Share the idea or issue you want the candidate to consider

  3. Discuss what the candidate thinks about that idea or issue

  4. Ask the candidate what they will do about your idea or issue

It’s important to think about what you would like a candidate to do about your idea or issue. There are a few things we regularly ask candidates and politicians to do at meetings:

  • Make a public statement in support of your idea

  • Make a speech in parliament about your issue

  • Raise your issue at a party meeting

  • Discuss the idea or issue with a leader in their party

  • Introduce or support legislation to address your issue

  • Establish a parliamentary inquiry into your issue

  • Provide funding to support your idea

We recommend contacting the candidate about one week after your meeting to follow up and to confirm what they will do about your idea or issue following your meeting.

Support

We know that you might want support when you meet a candidate for the first time and we’re here to help. We can help you find your candidate, prepare for a meeting and we can even attend a meeting together.

The AYAC Election Guide has everything you need to take action and make a difference. You can find out more about how to vote, meeting candidates and where the parties stand on what matters to you.