A Greens balance of power

As your local MP who has lived in North Melbourne, West Melbourne and Parkville, I am thrilled to be able to contribute to North West City News.

The pandemic has impacted us all, and fundamentally changed our city, but it doesn’t all have to be for the worse. 

We need to rebuild our community, not just our economy. Recovering from the pandemic gives us the opportunity to tackle the long-term problems our country faces, if we’re prepared to invest in nation-building, planet-saving projects. 

Locally, I’ll keep helping organisations that enrich our community, like the funding we secured for North Melbourne Language and Learning to carry out an energy audit of their energy practices, and to secure funding for the Royal Park Tennis Club for more energy efficient air-conditioning equipment. 

We need to protect what we love about Melbourne. That’s why the Greens also have a plan to revitalise our city, with rent reductions for innovative and creative businesses and steps to protect the things which make living in Melbourne so special.

Keeping Melbourne one of the world’s greatest places to live is a challenge we all face as a community. 

During the past few weeks, the kids have gone back to school and the politicians have gone back to Parliament. 

While the peak of the latest wave of COVID has passed, there’s still significant challenges battling the outbreak for many within our community. 

Unfortunately, the government has been trying to do everything it can to change the subject. 

But it can’t get away from the fact that people who have helped build this country, and the workers who care for them, are being treated very poorly in under-staffed aged care facilities. 

The Morrison government has messed this up. They have abandoned the people in aged care, and their families are rightly very worried. 

They haven’t abandoned their mates, their donors, or the big corporations and billionaires. They get special treatment. But they abandoned us.  

Despite some of the toughest years we’ve ever lived through, with Melbourne’s small businesses struggling, wage growth flatlining, and the cost of living going up, many big corporations are now making record profits, often off the back of public handouts.  

Thankfully, there’s an election coming up soon. And this time, I think Scott Morrison is in trouble. 

This election, we are going to kick Scott Morrison out, and, with any luck, the Greens will hold the balance of power. 

When I was first elected in Melbourne, we made history by putting the Greens in the balance of power, securing world-leading legislation to tackle climate change, getting dental into Medicare for 3.4 million kids and securing massive investments in the Melbourne community. 

This time, if we find ourselves in the balance of power, we want to make the billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share of tax, so we can invest in the things that ensure everyone can live a good life. 

We’ll tackle the housing unaffordability crisis, by building and offering renters, first home buyers and people locked out of the housing market new, good-quality homes, in the areas they want to live in, for $300,000. This is part of our plan to build a million new public housing homes over 20 years to end homelessness, while also strengthening renters’ rights. 

We’ll finish what we started and push to get dental and mental health into Medicare for everyone. And we’ll create thousands of jobs rolling out renewables to fight the climate crisis and end coal and gas.

Melbourne’s values of compassion and equality have helped lead the country before, and this election they’re set to do it again.

Please stay safe, look after each other and, if you need any assistance, contact me •

Contact Adam Bandt:

[email protected] or phone 9417 0772