Ben Hocking

It is really important to stress that the only people in control of where preferences flow is the individual voter casting their vote.

That is now finally the case after the abolition of Group Voting Tickets in the Upper House, something that the Greens have campaigned for across multiple election cycles.

When you are standing at the ballot box (or filling in a postal ballot), you are in control of where your preferences go. All candidates will hand out suggested how to vote cards explaining a suggested order to place candidates at an election based on their publicly-stated policies and positions, but it remains exactly that – a suggestion.

Having said that, it is very clear that the ALP, the Liberals and One Nation are more interested in standing up for big corporations than they are in standing up for the local community.

At numerous community rallies and events during this campaign, whether it be the campaign to save McIvor Reserve or object to the proposed data centre in Spotswood, the major parties have been notably absent. That absence will be reflected in where these parties are located when it comes to putting together how to vote cards.

The ALP and the Liberals have always treated the western suburbs as their dumping ground for unwanted facilities, and it is proving to be no different with hyperscale AI data centres.

At both Federal and State level the ALP has rolled out the red carpet for these data centres and then after significant community action rejecting these power and water-hungry facilities being built right next door to residences and kindergartens, they finally released some fairly limp-looking guardrails, that they have said will specifically not apply to the proposed facility in Spotswood!

Labor has finally admitted these giant industrial facilities don’t belong next to people’s homes. However, for some inexplicable reason they think this doesn’t apply to the residents of Spotswood! Labor needs to show us the evidence for 150 metres and release the acoustic modelling and health and environmental advice behind it.

The Greens absolutely support calls for a moratorium on AI data centres, until the case can be made as to why they are needed and how many will be needed, rather than just supporting constant building with no target or planning.

The Greens want to stop new AI data centres, until we have laws that protect our communities and environment. We already introduced laws into Parliament that would have done exactly that and instead every single Labor MP voted against them. The Greens are also calling for compensation for those residents who already live close to existing data centres for the loss of market value to their property.

A Westpac report found 23 per cent of Victorians viewed a property next door to a data centre as a deal breaker when it comes to buying a home. Meanwhile, research conducted by Primara Research earlier this year, found more than 80 per cent of Australians would need an average discount of $35,163 to consider buying near a data centre. Labor can’t admit these facilities need a buffer and then abandon the residents already living inside it. Big tech should pay to compensate those communities.

These data centres should absolutely be powered by their own renewable energy. Not only that, there also needs to be very strict restrictions on how often they can use their back-up diesel generators to power these sites, with penalties to include the facilities being closed if they can not meet acceptable use standards.

Having a financial penalty for failing to meet back-up generator use will amount to nothing and they will just write this up as an expense of doing business and polluting our communities. The Greens have stood with communities from the start, and we’ll keep fighting for stronger protections, compensation for residents and an end to the data centre free-for-all.

The Greens are committed to doing public transport properly.

That will start by getting Infrastructure Victoria to create an integrated transport plan and then implementing what it recommends.

We already know that Infrastructure Victoria has an Altona North train station high on its list of priorities as part of its 30-year infrastructure strategy. Since the closure of Paisley station in the 1980s Altona North has become significantly less industrial and increasingly residential.

Currently the 10km between Newport and Laverton stations is the longest length of track on the entire metropolitan rail network without a station and it would be a boon for both workers and residents in the area, as well as going some way to alleviate the current parking issues at Newport station. On top of this, one of the Greens’ key policies in this election is free and more frequent public transport.

From November last year until April this year we were treated to 10 minute trains on the Williamstown line. This resulted in a significant increase in patronage. Since then we are back to 20 minute trains on this line, and patronage has returned to its usual levels.

I hate to admit that Sydney would ever do anything better than Melbourne, but for a city of a very similar size they have around 50 per cent higher public transport patronage thanks to having more frequent trains. This needs to be a much higher priority for Melbourne.

Also, with fuel prices through the roof we need public transport to be permanently free. When the fuel crisis started, it was the Greens that pushed the government to make public transport free. But then Labor put fares back up while people were still struggling.

People are fed up with short-term fixes when the cost of living is getting worse. If we make big corporations pay their fair share, we can make public transport free permanently.

There is absolutely no question more needs to be done to reduce air pollution in the Williamstown district, particularly in Brooklyn which suffers from the worst air pollution of any suburb in Melbourne. We know that the poor air quality in the west leads to much poorer health outcomes.

Hospitalisation rates for asthma, heart failure and heart disease, as well as lung cancer incidences – occur at a higher rate in the west than in the general Australian population.

While there are no easy answers to the problem of much of the west living alongside industrial areas, it doesn’t have to be as bad as it is. We can strengthen the powers of the EPA to make sure environmental guidelines are adhered to and put in place stronger dust and pollution mitigating guidelines for the industries that work in this area. We also need to increase tree canopy coverage in the west, which sits well behind the rest of Melbourne in this regard.

Greening the west will help filter much of the dust and fumes that contribute to the pollution problems we suffer from in the west. We also need to protect existing green space and parkland, like McIvor Reserve, which sits close to the unfiltered vent stacks from the West Gate Tunnel. The thought of any candidate campaigning to remove 132 trees from this area, given the problems we have with air pollution absolutely boggles the mind.

As a starting point we would put a stop to the ALP’s disastrous plan to demolish public housing towers during a housing crisis!

The United Nations has slammed this policy, warning that it violates the human right to housing. This attack on public housing has become an international disgrace and the Greens strongly oppose it and will fight to increase levels of public housing to address homelessness. In the middle of the worst housing crisis in generations, when people are sleeping in cars, rents are crushing families and tens of thousands of Victorians are waiting desperately for a public home, Labor’s answer is to destroy public housing.

The Greens will stop Labor’s demolition agenda, keep public housing in public hands and build the tens of thousands of public homes Victoria desperately needs. Housing affordability is a major focus of the Greens at this State Election and we have plans that will cut the price of housing for new homebuyers and keep rents manageable for those renting by capping rents and cutting stamp duty.

The Greens will make buying a home more affordable, by abolishing stamp duty for homes worth less than $1.1 million, and charging discounted stamp duty for homes between $1.1 million and $1.6 million. A crucial part of this policy is that the cuts to stamp duty will not apply to investors, only to homes where the owner lives.

Giving first home buyers more of a chance to get into the market. The cuts to stamp duty will be funded by property investors, who currently purchase housing stock at a ratio of 2:1 compared to first home buys. We will double land tax to 5.3% for property investors that own more than $5m in residential investment properties. This tax will raise billions of dollars and will not only cover the cost of cuts to stamp duty, but allow us to build 88,000 new public homes.

I support a woman’s right to choose. It saddens me somewhat that in 2026 this is still a question for candidates and suggests the discourse has gone backwards since One Nation has surged in polling.

Access to abortion is a fundamental human right. We need to enshrine access to reproductive healthcare in the Victorian constitution to ensure it can not be politicised in future.

Reducing the crime rate is no easy task, however, there are lessons to be learned from the places that have managed this, and they are some of the biggest cities around the world. New York, Glasgow, Cardiff and many other similar cities have had incredible success at reducing the crime rate by investing properly in prevention and taking a whole-of-government approach.

Unfortunately the major parties treat crime prevention as an afterthought. Earlier this year the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office heavily criticised the Labor Government’s Youth Crime Prevention Program for lacking clear targets and also failing to collect adequate data to determine whether it was reaching the right young people or reducing offending and reoffending.

Labor has chronically underfunded prevention, even cutting funding in half in recent years, and scattered funding for programs across multiple government departments with inadequate oversight and coordination of programs.

The Greens want a prevention system that’s coordinated, learns from what works, scales up successful programs and follows the evidence. We’re the only ones taking an evidence-based approach to reducing crime and tackling the root causes.