Assange pledges transparency

WikiLeaks founder and Australian Senate candidate Julian Assange said he is proud of the level of support he enjoys in his home country and has pledged to enforce transparency in Parliament if he wins a seat in elections.

“When you turn a bright light on, the cockroaches scuttle away, and that’s what we need to do to Canberra,” he said in an interview with Nine Network television that was broadcast yesterday.

A national survey by Sydney-based UMR Research found in April that 26 per cent of Australian voters were likely to pick Assange or other candidates running for his WikiLeaks Party in elections. Another poll by The Monthly website in June also found 21 per cent would consider voting for his party.

Assange has been campaigning by Skype from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he was granted asylum in June last year to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex crime allegations.

If he wins the election, he would be required to take up his Senate seat on July 1 next year.

Labor currently holds 71 seats in the 150-seat Lower House chamber where government is formed, compared with 72 for the opposition Liberal National coalition. Agencies