Victorian Greens leader Greg Barber claims exclusion from addressing Melbourne Transport Forum
VICTORIAN Greens leader Greg Barber says he was shafted from addressing a public transport forum for political candidates.
Victoria State Election
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VICTORIAN Greens leader Greg Barber says he has been shafted from speaking at a public transport forum for political candidates.
Organisers have denied Mr Barber’s claims that the Greens were excluded from the August 14 event at the behest of the major parties.
Mr Barber said he was invited to attend the public transport forum at Melbourne Town Hall with Public Transport Minister Terry Mulder and opposition spokeswoman Jill Hennessy.
The event is one of 14 forums being held throughout Melbourne in the lead-up to the State Election.
It wasn’t until Mr Barber saw flyers promoting the event that he realised he had been taken off the agenda.
Organisers of the Metropolitan Transport Forum (MTF) also emailed him saying that they had decided to focus the event as a “head-to-head” debate between the two parties.
He was instead invited to speak at a MTF Yarra Council public transport forum at Collingwood Town Hall.
Mr Barber said he believed MTF had been pressured by either the Liberal or Labor party to exclude the Greens from the Melbourne Town Hall event.
But MTF spokesman Tom Melican said there had been no official invitation.
“We’d had an initial discussion about holding a forum in Melbourne.
``Because there were so many (forums) running we decided that the Melbourne Town Hall forum would be in a different format as a head-to-head debate,” Cr Melican said.
MTF executive thought it was most appropriate to have the minister debating the opposition transport spokesperson as one of them would be responsible for implementing policies after the election, he said.
“They (Labor or Liberal) didn’t tell us to exclude the Greens at any stage. I don’t think they (Greens) have been excluded, they have people attending 13 of the 14 forums.”
Murray Newton, a spokesman for Ms Hennessey, said the forum was independent and ``we simply accepted the invitation”.
Leader is seeking comment from Mr Mulder.
MTF, comprising 23 councils, is running public transport forums throughout Melbourne in the lead-up to the State Election.
Leader Newspapers is publicising the forums but was not involved in inviting speakers.