Leanna Nguyen

Victorian Socialists have an open principle of prefencing from left to right-effectively in order of political alignment to the party.

Specifically for St Albans, tentatively it would be in the following order: Greens, Labor, West Party, Liberals, One Nation. We preference in this manner because we want to increase the chances of progressive politics getting a platform, not because of backroom deals.

People who vote for Victorian Socialists do so on the basis that we’re a left-wing, anti-capitalists party fighting against oppression, and assume our preferences reflect this character. Frankly, it would be totally counterposed to our project if we preferenced any other way.

Unfortunately for the seat of St Albans, the options for the left-wing parties are limited to us and the Greens.

This is also why Labor is ranked above the West Party-who have some supportable policies, as their standing candidate for the seat is a former Liberal candidate for the last state election.

There should be no construction of new data centres within the Western suburbs, nor any expansions to existing data centres.

Even before these centres are completed, their impact is already being felt as residents are forced to deal with constant noise and light pollution, alongside electricity irregularly turning off.

Furthermore, residents’ safety is compromised as they are forced to live next to a building containing tonnes of flammable materials like lithium batteries and diesel-which local firefighters are not properly equipped to deal with in the case of an explosion.

It is not a coincidence that these have been approved to be dropped in the middle of predominately working class and migrant neighbourhoods.

In their eyes, the working class in the western suburbs can and should be treated as a dumping ground, and their living standards can plummet in the name of corporate interest.

I’m proud to be part of a party which has consistently been part of several community campaigns to oppose these data centers, including the incredibly successful campaign in West Footscray against the NextDC data centre.

Due to the efforts of residents there in blocking and delaying the construction of power poles to the site, NextDC suffered a three billion loss to their market values, and have been forced to cut their executives’ pay to make up for said loss.

The continuation of this sort of resistance is how we’ll be able to put an end to the ongoing data centre expansion, as although I absolutely support a moratorium, there are limitations in seeing it as the primary strategy due its reliance on the existing structures which initially approved these data centres.

Although it would be an improvement if data centers were mandated to run on renewable energies which they must individually source and maintain, my opposition to the data centers isn’t limited to the deteriorating impact they have on the living conditions.

The current drive for an expansion of data centers across Victoria, and Australia more broadly, is most directly connected to an escalating drive to war, but is also part of a larger project of undercutting the need for workers with AI as a means of increasing profits.

This is clearly a project of helping the rich continue to expand their wealth and power at the expense of working class conditions. So even if they were to use renewable energies, there should be no new data centers when their sole purpose is to help the bosses, and not workers.

The starting point must be to reverse the privatisation of Victoria’s train, tram and bus system and infrastructure, and return it to full public ownership.

This would be essential to ensuring the recommended routes as outlined by the Better Buses campaign could be implemented and sustained. As long as public transport is run by private operators, whose key priority is their bottom line over providing free and timely transport, we won’t see improvements to public transportation.

From this, this would enable the creation of a turn-up-and-go system across all different modes of public transportation, in which people are able show up to a station or stop and not expect to wait beyond 15 minutes.

Part of making this possible is to hire and train more drivers, rather than increasing the workload (and thus, risking the safety) of the existing workforce.

Furthermore, a public operated and owned public transportation system would additionally enable the creation of routes which connect different sections of the west to each other. Much of the existing and ongoing expansions to public transport in the west is organised around transportation into the city; resulting from the fact that working class people’s lives are structured around work rather than convenience.

For instance, it is much easier for me to travel into the CBD, than it is to go to my nearest coles if I were to use public transport. As mentioned, I want to implement the bus routes proposed by the Better Buses campaign that venture beyond the main roads and finish at train stations.

It should be possible for people in Cairnlea to visit Keilor Plains without needing to switch between two buses and a train.

The most immediate action that would remedy the worst aspects of this problem is to either increase penalties against and/or the immediate closure of sites like Akzo Nobel paint factories or the Sunshine Landfills, both of whom knowingly and willingly spew toxic fumes despite their known consequences on peoples’ health.

It’s outrageous that working class communities in Sunshine North and Kealba are allowed to reside close to landfills, despite the direct correlation to the increased rates of asthma in young children and the worsening air quality caused by the operations of these sites.

It’s a further shame that these companies are given the green light to treat our suburbs as dumping grounds as they are allowed to operate without receiving any penalties. The shutting or restrictions of their operations would see a massive change in the quality of air.

Additionally, the expansion of tree canopy coverage would be massively beneficial in making our suburbs more liveable.

Not only improving air quality, it would reduce land surface temperatures as well provide shade for both residents and local wildlife. However, the reduction of air pollution is something that can’t be addressed individually, but is part of a broader fight against the destruction caused by the climate crisis.

As long as fossil fuels remain central to the economy as both a source of fuel and profit, it’s unlikely that air pollution could ever be eliminated.

That’s why I would fight to transition into renewable energies like solar or wind, as they have minimal impacts on their surrounding communities as well as global temperatures, alongside fighting to eventually shut down the fossil fuel industry.

To start, it’s outrageous something that is considered a basic human is instead treated as a commodity.

This logic that housing is a means to gain profit, and thus it’s acceptable to increase prices to compete on the market, is core to the housing crisis.

This crisis is particularly felt in the Western suburbs, which is currently seeing the quickest growing homeless population across the state yet has none of the social infrastructure to alleviate the crisis.

We treat homelessness as a crime and moral failure of the individual, when the real crime is a society which allows for people to live without shelter and forces them to compete for it.

Despite how it’s presented in the media, there are actually very easy solutions for the housing crisis. Most notably, the construction of public housing (15,000 units per year for the next ten years) and the acquisition of unused land and buildings to be converted into public housing.

People shouldn’t just have to rely on the private market for a right which should be overseen and distributed by the government; public housing has to be expanded, not demolished.

For renters, I want to impose a 25 percent cut to all residential tenancies followed by a five-year rent freeze, which would help to bring rents to pre-COVID levels when rents were genuinely more affordable.

This would be followed by the establishment of a rental inspector body (Rental Inspectorate Victoria) which could both introduce rent controls and order for the ownership of the rental property to be transferred to public ownership.

For home owners, I want to establish a publicly owned, State Bank which could both take over existing mortgages at below market rates, and offer loans with set low interests specifically for working class people to purchase their first homes.

All these proposals are completely opposite to how the housing market currently operates, because fundamentally Victorian Socialists reject the premise that the priority of housing is to make profits for a select number of developers or landlords.

We don’t care if it hurts their bottomline so long as it means no other person is forced to languish in the streets.

I believe and will fight for abortion to be free, accessible and on-demand, regardless of whatever week or trimester it takes place.People deserve adequately funded and resourced healthcare regardless of whatever health concern, and that must include abortions.

It’s important to include all three of the stated conditions, because although I welcome (with some skepticism) the announcement of free abortion services from the major parties, the cost for abortion is symptomatic of a larger failure to adequately fund and resource reproductive healthcare-not the primary barrier.

Technically, free abortion services already exist, including within my electorate of St Albans at Sunshine Hospital. However, the problem is the service is only available up until 9 weeks, and the clinic itself appears to open only every second Tuesday.

It is no wonder then that women are pushed into seeking and paying upwards of $300 for private abortion services, even when it is publicly available. Particularly in the case of Sunshine Hospital-which is the main public hospital for working class people across the Brimbank, it should be seen as an outrageous and sexist affront to the conditions of working class women that they’re unable to access basic reproductive care.

That’s why I’m for the expansion of abortion services to be made available in all public hospitals, and to remove any religious exemptions on the provision of reproductive health services.

Furthermore, I want to increase access to medical abortion by funding training for GPs and developing nurse-led models of abortion care.

Too often, and as reflected in the leading policies of virtually every other party, the question of crime has been immediately answered with a further increase to the police force and their funding.

However, I think this punitive approach deliberately misses the conditions which lead individuals towards committing crimes.

Rather than some random moral failing or instinctual criminality as is typically presented, crime has to be understood as a product of hollowing out of a basic welfare state and as a reflection of the long term neglect of the western suburbs.

It has to be said that the approach of the major parties to substitute police and the prison system for welfare has caused the conditions they’re supposedly attempting to fix with police.

The most explicit example is within the electorate of Werrible, residents were told there couldn’t find 2 million to fix the only community centre in the district, but approximately over 600 million could be dedicated to building the Cherry Creek Detention Centre and Wyndham Vale Youth Courts.

Rather, the approach of Victorian Socialist to rebuild, fund and resource social and community services along with universal healthcare and housing, would do far better to address and prevent the social root of crime than an additional thousand police officers ever could.

If people had greater access to mental and counseling services, or if young people had more community hubs in which they could connect to social workers, people would be far less likely to participate in anti-social behaviour.

It would also be remiss to ignore the racialised nature of this debate, particularly around the media fearmongering around youth crime. The moniker of youth crime has been a method to wage a culture war which blames migrants-particularly African-youth for the government’s underfunding of public education.

The solution isn’t a further concentration of Victoria Police (who have a known history of racial profiling) but give young working class and migrant kids the hubs, services and education they deserve.

Anyone who’s serious about fighting back against racism has to reject the law and order approach dominating the political terrain of this state election.