Ahead of the Saturday 2 July election, Journal reporter CASEY NEILL is catching up with the key candidates for the three seats where Greater Dandenong residents will cast their votes.
Here’s what Labor Isaacs incumbent Mark Dreyfus and Greens Party hopeful Alex Breskin had to say.
Isaacs has been in ALP hands since 1996 but Mark Dreyfus knows his 3.9 per cent win at the last election means it’s a marginal seat.
His Liberal Party opponent in 2013, Garry Spencer, attracted a 6.5 per cent swing and will again contest the seat.
Mr Dreyfus put his vote drop down to a national swing against the ALP.
He said the Palmer United Party attracted 3.3 per cent of the overall vote at the last election and these would likely flow back to the ALP and Liberal candidates.
He was “not expecting The Greens to play a role in the outcome of the Isaacs election”.
The party slipped 3.8 per cent at the 2013 poll but that hasn’t stopped Alex Breskin from putting his hand up to represent the electorate which includes Dandenong South, Keysborough and parts of Noble Park.
The 25-year-old works as a software engineer for a small business, is the secretary of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Australia, and ran for Mordialloc in the 2014 state election.
“I put up my hand because I wanted to do something that was going to be good for the community,” he said.
“I thought putting myself out there was the best way to get change going.”
Climate change, healthcare, education and justice issues are his key concerns and from door-knocking, he believes many Isaacs residents share his views.
“My parents were asylum seekers,” he said.
“They came to Australia during 1988 – when Armenia and Azerbaijan were in the middle of a border war.
“I feel that people trying to escape death and persecution shouldn’t be forced into a horrible situation by our government.”
Mr Breskin is realistic about his chances of winning the seat, but hopes to attract a strong vote to influence whoever the community does elect and to make the Greens more visible.
Mr Dreyfus, a barrister and queens counsel, has been involved in politics all his adult life and entered parliament in 2007.
“I think I’ve been a very active, accessible and articulate spokesman for the community,” he said.
He was inspired to put his hand up by “the sense that you could get something done”.
“The issues motivating me to go into parliament in 2007 were real action on climate change, better funding for our schools, and I’m still working on those issues,” he said.
“A commitment to needs-based funding of education – the Gonski model – will mean more money to every school in our community.
“Every school in Keysborough, every school in Dandenong South, every school in Noble Park will receive more money if Labor is elected to government.”
Mr Dreyfus said he’s spent this term in Opposition working “to block the worst cuts of the Abbott-Turnbull government”.
“The Abbott government abolished the automotive transformation scheme. Protests by Labor and the automotive industry meant that the government had to reverse that decision and preserve about half of the scheme,” he said.
The Journal contacted Garry Spencer several times but did not receive a response.
