1. What’s one thing you would like Casey residents to know about you as a person or as a leader?
I am a highly empathetic and compassionate leader, and I am resilient, organised, strong willed and committed to my values. As one of our long standing volunteers, Bob (85 years of age), says “She’s a lovely person, and she doesn’t tolerate any rubbish”.
2. Can you tell us about your life outside of work?
I love to go bushwalking, this is my main hobby. I am also a mushroom forager and love to spend autumn looking for edible mushrooms, and posting non-edible ones on iNaturalist. When I have more time on my hands I love to craft, including knitting, crochet and raffia basket weaving. I also love to dance and am currently looking for a swing dancing class. I also love to read and a favourite book that I have read recently was The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff.
3. What do you believe are the three biggest issues facing the electorate?
Cost of living – everyone is struggling with the cost of housing, groceries and electricity. Casey is in a childcare desert and many families are struggling to find and afford appropriate childcare to help them get back to the workforce. Accessing affordable medical care is also an issue.
Climate change – we are the third most likely electorate in Victoria to suffer a climate emergency. This has resulted in increased house insurance premiums; mine have gone up 300 per cent in the past five years. I believe climate change is also contributing to mental health concerns, as we are anxious all the time about when the next event will occur. Storms and bushfires continue to devastate our region, and things are only going to get worse unless the government takes strong action.
Environmental protections – many of us live in Casey because we love the natural environment, including the trees and animals. There are many well organised and active community groups doing great work in this space. However, the current government has succumbed to corporate pressure and we now have worse environmental protection laws than we did under a coalition government. This is inexcusable. There are no jobs on a dead planet and our leaders need to do much better to protect our environment, in order to protect our health, wellbeing and economy.
4. What are some of your key policies both locally and nationally that you would like to highlight?
The time to transition from coal and gas is now, not keep opening up new projects, as Labor is doing. By transitioning to renewable energy sources we can lower our global greenhouse gas emissions, lower the cost of electricity and provide better energy resilience for the residents of Casey who too often lose power due to climate related storms and weather events. I have a great policy that includes up to $10,000 subsidies for homes to transition to solar and battery storage so we can all be less reliant on gas and coal.
Currently one in three corporations in Australia pay no tax. So, while you and I are diligently paying our income tax, corporations are getting away scot free. There are 150 billionaires in Australia and over the past five years, during Covid, they doubled their wealth. We are not very good at taxing wealth in this country and we need to do better. By reforming tax and making sure billionaires and corporations pay their fair share, we would have enough money to fund the things we need, like mental health and dental into Medicare. Like more public housing, better public health and education. I think all politicians should be forced to use the public health system and to send their kids to public schools…I wonder if we would see better funding models then.
To combat the housing crisis I want to see the establishment of a publicly owned housing developer that builds quality homes and sells them to first home buyers at 5% above cost. We have relied on the private sector for too long and now we have land banking, developers delaying building until it is most profitable and a housing crisis. Housing is a human right and it is time the government took back some of the control to make sure everyone can afford to have a roof over their heads.
5. What’s your number one policy to reduce cost of living pressures?
I have a full suite of policies to tackle the cost of living, but my favourite is as follows:
Home Keeper – last year the big four banks posted $44 billion in profits at a profit margin of more than 25 per cent. They make around $200,000 on the life of a mortgage. I want to see better regulation of banks and have them offer a Home Keeper product to all owner occupiers where the bank can only charge one per cent above the cash rate (they currently charge around two per cent). This would save the average mortgage holder around $340 per month, which would go a long way towards providing cost of living relief for all mortgage holders.
6. Why should people give you their vote on 3 May? What’s your final elevator pitch if someone is undecided?
The two major parties continue to disappoint and I have spoken to so many voters in Casey who are disillusioned and fed up with the current state of politics. We can’t keep voting for the same two parties and expecting a different result. The two majors receive large donations from supermarkets, banks, fossil fuel corporations, online gambling companies…the list goes on. How can we trust them to make decisions that benefit us, not the corporations, when they are so reliant on them for funding? Greens do not accept donations from these types of corporations, and all donations over $1000 must go through an ethics review committee. I have a full range of costed policies on my website and I am committed to upholding the values of the Greens, so you can rely on me to vote in a very predictable way for all decisions that need to be made. I will not be making any snap decisions or going rogue in respect to parliamentary legislation. A vote for me is a vote for putting people before corporate profits. I believe we can change the political landscape so that we all get a better deal and can live our best lives, and I am ready to stand up and fight for the people of Casey.
