Australian Greens: Greens take climate fight to inner-south this election

The Victorian Greens plan to take the fight against climate change to the inner-south this election in a bid to increase their representation in the area in the next Victorian Parliament.

At the upcoming state election the Greens hope to win back the Southern Metropolitan seat in the Upper House and pick up lower house seats like Albert Park.

The recent Federal Election saw more Victorians vote Greens than ever before.

In the Southern Metropolitan area the Greens’ Senate vote increased by between 3.2 to 4.9 per cent. They also had primary votes of 26.6 per cent (Macnamara), 21.7 per cent (Higgins), 19.5 per cent (Kooyong) and 17.5 per cent (Goldstein).

For 12 years the Greens held the Southern Metropolitan Upper House seat, however despite getting almost 13 per cent of the vote at the last election, they lost it to a party who received only 1.3 per cent due to the dodgy group voting system.

This year the Greens hope to win the seat back, while picking up lower house seats like Albert Park, which includes suburbs like St Kilda, Albert Park and South Melbourne where federally Steph Hodgins-May ran a strong campaign in the seat of Macnamara.

Leader of the Victorian Greens, Samantha Ratnam, said climate change was an issue that posed a huge threat to all of us and our children.

She said we’d seen it in the floods of the east coast and in the bushfires here in Victoria, and that inner-south residents were keenly aware of the impacts of climate change, with Elwood at risk of being inundated with flood water due to its low-lying geography. 

This afternoon the Greens will host a forum in Elwood to discuss how the party is building power in Parliament to achieve action on climate change. 

The forum will include a stunning line-up of women leaders on an all-women panel of speakers, including  former Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne, Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens and NSW Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Leader of the Victorian Greens Samantha Ratnam, Youth Climate Activist Anjali Sharma, and the Greens’ candidate for Southern Metro Katherine Copsey.

Quotes attributable to Leader of the Victorian Greens, Samantha Ratnam MLC: 

“This is the critical decade for climate action. 

“Coal and gas are the leading causes of the climate crisis, yet Labor and the Liberals are pouring fuel on the fire by backing more.

“Labor doesn’t have a plan to get out of coal and is fast-tracking gas drilling next to the 12 Apostles.

“Climate is a key issue in the inner-south and a key reason to vote Greens. With just a small swing the Greens can win back Southern Metro and double our representation in the Upper House.”