Dr Saleam announced last week he would run in the Cootamundra by-election, despite his party not being registered to contest state elections. 

“Trying to recraft NSW country towns as jail towns and refugee dumps has a mark of desperation about it,” he said. 

“There are security problems, the town is invaded by the kind of people you have coming to visit prisoners.” 

He said if elected, he would look to halt the current expansion of the Correctional Centre.

“We need to freeze these sorts of developments and start looking at solutions,” he said.

Although he will run without a party name on the ballot, he said he’s made no effort to conceal he’s a member of Australia First and will run on a platform rejecting the “foreign acquisition of land and resources.”

Dr Saleam is based in Sydney and seemingly has no connection to Cootamundra.

The campaign will be run by Lorraine Sharp, who ran for Wagga Council in 2016.

Australia First have run candidates in state electorates before, including Victor Waterson for Penrith in 2015, who collected 0.68 per cent of the formal vote.

“Our main aim is not votes but to put issues out to the community,” he said.

He said he will advocate to protect farmers from “Chinese imperialism” and industrialisation.

“Trade has gone beyond trade and become a cult,” he said.

“This globalist regime is going to kill your farming as it’s progressively replaced by mining.”

Dr Saleam accused the Shooters, Farmers and Fishers Party, who are yet to announce their candidate, of being a satellite of the Liberal and National parties. 

“We will be running on the original program of the Shooters and Fishers, that firearm ownership should be a matter of right subject to regulation,” he said. 

Saleam will nominate his candidature this week.