Kelly Ellis at one of many pre-election forums “Regroup, regather, renew” is the mantra of Kelly Ellis this morning, who is happy she made a dent in the gap between Labour and National and in her Whangarei electorate – and is also paying tribute to Maryan Street. The openly-transgender lawyer and Labour candidate always had a tough ask in the blue seat. “We managed to knock back the gap between Labour and National. This goes against the trend and, I guess, our team can take some comfort from that,” she tells GayNZ.com Daily News this morning. “But we've got a hard three years ahead of this and I seriously worry for this town and the prospects for our children,” she adds. “I'm incredibly proud of our people up here who worked till after midnight in the pouring rain getting hoardings down. Obviously, this was a big push from a new team up here. We've now got three years to regroup, regather, renew and come back stronger than ever.” Ellis, who is also the co-founder of TransAdvocates, says she is very sad Labour stalwart Maryan Street appears to have missed out on a seat. “She's been a great ally to trans people and her influence will continue.” There are 293,130 special votes yet to be counted.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Sunday, 21st September 2014 - 8:56am