LIBERAL candidate for Kalamunda Adam Hort is a sixth generation hills resident, state heart transplant pharmacist, and former deputy mayor of Gosnells who says he wants to make a difference.

Mr Hort met with Echo News this week to share his deep connections to the area and how his upbringing shaped who he is and why he got involved in government.

“(My ancestors) moved right across Australia in the 1800s and settled in Darlington right against what we would now call Great Eastern Highway,” he said.

“They lived in a cottage up against the highway called Hortly Lodge and that’s where my grandfather, pop I call him, was born.

“Now, I’m raising my kids who are seventh generation Perth Hills residents in Lesmurdie.”

Mr Hort said he attended school in the hills, doing well in chemistry and eventually working in pharmacy which helped set his course to become the state’s chief heart transplant pharmacist and regional health head pharmacist.

“Like any good high school kid, I worked at the local fish and chip shop and I delivered newspapers around Lesmurdie on my bike,” he said.

“I stacked shelves in Woolies but eventually I found myself working in Nightingales Pharmacy in Kalamunda.

“That’s where I really got to know my community and really relished that community connection.

“I’d see grandparents, parents and their kids coming through for a variety of different ailments and needing different things and I got to help them, and I loved it.”

Mr Hort carried his community ideals with him to Thornlie where he lived for a while before moving back to the hills.

During that time the Thornlie community urged him to run for council which was his first taste of working in government.

Mr Hort said this led to a successful run as an elected member, and later became the deputy mayor of Gosnells, where he got to familiarise himself with local government and state government’s relationship.

He said with the inside perspective, he realised how little power local government had and how much constraint was put on local government by state government and so wanted to change tack.

Mr Hort said the road ahead meant many meetings with the community, and hoped people would be comfortable approaching him for a pub or coffee catch-up to discuss what they cared about.

“A lot of people are concerned about bushfires and what’s happening with bushfires and whether or not their local bushfire brigade is going to be resourced appropriately as well as the issue of housing affordability,” he said.

“I’m genuinely doing this because I want to make a difference, and I think any other option in this election will not generate the outcomes that our community deserves.”