Candidate: Shirley DEVIESSEUX
IND

How I intend to serve my electorate

A Fresh Approach to Olympia Ward is needed!

Olympia Ward is home to a diverse, fast growing community including many who struggle. Too often we’re left without the infrastructure and support we need. Council services should deliver our ideas, not what others think is good enough for us. Let’s have more equality in Banyule!

I'll stand up for and deliver:
• Building our promised basketball and netball facilities
• Housing development for sustainable homes not quick profits
• Urban renewal of our aged and patchy infrastructure such as footpaths, lighting & roads
• More public open space, better parks and green landscaping
• Keeping Council moving on climate action
• Providing a strong voice for our diverse community
• Bringing jobs back to Council and not outsourcing
• Council procurement that supports local businesses
• Early childhood education made an Olympia priority

It's a good place to bring up a family here but I want to make it the best place to live in Banyule! The area is suffering overdevelopment and this has been made worse by the council becoming a local developer itself. This must stop. By voting for me, you will send a strong message to Council that Olympia ward residents oppose the sell-off of our community land for excessive development, including the old Bellfield Secondary College site. We can still stop this proposed development that would rob us of a place for leisure, recreation and community facilities for our future needs.

We have been short-changed as Olympia residents dealing with crowded development, high rises everywhere. But where are our promised basketball and netball facilities? The council bought and sold the land so they could build flashy offices in Greensborough and a 30 million dollar library in Ivanhoe, but what about Olympia? The council paid 6 million dollars to Darebin Council to rent basketball courts when they can build them in Banyule. Let's give our youth healthy options nearby. I will build the basketball and netball courts our area was promised and needs and I will deliver them.

I’ll make sure development is in line with local character, sustainable and built to last, with homes that are great to live in and accessible to all our residents, including social housing. I will stand up for improving our footpaths, roads, street lighting and bike paths so that we can get around safely and easily and for an increase to planning permit fees & charges for that purpose alone. I’ll be a strong voice for increased climate action by Council, make it easier for residents to live sustainably and to get support in emergencies. I will create more public open space, community gardens and habitat restoration by arguing at Council for an increase from 5% to 8% of site value for public open space paid by every developer to a quarantined fund.

There is no planning for early childhood development like kindas and childcare places for our increasing family population. New developments should include mandatory public amenity spaces for use by our very young, elderly or disabled residents, so that they can access these services without needing to travel outside Olympia. At the moment the Council leaves this to market forces but this is failing to deliver what we urgently need. Good planning that cares can address this.

Olympia residents need a Learning and Leisure Precinct at Olympic Village, to join up the Banyule Community Health Service, Adult Learning, Olympic Leisure Centre, a new shopfront Library and a hospitality & healthy eating training cafe, adjacent to the P-12 school. We have high rates of the diseases of poverty here, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, addiction, depression & anxiety. Council resources are desperately needed to improve access to physical and mental exercise. We have a digital divide with residents here not being able to afford internet access or having low computer literacy. The pool is currently seldom open and should be available all day and weekends and public holidays to make it easy for us to use it (once restrictions allow). Let's combine these facilities with improved basketball and netball facilities through further land acquisition nearby and underground car parking. This would create more local jobs, increase foot traffic for local shops and make the area safer.

If rates are cut unilaterally or frozen, then there will not be the resources to make this happen. There are currently rate amnesty and reduction forms at Council for those in hardship and of course these will need to be regularly reviewed, increased and extended as Federal LNP reductions in support kick in. But we have a two speed economy with many still working or in businesses doing well like Aldi. Rates are supposed to be about property valuation not going for the maximum allowable increase as our Council has lazily done. What’s been missing is revenue not returning to our disadvantaged and overdeveloped Olympia.

I will represent you and not vested interests or business as usual. I’ll build a better neighbourhood, with community venues available to residents at low cost and virtual ways of residents connecting with one another and Council. I will set up monthly Olympia community feedback meetings so that we can talk about what needs to be done and develop the future of Olympia together. I will be a voice for women and ensure diverse points of view are heard on Council. Community health and safety must be at the heart of Council decision making at every stage.

Vote 1 Shirley Deviesseux. Fill in your ballot paper with a 1 next to my name at position 5, number every box as per my how to vote card, sign, put it in the reply paid envelope and pop it in the post box as soon as possible. Our post is having delays so every day counts to get your vote returned to the VEC by 23 October.

Authorised by Shirley Deviesseux, 73 Outhwaite Road Heidelberg Heights Vic. 3081.