Federal Election 2019: Greenway candidates talk local issues
Hear where your candidates for the seat of Greenway stand on the key issues like health and housing affordability this Federal Election.
- Federal Election 2019: Meet your candidates for Greenway
- Federal Election 2019: Meet your candidates for Chifley
As voters in Greenway prepare to vote in the May 18 Federal Election, the Advocate spoke to the six candidates for the seat about where they stand on key local issues.
1. Graham McFarland — Australian Better Families
HEALTH: There are many contributing factors that impact healthcare in Greenway and the continued approach of just throwing millions of dollars at the sector, without attacking the contributing factors, is just insanity.
Through our Mental Health Reform Policy, we will protect vulnerable people in Greenway who require emotional and clinical mental health support. These programs will be delivered through health wellness hubs that are managed within the community. Mental illness accounts for 13 per cent of the total burden on disease in Australia, one in four Australians deal with anxiety, and eight Australians fall to suicide every single day.
Our Drug Reform Policy will treat drug use as a health issue, while doubling efforts to reduce trafficking and illegal production. To have on-the-ground services that engage in early intervention strategies through community hubs. They will provide treatment for harm reductions.
EDUCATION: Moving past the standard expectations of a free education that we hold today, we see a requirement to providing life skills, social responsibility and community training, to prepare Australian kids into adult life.
Our children are today often lacking in basic skills that they require as adults.
We want to build a connection to community that promotes social responsibility. This will be a paid youth service that provides a good pathway to employment.
Also Juvenile Justice Reform, redirection programs that focus on training, education and community engagement to reduce recidivism rates.
ROADS & INFRASTRUCTURE: For many years, the electorate has heard all the promises of roads and infrastructure to only fall on deaf ears.
Nothing reminds me more of this than the Prospect Highway. Even at the recent state election, we had visits from all political parties, getting their faces and false promises into the media. The locals have heard it all before. The funds have been approved, it’s time for action.
The focus needs to be, roads and infrastructure laid first, before developers and expansion of communities.
ACCESS TO EMPLOYMENT: The biggest solution to employment in Greenway isn’t just training but creating paid pathways to employment.
Our Community Employment Policy will ensure Australians on or needing welfare are provided with training opportunities and paid work in roles that support working families in their community.
Our plan is to deliver a minimum wage in place of welfare which will require recipients to take part in community-based programs in our community. These programs are an avenue to upskilling or reskilling which will ideally reduce the financial costs in services provided to working families.
HOUSING AFFORDABILITY: We are focused on ensuring every Australian has access to short-term crisis accommodation with pathways to affordable community housing.
Our main concern is the sad increases of homelessness in Australia, that has increased by 13.7 per cent in five years.
Our goal is to remove funding from ivory towers built by large organisations who act as referral services and divert that money to on-the-ground community managed health services.
2. Damien Atkins — The Greens
No answers provided.
3. Allan Green — Liberal
HEALTH: All local hospitals have had significant increases in funding.
Australian Government funding for public hospital services in New South Wales has increased by 59 per cent since we came to office (from $4.3 billion in 2012-13 to $6.8 billion in 2019-20).
The GP bulk billing rate in Greenway is 98 per cent. Last year, over 1,376,895 GP visits were bulk billed in Greenway — 237,049 more than Labor’s last year in Government (2012-13).
EDUCATION: Schools in Greenway will benefit from the Liberal guaranteed funding commitment to invest an additional $37 billion in schools over the next decade (to 2029).
As a result, funding for all public schools in Greenway is increasing by around 52 per cent per student over a decade to 2029.
ROADS & INFRASTRUCTURE: Greenway will benefit from the Liberal Better Transport Infrastructure Plan which will implement a broad range of improvements over 10 years aimed at busting congestion and boosting our economy.
ACCESS TO EMPLOYMENT: Greenway’s unemployment rate is estimated at 3.1 per cent — (down from 4.4 per cent when we took office in September 2013).
More than 16,000 small and medium businesses in Greenway are benefiting from tax relief legislated by the Government and from our instant asset write-off scheme which enables businesses to invest in machinery and equipment up to a value of $30,000.
Stronger small businesses mean more jobs.
HOUSING AFFORDABILITY: The home buyers and renters in Greenway will benefit from the strong economy due to the continued good economic management of the Scott Morrison Federal Government.
Labor’s proposed changes to housing tax for investors would result in less affordable rental properties.
4. Michelle Rowland — Labor
HEALTH: Local healthcare is one of my most important priorities. That’s why I will reverse the Liberals’ $5.66 million cut to Blacktown and Mt Druitt Hospitals.
Labor will also deliver a Medicare Cancer Plan, investing $600 million towards eliminating all out-of-pocket costs for diagnostic imaging and fund three million free consultations with oncologists and surgeons for cancer patients.
We will also end the Liberals’ six year Medicare rebate freeze for over 100 GP services and cap private health insurance premium rises, making healthcare more affordable in Greenway.
EDUCATION: I’m committed to securing an additional $22.7 million for schools in Greenway, to give every child the best start in life. This includes additional funding for every local public school, including $1.18 million for Mitchell High School, $970,000 for Blacktown South Public School, $480,000 for Seven Hills West Public School and $300,000 for William Rose School.
I will also deliver up to 15 hours of subsidised preschool for three and four year olds, because I know how important accessible early education is in Greenway.
ROADS & INFRASTRUCTURE: I am pleased to have delivered $4.5 million for the Burdekin Rd upgrade in Schofields as the Federal Member for Greenway — a key piece of local infrastructure.
I have also committed $8 million to expanding the parking at Quakers Hill train station.
I have been campaigning for many years for the NSW Liberal Government to upgrade and widen the Prospect Highway. Local residents have waited long enough for this long-overdue project and one of my key priorities is ensuring it is delivered without delay.
ACCESS TO EMPLOYMENT: I am committed to forward-looking projects which will boost employment opportunities in our area, including the development of the new university campus in Blacktown and a new north-south train line in Western Sydney.
Labor will also restore penalty rates to local workers who have had their weekend and holiday pay rates slashed.
HOUSING AFFORDABILITY: I believe that everyone deserves to be able to afford a roof over their head, but in too many cases, rental and mortgage stress are affecting local families.
Labor will level the playing field for local families and first-home buyers in the housing market, reducing inequality by reforming negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions.
Labor will also invest $6.6 billion over a decade in 250,000 new affordable rental homes.
5. Scott Feeney — United Australia Party
No answers provided
6. Osbourn Rajadurai — Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group)
Transformational Development.
Caring the aged, children and vulnerable.
Suicide prevention and drug rehab.
Homes for homeless and affordable housing.
Extra amenities in schools, parks and hospitals.
Care for the mentally ill.
Special education for refugees and skill development.
Helping small business to sustain.
Supporting single parents: emotionally, economically and socially.
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