Thursday, 3 August 2023

Warrandyte electorate

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (09:51): I have been lucky enough to have been spending my weekends recently out in Warrandyte and the surrounding suburbs, doorknocking and talking to people at markets. It is a beautiful part of the world, as I am sure you will agree. I have got to say, though, there are some very clear concerns that have come out of some of these conversations. Overwhelmingly, people that I have been speaking to at their front doors have been telling me that they had not been engaged with previously by their former MP. It is an area of the world that has been taken for granted for a long time, unfortunately. They want to be involved, and they want to see their voices reflected in this place in an active sense.

People are also quite worried to see that seemingly every day there is a new candidate announced to be running that is pushing a deeply conservative agenda, parachuted in from outside the electorate, often pushing quite conservative religious views, things informed by religion. It really to me is quite troubling. We look at things like access to abortion, voluntary assisted dying – things that are crucial that we have in this state. The act to potentially erode those things I think is quite scary to me and to others in the community, so deeply troubling. This also includes protections for our LGBTQIA+ young people.

People are feeling the pinch of rising prices. They are worried about their power bills. Young families tell me they want to get off gas. This area is sick of being taken for granted, so I tell them, ‘Nothing changes if nothing changes. You have the power to change this.’