Former state Greens MP Huong Truong has been preselected to contest the Labor-held federal seat of Fraser in Melbourne’s west.

Labor’s Daniel Mulino holds the seat with a comfortable 16.5 per cent margin on a two-party preferred basis, though voters in the inner corner of the electorate around Footscray have increasingly backed the Greens, based on recent elections.

An artist and a former organiser with the National Union of Workers, Truong grew up in the west and is the child of Vietnamese refugees. In the 2021 census, 18.5 per cent of people in Fraser said they had Vietnamese ancestry and 15 per cent were born in Vietnam.

“I’m no stranger to fighting for the west, for people abandoned by the Labor and Liberal parties. I’m running to help us westies believe in our democracy again,” Truong said in a statement.

“Our people are crying out for better health infrastructure, for action to stop unlimited rent increases, and an end to price gouging at the supermarket checkout – but Labor is refusing to act.”

The Greens will campaign on the cost of living and housing affordability. Thirty-eight per cent of households rented in Fraser – which also takes in Sunshine and St Albans – at the 2021 census, almost 10 percentage points higher than the state average.

The Greens have been pushing for a rent freeze, which has been criticised by economists and the housing industry during a period of runaway housing costs. The cost of renting a unit in St Albans increased 14.7 per cent in the year to the June quarter, and by 18.2 per cent in Sunshine over the same period, according to Domain data. The average weekly rent for a unit in those suburbs was $390.

Truong represented the Western Metropolitan region in the Victorian upper house for less than a year in 2018. She was appointed to fill a vacancy from February that year – following Colleen Hartland’s resignation – but Truong lost the seat at the state election in November 2018.