By Callum Ludwig
The Australian Greens have announced their candidate for Casey in the upcoming 2025 Federal election.
Dr Merran Blair has been named as the candidate, a dietician born and raised in Emerald who currently works as a lecturer and practice academic at Monash University.
Dr Blair said she has lived in and around Casey for most of her life.
“I did leave Victoria for just over a decade and spent the majority of this lime living in Ulladulla on the South Coast of New South Wale, In the time that I was living outside of Victoria I also lived and worked in three other states of Australia, so I have a broad perspective of the challenges people face in different areas of the country,” she said.
“I returned to study as a mature-age student to complete my dietetics degree in 2017 and finished a PhD in employability in December 2023, I have been really fortunate to have this opportunity for a career change later in life,”
“Prior to returning to study I had a long series of insecure jobs, mostly in hospitality, and I have also run my own business twice, I got fed up with low-paying, insecure work and decided to get myself more set up with a career and obviously, that has come with sacrifices over the years that I have been studying, but I feel I am in a much better position now to give back to my community.”
Dr Blair will contest the seat of Casey where Jenny Game, the Greens candidate for the 2022 and 2019 elections, managed to achieve 12.94 and 10.94 per cent of the vote respectively.
Dr Blair said Casey is an extremely marginal electorate as just a 5.1 per cent swing in the vote would turn Casey Green.
“I am very excited to step up and represent our electorate and give back to our community, this is an amazing opportunity to finally have a representative in parliament who understands that climate change is not going away unless we take urgent action,” she said.
“The people of Casey are more affected by climate change than many other electorates and we are sick of waiting for governments to take the issue seriously and act accordingly.
“We are also, much like the rest of the country, hurting from the cost of living crisis. Consecutive Labor and Liberal governments have dropped the ball on affordable housing, and they are scared to act to stop supermarket price gouging and to intervene in the cost of electricity. I look forward to pushing for action on these issues if I am elected.”
The Greens are the first political party or group to officially name their candidate for the Casey electorate, though serving Liberal MP Aaron Violi will be fighting to keep his seat having only been elected last time around. The Liberal Party has named its candidates for seats it will be contesting next year, including in the neighbouring Aston electorate which was won by Labor MP Mary Doyle during a by-election in April 2023.
Dr Blair said she plans to talk to as many residents of Casey as I can, to hear about their concerns and discuss the way that we can make changes both in the local area and federally that can improve their lives.
“There are a lot of local concerns about mental healthcare in our region, and I want to ensure more access to these services in our area, people shouldn’t have to shell out big dollars to see a dentist, psychologist or a GP – healthcare should be truly universal and free for all,” she said.
“Another major local issue is childcare, recent federal changes to the pay rate for early childhood educators is a great step in the right direction, we just need to make sure that these changes translate to adequate access to services for our residents.”
The Star Mail also asked Dr Blair which of the Green’s policies she is most passionate about and believes are most important for the Casey community, which she said were climate change and healthcare.
Dr Blair said she is extremely passionate about action on climate change and it baffles her why things are moving so slowly when the answers are right in front of us and underway.
“The current government’s insistence on opening new coal and gas projects is nothing short of negligent, currently, 40 per cent of Australia’s energy supply comes from renewable sources [according to the Clean Energy Council], up from 32 per cent in 2022 [according to statistics from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water], we need to be focussing on this and not living in the past and propping up the fossil fuel industry that is literally killing our planet,” she said.
“In Casey we are more prone to extreme weather events than many other electorates, in recent years we have been hit with multiple storms that have led to extensive electricity and internet outages, we are also very used to the threat of bushfires, but this is becoming more common. It used to be that every few summers would be high risk, but now, these high-risk seasons are more common and the bushfire seasons are longer and harsher and getting house insurance in some areas of Casey is either extremely expensive or not even possible,”
“Casey also has a high proportion of natural environments that need protecting from rising temperatures and the extinction crisis, we have a lot to lose to climate change in Casey, and we deserve better than a Labor or Liberal representative who is comfortable taking donations from coal and gas corporations.”
Dr Blair said her passion for healthcare is both from a health service sense but also a broader policy perspective.
“We are encouraged to think that individuals are responsible for their own health, but government policy has a much more significant impact on people’s health than anything else,” she said.
“If people are suffering from housing stress then they cannot be healthy. In the middle of a cost of living crisis, if people are having to make decisions about whether they buy petrol or put healthy food on the table, their health will suffer, my goal is to ensure policies that make it easier for all Australians to be healthy,”
“Currently, many decisions are being made that prioritise the needs of corporations above the needs of the residents of Casey, and all Australians, I want to see that changed so the government works for us, not big business.”
