THOR KERR’S federal campaign launch won some literary bling when renowned author Liz Byrski turned up to pledge her support for the Greens’ Tangney candidate.

Dr Byrski, who’s worked with Dr Kerr at Curtin University, says he can be summed up in five words: “Respect, integrity, compassion, courage and wisdom.”

“He is a person of great integrity, a person with vision and the sort of courage it takes to represent a diverse electorate on both local, national and international issues,” she says.

• Thor Kerr and Liz Byrski at his campaign launch.
Photo supplied | Jamnes Danenberg

Dr Byrski has lived in Tangney, a super-safe Liberal seat, for 17 years and says she became a Greens supporter in 2014 after watching a video of senator Scott Ludlam lambasting Tony Abbott.

Dr Kerr decided to join the Greens on the eve of 2003 Iraq war and reflected on his personal experience with traumatised soldiers at the Arborfield Garrison in England after the first gulf war.

“I had been invited by the British modern pentathlon squad to train at the garrison in 1991, and was soon shocked by the traumatic effect that the first gulf war had on British soldiers that I was training and competing with. One elite athlete was completely broken by his involvement in that war,” he said.

“If the victors could be so damaged, I began to question what war does do to those on the receiving end of military violence. It made me think about the extent of suffering from armed conflict.”

by STEPHEN POLLOCK