Greg Rublee

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “When billions of dollars of public money are handed to private companies and subcontractors, Victoria's IBAC needs the power and funding to follow that money every step of the way. Strengthening oversight isn't a political issue. It’s about stopping waste, protecting taxpayer money, and making sure government contracts are fair and properly managed. Putting money into a strong, independent anti-corruption commission is an investment in good government.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “The size of the public service is only part of the problem. Yes, reductions are necessary, but we have to do it right. If we blindly slash mid-level administrative staff, we could end up forcing nurses, teachers, and police officers to spend more time drowning in paperwork, or it may simply drive departments to quietly rehire the same workers as expensive private contractors.

Instead, we need a scalpel aimed at executive tiers, overlapping departments, and the overuse of expensive consulting firms. Every dollar we spend on staffing should be going where it actually matters: into our classrooms, police stations, hospital wards, and many other essential frontline services. To make that happen, I’ll push to fully carry out the Silver Review's executive cuts and strict caps on spending with the Big Four consulting firms, and insist on independent efficiency audits to keep everyone honest.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Gambling losses cost Victorians over $7 billion a year. These losses drive financial distress, family breakdown, and mental health crises. Also, online wagering apps are the fastest-growing source of harm among young adults. Meanwhile, multinational betting apps enjoy record profits, while Victorian taxpayers are picking up the tab in our hospitals, courts, and mental health system.

I strongly support increasing taxes on multinational online betting companies and high-intensity gaming operators to reflect the massive social and financial harm they cause, as well as reforming the automatic 50% tax hand-back to the racing industry. For example, corporate bookmakers should also pay a higher Point of Consumption Tax that funds mental health, financial counselling, and harm-minimisation programs. However, we must also provide transitional support to local RSLs and community sporting clubs to shift them toward sustainable, pokie-free business models.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “The Suburban Rail Loop project was implemented without a proper business case or truly independent oversight, and now faces a $9.3 billion funding gap. I support handing scrutiny over to Infrastructure Victoria and the Auditor-General, and halting any further station or Stage 2 commitments until the full funding model is transparently disclosed.

I also want to ensure local community amenities around station precincts are protected. Why spend $33 billion digging an underground railway and then decide to save money by making commuters walk across the street in the rain to change trains at Box Hill? At this point, we need a truly independent Infrastructure Victoria audit to fix the $9 billion funding black hole before another dollar is committed.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Victoria has the lowest share of social housing in Australia, and knocking down existing public housing towers to build mostly private apartments isn't fixing the crisis. Safe housing is essential infrastructure, particularly for older homeless women, victim-survivors of family violence, and essential workers.

I support setting a legislated target to lift Victoria’s social housing stock from the lowest share in the country (3.1%) toward the national average of 4.5%. However, given Victoria’s record state debt, reaching 80,000 new social homes cannot depend on state budget borrowing. We should achieve this target through a smart mix of steady state investment, Federal Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) partnerships, institutional superannuation capital through the community housing sector, and mandatory inclusionary zoning on major rezonings and surplus government land.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Upfront stamp duty is an inefficient, punitive tax that locks first-home buyers out of our community and penalises older residents who want to move into a more suitable home. However, any transition to a broad-based land tax must be revenue-neutral, long-term, and protect existing homeowners from being double-taxed. Victorians age 55+ rightly distrust any reform that looks like a disguised tax grab on the family home. A transition should only occur at the point of future property transactions, preferably on an opt-in basis so no existing homeowner who has already paid stamp duty is ever forced onto an annual land tax.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Every renter deserves stability and peace of mind. But while we urgently need to stop predatory rent spikes, the evidence from both here in Australia and overseas shows that a hard, property-wide rent cap backfires. It shrinks rental supply, discourages property maintenance, and ultimately makes it even harder for people to find a home.

Instead of blunt price controls that do more harm than good, we need practical solutions that actually protect tenants right now. For example, enforce Victoria’s ban on no-fault evictions so people aren't living in fear of sudden displacement. Require landlords to justify rent increases that significantly exceed CPI through Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria, using a fair-threshold model similar to the ACT's. And reward good landlords with targeted tax incentives for those who offer secure, long-term leases and upgrade their properties for energy efficiency.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Local homebuyers should come first when it comes to existing homes. However, instead of choking off new construction with higher upfront taxes, let's focus on smart, strict enforcement.

Maintain the foreign purchaser duty and the ban on foreign buyers purchasing established homes. Ensure foreign-owned properties are occupied and actually made available to local renters. Crack down on empty homes by rigorously increasing and enforcing the Vacant Residential Land Tax on any property left sitting empty.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Handing millions in taxpayer money to prop up aging, breakdown-prone coal stations is bad for power bills and bad for the State budget.

At the same time, we have to deal with reality. Because of poor government planning and long delays with offshore wind projects, we’re left with a vulnerable energy grid. That means we need a pragmatic, temporary bridge that extends Yallourn beyond 2028 to keep the lights on.

But that can only be a stopgap! While we manage that transition, we have to fast-track local wind and solar, grid-scale batteries, transmission lines, and household battery systems. That’s how we build a modern, reliable, and affordable grid that lowers energy bills and finally stops holding Victorians hostage to coal and gas.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Helping Victorian families and businesses voluntarily switch from expensive gas to efficient electric appliances, powered by rooftop solar and home batteries, is the single best way to permanently lower power bills and cut emissions.

The key word here is voluntarily. This transition needs to be driven by smart financial incentives, not heavy-handed rules forcing homeowners to rip out their current gas kitchens. Right now, though, high upfront costs and frustrating red tape lock out middle-income families, retirees, and the one-third of Victorians who rent or live in apartments. We need to fix that by:

• Expanding zero-interest loans to make home energy upgrades more accessible.
• Streamlining solar and battery rebates so people aren't bogged down in bureaucracy.
• Offering tax incentives to landlords so rental properties are upgraded with efficient electric heating and cooling.

Nobody should be required to throw out a working gas stove, but nobody should be priced out of switching to a cheaper, cleaner electric option. Making these upgrades affordable for homeowners and landlords is part of the solution to drive down energy bills for everyone, including renters.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Upgrading Victoria’s electricity grid is non-negotiable if we want to keep the lights on and drive power bills down. Our current network was built decades ago for Latrobe Valley coal stations, not for modern wind and solar farms in our State's west and north.

The problem isn't the need for transmission. It’s the rollout. The State Government has badly mismanaged projects like the Western Renewables Link. Years of poor community engagement, planning delays, and cost blowouts have put our clean energy timeline at serious risk.

When regional communities host the massive wind, solar, and battery infrastructure that powers our state, they deserve a fair deal and a real share of the economic benefits. And because transmission costs are ultimately passed on to everyday households and small businesses through their daily supply charges, we need strict cost scrutiny every step of the way.

Here is how we get this right:

• Build the critical transmission links identified in the Victorian Transmission Plan, but pair them with fair compensation and undergrounding options in high-risk bushfire or sensitive areas.
• Generate power closer to home with rooftop solar, home batteries, and suburban neighbourhood batteries to generate and store energy where it's used.

Build the grid properly, treat regional landholders with respect, and back suburban storage so we permanently drive down energy costs for everyone.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “The bottleneck in Victoria’s clean energy transition isn’t technology. It’s poorly managed community consultation by the State Government that treats regional communities as an afterthought.

The regional communities and landholders who host the massive wind, solar, and battery infrastructure that keeps Melbourne’s lights on deserve to be treated like financial partners. That means giving them access to practical, flexible options like:

• Opt-in community co-investment
• Annual profit-sharing dividends
• Direct electricity bill rebates for nearby households

To make sure this doesn't get bogged down in bureaucracy, we should use standardized state regulatory templates so compliance costs don't stall construction or drive-up power bills. Treating regional communities with respect and making them financial partners is the fastest way to get clean energy built on time.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Every child deserves a great education, and parents should have the right to choose between public and private schools. But budget fairness means no school should receive more than 100% of its Schooling Resource Standard (SRS).

The Gonski model already accounts for family contributions, meaning low- and medium-fee schools will still get strong support. But right now, while our public schools are funded below 100%, taxpayer dollars shouldn't be over-funding non-government schools above their entitlement.

We need to transition over-funded schools down to the 100% benchmark on a predictable schedule after accounting for Labor's payroll tax hike. Every dollar saved should be fenced to lift Victorian public schools to a genuine 100%, including closing the State Government’s 4% loophole that counts depreciation as 'classroom funding.' This isn't about pitting school communities against each other. Victoria relies on all of them.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Accessible, high-quality early childhood education is essential economic infrastructure that gives kids the best start in life and helps parents, particularly women, get back into the workforce.

We need targeted government investment where the private market fails to provide enough places, but in established suburbs, instead of duplicating existing services, the government needs to focus on strengthening child-safety regulations and properly supporting local councils and community-run, not-for-profit sessional kinders so they aren't crushed in the process.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Victoria is facing an acute shortage of electricians, plumbers, builders, and healthcare workers. The very people we need to tackle the housing crisis, wire up our clean energy transition, and care for an aging population.

Giving Year 10 to 12 students a dedicated pathway into trades is a smart move, but it has to be done right. While Victoria’s Tech Schools offer great short-term STEM taster programs, they don't give students full trade qualifications. Co-locating South Australian-style technical colleges on existing TAFE and high school sites is a sensible, practical model.

However, spending $222 million on 10 colleges for 5,000 students will only work if three conditions are met:

• Protect local schools by ensuring they integrate seamlessly with the VCE Vocational Major without stripping funding or resources from local high schools and existing TAFEs.
• Focus on the future and prioritize critical skills like clean-energy electrical work, heat-pump and battery installation, and modern housing construction.
• Include financial incentives to bring experienced tradies into teaching, rather than just poaching scarce VET educators from existing campuses.

We can't build the homes Victoria needs or power our clean energy future without thousands more tradies and healthcare workers. Let's make sure we're investing in a model that actually delivers.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Calling Victoria the Education State rings hollow when our public schools are funded at just 90% of the Schooling Resource Standard and won't hit 100% until 2034. A child starting Prep next year will finish primary school before their classroom is fully funded.

While the new funding agreement locks in the 75% state share, back-ending it to 2031 deprives Victorian schools of hundreds of millions over the next four years. Meanwhile, principals are forced to rely on parent fundraising just to cover basic classroom resources, IT, and wellbeing support.

Here is what we need to do instead:

• Accelerate funding and bring forward the timeline to reach 100% SRS well before 2034.
• Stop the accounting tricks. End the 4% depreciation loophole immediately so every dollar goes directly to teachers, tutoring, and classroom support, not bureaucracy.

Local principals shouldn't have to pass the hat around while the government wastes billions on mega-project cost blowouts. Stop back-ending the deal and get full funding into classrooms now.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Every Victorian deserves to feel safe in their home, and our bail laws must absolutely target repeat violent offenders. However, they should not sweep up vulnerable people or kids for minor, non-violent technical breaches.

Following recent reforms, Victoria already applies the toughest bail tests in the country for serious crimes like aggravated burglaries, home invasions, and family violence, leading to a massive spike in bail refusals. If someone is accused of repeat violent offending, magistrates should refuse bail to protect the community.

But a blunt, mandatory one-strike rule that strips away judicial discretion or criminalizes children for technical breaches like missing a curfew caused by unstable housing, ignores the vital lessons of the Veronica Nelson inquest. Locking up non-violent kids on remand alongside hardened offenders drives up reoffending and costs taxpayers over $2,000 a day per youth detainee.

Real community safety isn't about political slogans, but rather practical action. We can do better by:

• Maintaining strict bail tests for violent crime.
• Reopening local police stations and fill frontline vacancies.
• Funding intensive youth bail supervision and evidence-based, early intervention programs that actually work.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Keeping young people out of the criminal justice system is the best way to protect our neighborhoods from repeat offending, but throwing taxpayer money at poorly evaluated grant programs has to stop.

As the Victorian Auditor-General rightly exposed, past government youth crime programs lacked measurable targets and failed to show any proven reduction in reoffending. When it costs over $2,000 a day to house a young person in detention, failing prevention programs are a massive waste of money and a letdown for community safety.

At the same time, abandoning early intervention altogether is a false economy. We shouldn't stop trying to steer kids away from crime. However, we must also demand accountability:

• Tie funding to metrics so that every dollar is tied to transparent metrics audited by VAGO so we only fund what actually works.
• Stop funding vague, tick-a-box grants.
• Invest in evidence-based mentoring and education that actually delivers results.

Keeping a kid out of remand in the first place isn't only about rehabilitation, but also the most effective way to keep our homes and communities safer.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Family, domestic, and sexual violence is a national emergency, and making sure victim-survivors have immediate access to crisis accommodation, counselling, and legal support is a core government responsibility.

With Victoria Police recording over 102,000 family violence incidents and a record 16,500 arrests over the past year, specialist services and refuges are under immense strain. While recent funding agreements have provided some breathing space, the community sector still faces short-term, boom-and-bust funding cycles that make it impossible to keep skilled staff.

Here is what needs to happen:

• Provide sustainable, indexed core funding for specialist family violence services, Aboriginal-controlled community organizations (ACCOs), and crisis refuges so they aren't left guessing from year to year.
• Shift the burden away from victim-survivors by heavily investing in early intervention and perpetrator accountability programs.
• Support long-term, secure housing so families are never forced into the impossible choice between homelessness and abuse.

Safety is non-negotiable. Fund specialist services properly, hold perpetrators accountable, and ensure every victim-survivor has a safe place to rebuild their life.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Every Victorian deserves to walk down the street, visit their local mall, or catch public transport without fearing knife violence, and police need effective tools to take illegal blades off our streets.

Following the introduction of Jack’s Law-style powers, police already have significant authority to use electronic wands in designated public places and transport hubs. While extending these preventative powers can help remove dangerous weapons, random searches risk eroding civil liberties and community trust if applied arbitrarily.

To get this right, expanded wanding powers must be paired with real accountability:

• Mandatory body-worn cameras must be used for every search.
• Transparent public reporting on stop rates and demographic data to prevent racial profiling.
• Free police from administrative red tape so they can actually patrol our streets and respond to emergencies.

Extra powers must always include proper safeguards and oversight.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “You shouldn't need private health insurance to fix a toothache. Right now, thousands of Victorians skip dental care because they can't afford private fees, while public waiting lists stretch on for months or years.

Opening walk-in public dental clinics in high-need and regional areas is common sense preventative healthcare. But to actually work, those clinics need two things:

• Staffing pipelines through partnerships with universities and community health to train more dentists and support staff, rather than just poaching from an already strained system.
• Targeted care that prioritises urgent cases and concession cardholders, backed by sustainable funding rather than short-term election announcements.

Let's open the clinics, train the staff, and finally get public dental waiting lists down.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Paramedics belong on the road saving lives, not waiting for hours on hospital ramps. Right now, ambulance ramping is just a symptom of blockages across our entire health system.

When patients who are medically cleared to go home get stuck waiting in ward beds for pharmacy scripts, transport, or paperwork, it creates a domino effect that backs up emergency departments. Building up to 10 dedicated discharge lounges in our worst-hit hospitals is a low-cost, high-return way to let patients wait comfortably off the wards and free up acute beds immediately.

But lounges alone aren't a silver bullet. To permanently fix ambulance ramping, we have to tackle the wider 'bed-blocking' crisis. Partner with the Federal Government to fix aged care and NDIS bottlenecks so elderly and vulnerable patients aren't left languishing in acute hospital beds because they have nowhere safe to go.

Let's build the discharge lounges, clear the logjam, and get our ambos back out where they belong.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “The most expensive place to treat a patient is in an emergency ward. If we properly fund local community health services so people can get preventative care and early treatment down the street, we keep them out of hospital and take pressure off our ambos.

For too long, community health has been treated as the poor cousin of the state health budget, squeezed by rising wage costs and inflation while demand for chronic disease management, mental health support, and preventative care is increasing.

To fix this, we need to:

• Align core funding increases with actual operating costs so local clinics and nursing centres can keep their doors open and fully staffed.
• Invest in early detection and community-based care, which saves taxpayers down the track by stopping minor issues from turning into expensive hospital admissions.

Investing in community health is simply the smartest way to take pressure off our overwhelmed emergency departments and keep Victorians healthy at home.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “If a patient has been waiting two years for a knee replacement in the public system, they don't care whether the operating theatre is public or private. They just want their mobility back.

When Victorians are stuck waiting years in pain for hip replacements or cataract surgery, the government should use every available operating theatre in the state to get people treated faster. Modelled on successful programs like Queensland’s Surgery Connect, partnering with private hospitals that have spare capacity is a pragmatic way to clear the backlog without waiting years to build new public wards.

At the same time, outsourcing to the private sector can never become an excuse to neglect our public hospitals. To protect taxpayers and the public system, these contracts must be:

• Transparently costed and subject to strict fixed-price caps.
• Structured so they don't poach nurses, anaesthetists, or specialists away from public hospitals where they're desperately needed.

Let's use spare capacity in private hospitals to clear the backlog today, while keeping our long-term focus on strengthening public healthcare. We don’t want to Americanise our healthcare system.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “When floods and bushfires strike, local communities shouldn't have to beg for months just to fix a washed-out bridge or a community hall. Waiting for reactive, ad-hoc disaster funding leaves councils and volunteer services stranded while red tape piles up.

We need a dedicated, proactive state disaster recovery and resilience fund to fast-track repairs, upgrade our defences, and support emergency services before disaster strikes. But during a cost-of-living crisis, that fund shouldn't be paid for by everyday Victorian families.

Instead, let's apply a simple polluter-pays principle and require the major fossil fuel companies and gas extractors benefiting from our resources to contribute directly. Protect taxpayers, protect our environment, and make sure communities aren't left on their own when the next emergency hits.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Protecting Victoria’s unique biodiversity is a core responsibility, but enforcement needs to target illegal operators by using modern technology rather than burying law-abiding landowners in red tape. As the Auditor-General exposed, unauthorized clearing on private land is undermining our biodiversity goals while local councils fly blind without proper resources.

Let’s start to fix it by:

• Adopting automated satellite and aerial monitoring so regulators can detect illegal broadscale clearing in a timely manner.
• Keep farming and bushfire safety straightforward. Draw a clear line so genuine property maintenance, farm management, and crucial bushfire mitigation don’t clash with new permit hurdles.
• Make sure penalties for rogue operators help fund state-level enforcement, rather than dumping policing costs onto local councils.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Government decision-makers must begin to treat climate-related health and wellbeing impacts on young and future generations as a top consideration. We need to rigorously factor long-term climate impacts into major infrastructure and resource approvals, and a duty of care to future generations should be clearly defined.

The challenge is getting the balance right. A vague, open-ended legal duty risks weaponizing the courts and creating endless planning gridlock that delay vital public infrastructure, housing approvals, and our clean energy transition. At the same time, we can no longer ignore the fact decision makers today owe a duty of care to the generations to come. We owe it to our children to get this right.

We start to achieve progress by anchoring the duty in objective, statutory benchmarks rather than leaving it open to judicial interpretation:

• Define clear statutory triggers: Instead of a broad, undefined mandate, the law should specify thresholds, such as carbon emission limits, mandated health impact assessments, or adherence to established scientific emissions trajectories that major projects must formally consider.
• Guide ministerial decisions, not courtrooms: The duty should act as a binding obligation for ministers and planning authorities to explicitly weigh generational impacts during the approval stage.
• Transparent accountability: Require decision-makers to publicly table their climate and generational health assessments, so the community can hold them accountable at the ballot box.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “When bushfires strike, our CFA volunteers shouldn't be fighting fires in aging trucks or trying to patch up outdated fire stations.

Our CFA volunteers are the backbone of community safety across regional and outer-metropolitan Victoria, and they deserve proper backing with modern equipment, upgraded stations, and real operational support. For too long, brigades have struggled with fleets that are decades old.

Let’s increase state funding to replace aging frontline tankers, modernise local sheds and give regional brigades ongoing support so they can focus on what they do best: protecting lives and homes.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “With Victorian motorists facing some of the highest toll costs in the world, targeted cost-of-living relief for hard-pressed commuters is welcome, but it also has to be fiscally responsible. A quarterly rebate scheme delivered through Service Victoria provides practical, short-term help for the roughly 200,000 account holders who rely on these roads every day.

At the same time, the scheme depends on a taxpayer-funded subsidy that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Worse, it’s a band-aid over a deeper structural problem. We are reaping the consequences of monopolistic private toll contracts without proper public oversight.

Beyond temporary relief, we must:

• Fix the root problem by using every commercial lever available to review tolling equity and fix unfair pricing traps.
• Ensure future agreements stop locking everyday commuters and small businesses into punishing toll traps for generations.

A rebate helps today, but fixing the underlying monopoly is how we deliver permanent fairness on our roads.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “One way to help reduce traffic congestion and school drop-off gridlock is to give people safe alternatives to driving. With Victoria spending billions on major transport infrastructure, active transport has historically received a tiny, inconsistent fraction of the budget, leaving cyclists vulnerable on fragmented roads. Allocating a predictable funding stream to build out Strategic Cycling Corridors across Melbourne and regional centres means every person on a bike is one less car on our local streets, and it delivers massive public health and economic returns.

At the same time, we have to be realistic. Not everyone has the inner-city luxury of cycling to work. Parents traveling across town with small children, tradies hauling heavy tools, shift workers, and Victorians commuting in from outer-suburban growth corridors rely heavily on cars, buses, and trains to get around. We cannot pretend that cycling works for every journey or every household, especially where public transport gaps and sprawling distances make driving essential.

That said, when designed properly, safe cycling routes benefit motorists and riders alike by keeping traffic moving and our communities connected, while reducing emissions and promoting better health.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Fixing our roads isn't a luxury. It’s basic safety. Years of chronic underfunding have left regional and outer-suburban road networks in an unacceptable state of disrepair. When the Department of Transport's own assessments show that $3 billion a year is required just to keep roads from getting worse, continuing to budget around $1 billion a year is false economy. Deferring maintenance only stores up massive structural liabilities, turning minor cracks into costly full-scale reconstructions while putting motorists and heavy freight at risk.

Some practical steps we can take now include:

• Bringing road maintenance budgets closer to what asset management experts actually require, giving immediate priority to regional arterial roads where the vast majority of the network sits.
• More money must be matched by better oversight. That means ending secretive contract allocation, cutting administrative waste within the Department, and tying every dollar to independent performance audits so we get durable, high-quality repairs the first time.

Fund road maintenance properly, lock in long-term asset planning, and make sure regional Victorians aren't left driving on crumbling roads.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Public transport only works if it's a network, not a collection of random services. When buses and trains are out of sync and you're left waiting forty minutes at a station because timetables don't match, people simply give up and drive.

A world-class public transport system shouldn't require passengers to carry a printed timetable. If we want to get cars off our roads and ease suburban congestion, our trains, trams, and buses must run frequently and connect seamlessly.

While major rail investments like the Metro Tunnel have expanded core capacity, suburban commuters and outer-ring residents are too often let down by infrequent services and uncoordinated connections. Here is how we fix it:

• Establish reliable, minimum 20-minute frequencies across key metro and cross-suburban routes until midnight.
• Make sure our schedules actually talk to each other with smart scheduling so feeder buses don't pull away two minutes before your train arrives.
• Reform regional and metropolitan bus contracts and prioritize operational reliability.

Let's make public transport a more reliable choice for everyday travel.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “We need a modern digital economy, but it shouldn't come at the expense of local communities, household power bills, or our water security.

Rapidly expanding AI data centres bring massive demands for electricity and water, and communities are right to demand strict safeguards to protect local amenity, power grids, and water supplies from being strained. Unfortunately, a blanket, indefinite moratorium on all tech infrastructure would create legal uncertainty and costly court cases.

Nevertheless, we cannot allow big tech to build unchecked. Victoria's new planning framework, which pushes data centres away from residential zones, requires new facilities to source their own renewable energy, and restricts them to recycled water, is a step in the right direction. But it’s also too little, too late for the 68 data centres already built, under construction or planned in Victoria. Thanks to the current government’s poor stewardship, the new rules do not apply retroactively.

To truly protect residents, we need to go further:

• Make the rules permanent: Enshrine these protections permanently in law rather than relying on temporary, interim planning directives.
• Protect power and water: Ensure tech growth pays its own way so household power bills aren't hiked to subsidize data centre energy demands.
• Give locals a voice: Guarantee that nearby residents have a genuine say and strict oversight before any approvals are locked in.

Let's welcome innovation, but enforce strict rules that put local communities and human needs first.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “I oppose repealing the Treaty legislation and the First People’s Assembly. Closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage, improving health, housing, and educational outcomes, and respecting traditional owners are critical priorities that should unite all Victorians. Completely abolishing existing representative bodies or engaging in disruptive legislative rollbacks creates unnecessary friction rather than delivering practical solutions.

At the same time, taxpayers rightly expect transparency regarding governance costs, such as projected costs nearing $1 billion over the next decade, to ensure public funds are not diverted from frontline services.

Some practical steps include:

• Directing resources squarely into what actually moves the needle in terms of better health delivery, housing security, school support, and economic empowerment in Indigenous communities.
• Managing every dollar with financial transparency so communities see the benefits on the ground.

Let's drop the wedge politics and focus on real, measurable results.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Healthcare access should depend on a patient's medical needs, not their postcode or their bank account. If someone needs medical or surgical abortion care prior to 16 weeks of pregnancy, particularly in regional areas where providers are few and far between, removing cost barriers and travel hurdles is common-sense healthcare.”

Response to Build a Ballot Vic 2026: “Hybrid working is here to stay. It benefits families, improves work-life balance, reduces commuting costs, and in many cases increases productivity. Hybrid models have become a permanent and positive fixture of modern professional life, helping to balance family responsibilities and ease public transport congestion. But flexibility has to work both ways. Any legal right to work from home must strike a sensible balance that protects business viability and operational needs. While many desk-based roles easily accommodate remote work, a legislated statutory mandate risks creating unnecessary compliance burdens and friction, particularly for small businesses.

Let's work it out together by avoiding heavy-handed mandates and support collaborative, flexible workplace agreements between employers and employees.”