NARRE WARREN NORTH:
Suburbs include: Narre Warren, Narre Warren North, Hallam, Endeavour Hills, Lysterfield South, and parts of Berwick.
Formerly held by Luke Donnellan (ALP) at 60.4 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis.
1. Where do you live and how long have you lived there?
2. Why did you choose to run for the seat?
3. Why are you the best candidate for Narre Warren North?
4. Biggest three issues in your electorate and how will you tackle them?
5. What measures would you implement to ensure integrity and transparency in government?
6. What is your view on community calls for a change to the Narre Warren North Road Upgrade design and what action would you take to support that view?
Timothy Dragan (Liberal)
Age: 26
Occupation: Consultant
1. As a lifelong local, I was raised in Endeavour Hills and currently reside in Berwick.
2. Being born and raised in the area, I am passionate about our community and I want to ensure that it has the best infrastructure and schools, and support our local communities and clubs.
3. Because I am a lifelong local. I shop in the area, I drive in the area, I have friends in the area and I am involved with communities within the area. This allows me to better understand the needs of our area and to better advocate and represent our area.
4. Cost of living pressures are one of the key issues raised. This is why a Liberal Government will make public transport affordable by capping metro fares at 2 dollars; keeping energy affordable by releasing our natural gas reserve; cutting stamp duty for first home buyers; and by cutting seven Labor taxes that impact transport and housing costs.
Another issue raised with me are upgrades to our schools and community clubs. There are schools and clubs that either have lack of facilities or extremely expensive repairs that they cannot afford. That’s why the Liberals will help our local schools by investing more than $12 million, and our local clubs and communities by investing $9.85 million.
The other issue raised is the maintenance of our local roads, which are reaching the worst conditions seen in a long time, with many having had incidents with potholes. This is why a Liberal Government will invest $10 billion across to Victoria to fix and maintain the quality of our roads.
5. As our integrity policy states, we will ensure that IBAC will receive proper funding. Furthermore, we will provide anti-corruption training to all senior public servants and implement it into the inductions, and ensure a mandatory refresher and training for the public service.
6. As a local who uses the road and has friends who live in the affected area, I support the call from the community. This is why a Liberal Government will invest $5 million to fix the Narre Warren North Road with proper consultation with the local residents.
Stephen Matulec (Liberal Democrats)
Age: 20
Occupation: Politics Student
1. I have lived in Narre Warren for my entire life.
2. I have been a Narre Warren local my entire life, I went to school and I work here. I want the people of Narre Warren North to have somebody who is a true local who can really connect with the community on local issues. I want to defend the liberties of the people and give them a strong voice in parliament.
3. The Liberal Democrats have been a party of principle for more than 20 years and we are the only libertarian party. My values align with the Liberal Democrats, I believe in individual freedom, low taxes and a small government. The Liberal Democrats have never voted to increase your taxes and have never voted to decrease your liberty. We are the only party who has consistently voted this way and I will continue to do so.
4. Cost of living, energy prices and inflation – I will scrap stamp duty to make home ownership cheaper. Energy needs to be cheap, reliable and abundant. I will remove the ban on nuclear energy and scrap the Victorian Renewable Energy Target. This will ensure that competition will find the lowest price for energy. I would also scrap the GST from electricity which would further bring down the cost of power bills.
Education – There has been a lot of concern from parents about politicisation in the curriculum. I believe it is important for parents to have maximum choice about where they send their kids and what
education they would like their kids to receive. One size does not fit all when it comes to education, so I would like to give schools the ability to opt out of the national curriculum.
Restrictions on Civil Liberties – For too long the government has been telling us what to do. Provided you are not harming anyone else, the best person to make decisions for you – is you. I would get rid of the nanny state and end all punishments for victimless crimes. This would include ending the war on drugs and scrapping all vaccine mandates. I would also put forward a constitutional bill of rights to make sure that free speech and our human rights are protected.
5. Keeping the government honest and having an alternative power to block government is important in a liberal democracy. This has been the most corrupt and dishonest government I have ever seen, and they are not being held accountable. The ombudsman and IBAC are important to keep the public sector accountable. I would improve IBAC’s investigative powers and restore the power to conduct public hearings. I would like there to be independent oversight for all police misconduct complaints and to increase funding for IBAC.
6. Roads are extremely important. As a local I drive through the roadworks regularly, I can see how dangerous and frustrating it is driving through there. If the community has concerns and calls, they need to be heard and listened to by the government. The government has been ignoring concerns from the community which I think is absolutely appalling. The government in 2018 promised there would be lights at Crawley Road and they also removed right turns out of Brundrett Rd; this is going to cause too many U-turns. I think it is important for the government to keep to their promises and the community are not happy with this broken promise. I will hold the government to account and will listen to the people to make sure these promises by the government are kept.
Stephen Capon (Independent)
Age: 25
Occupation: Electrical engineer
1. I live in the Maramba estate in Narre Warren, and have lived there for the past 19 years.
2.I want to run for the seat to both inspire my generation to step up, take responsibility, and fix any issues around them, rather than lamenting that things aren’t working, and nothing is being done. I want to show that by stepping up myself. I also see it as important to have someone who lives in the area to represent the community, and because I see state politics as a way of helping those who are struggling and helping the community.
3. I’m a local with both the passion and energy to serve and represent you, the people, and not a political party. Only an independent can truly represent what their community thinks without having to toe a party line.
4. Housing affordability (which ties in with cost-of-living), domestic/family violence, and a lack of good facilities/services in the community (including potholes in the roads).
I am aiming to improve housing affordability both by increasing supply, changing zoning laws, reducing corporate and interstate/international ownership of residential homes, and increasing vacant property tax. This would feed through into reduced financial stress and more housing available for those dealing with domestic violence, helping to both reduce the cause and limit the impact by providing alternative shelter. I will be seeking to investigate what has happened to a number of the community services, why they are no longer being provided, and ensuring adequate state funding (which will also help in domestic violence).
5. Some of the actions that I would take include ensuring that any IBAC corruption hearings are held publicly; broadening Freedom of Information requests, and being easily accessible to local community members to allow for any queries from locals to be answered.
6. Noting that the initial design promised by the Labor government in 2018 was not followed through on, I would seek to change the design to closer resemble the original design from 2018 (noting that I would need to discuss the impacts on the Narre North CFA’s ability to respond to emergencies if this design was implemented).
Craig Parker (Freedom Party of Victoria)
Age: 56
Occupation: self-employed carpenter
1. I live in Berwick and have lived here for 20 years.
2. I chose to run in the state election to hopefully bring Freedom back to Victoria. The freedom to think, the freedom to parent, the freedom of choice without government intervention, to bring the ideas of an everyday person not the ideas of a career politician, and to bring an end to the Labor Party’s dictatorial reign.
3. I will be truthful and try and implement what is beneficial for society and do my best to fight against bad Government policy that have taken away our basic human rights, the right of free speech, freedom of movement, freedom of choice, especially in regards to no Jab no Job. The right of every parent to bring up their child the way they see best. It is never OK for the government to enforce and bring into law a way to remove parental control over their children.
4. The question of integrity and transparency is hard to address, as to get these things you have to have moral people in government, no laws or legislation made by any man can make a corrupt man or woman have a moral compass. If a person wants to pursue a path of wrong doing it’s hard to change them as we have seen with Daniel Andrews and his Labor Government.
5. As for the Narre Warren North upgrade, one change needs to be addressed very quickly and that is the U-turn to access the horse-riding area. I have had to turn there myself and it is a tight turn with a large 4×4 Ute, without a horse float attached, so I can imagine this will be a hazard for a larger car or truck negotiating this turn. I would do my best to change this and to address any other safety concerns residents have with the traffic engineer.
Laura McLean (Australian Greens)
Age: 27
Occupation: Training Support Officer at the Australian Services Union
1. I moved down to the area about two years ago during lockdown. I met my wonderful partner in February 2020. He’s lived in this electorate his entire life growing up in Endeavour Hills and attending Gleneagles Secondary. Since moving here I have fallen in love with the diverse community and access to vitally important green space such as the beautiful Lysterfield Park.
2. I’ve chosen to stand in this election because I believe it;s important for our community to have an alternative to the two major parties. The Greens positions on integrity in politics, tackling the climate crisis and improving our public transport sector to be more accessible and affordable can be of great benefit to our local community here.
3. I believe I offer the people of Narre Warren North a real alternative to the two major parties. I come from a family of strong working women, I’ve experienced first hand the struggles that us working people face daily, to feed our families, to scrape together enough rent to keep a roof over our heads, to balance work and caring responsibilities.
It is because of this struggle that I became active in the Union movement and through my work I have been able to help fellow workers going through the same struggles that I’ve experienced or seen growing up. If I am elected I will continue to fight for our right to secure employment, with liveable wages and solid working conditions for all workers. We are seeing a cost of living crisis that’s impacting our local community hardest in Narre Warren North. Peoples wages should be able to keep up with increased cost of living. People deserve secure housing and fair working conditions. The Vic Greens will continue to fight for those things.
4. The housing crisis is hitting us hard down here – The Victorian Greens have a plan to tackle this. It involves:
* A big build of 200,000 new accessible and sustainable public and affordable homes over the next 20 years, creating 10,000 quality jobs.
* Making property developers allocate affordable homes to first home owners.
* Limiting rent increases to stop out of control rent rises.
* Introducing a public and affordable housing levy, so developers have to contribute their fair share to affordable housing.
Along with the housing crisis our local community is really feeling the brunt of the increased cost of living. The Vic Greens plan to tackle this involves:
* Cheaper energy bills for households through a publicly-owned energy retailer.
* Genuinely free public schools with no out-of-pocket expenses for families.
* Higher wages for essential public sector workers by removing the wages cap for non-executive workers.
* Creating tens of thousands of jobs in renewable energy, building affordable homes, restoring nature, and in the caring professions such as mental and dental healthcare and more teachers and community services.
And finally the big one of everyone’s mind, especially those families with young children is tackling the climate crisis. One of the main reasons I joined the Victorian Greens is because we have a serious and realistic policy that addresses the climate crisis while, most importantly, ensuring that no workers are disadvantaged or left behind while we transition to cheap and effective renewable energy and away from coal and gas. The community can read more on our clean energy policy here: greens.org.au/vic/platform/climate#big-build-renewable-energy
5. This is a really good question and is actually related to one of our key policy platforms that we’re taking to this state election. The Victorian Greens have already written a bill that we’re ready to introduce to state parliament that will:
* Establish an Independent Parliamentary Integrity Commissioner with real powers to sanction MPs and public officials who create an unsafe workplace, act disrespectfully, or fail to work in the public’s best interests. Strengthen ‘revolving door’ rules, and prevent ministers and staffers moving straight into lobbying or related private sector roles.
* Require all ministers and the Premier to proactively disclose their diaries and meetings.
* Beyond the bill we plan to introduce we have a broad plan to restore integrity in politics. Some key points are: Give Victoria’s anti-corruption agency IBAC more teeth and more funding.
* Create an independent Parliamentary Integrity Commissioner to oversee MP behaviour.
* Implement campaign spending caps and truth in political advertising laws, and end dodgy preference deals.
* Publish ministerial diaries, so we all know who powerful politicians are meeting with.
* Establish real rules and penalties for MPs, Ministers and lobbyists whodo the wrong thing.
6. I believe that community consultation is vitally important when working on any developments or upgrade of public infrastructure. What I’ve been hearing from the community is that they haven’t been properly consulted on the design and there are serious flaws for people not being able to turn right into the aged care home and the community wants lights installed. If I was elected I would consult with community around their concerns and build a design together that meets everyone’s needs and push for this to be implemented.
No responses: Belinda Wilson (ALP), Andrew Zmegac (Labour DLP), Monique Ruyter (Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Vic), Sheree Gardener (Animal Justice Party), Christine Elkins (Family First Victoria).
