Staunch climate advocate and local Kensington mum Ellen Sandell has officially announced she will re-contest the seat of Melbourne in the November state election.
Sandell has held the seat since 2014, during which time she has been a fearless advocate for the climate, environment and the local Melbourne community.
Her achievements over the last eight years include campaigning successfully to get Labor to reverse their position and stop the polluting East West toll road, campaigning with regional communities across the state for an Australia-first ban on fracking, and helping stop a disastrous gas import terminal at Westernport Bay.
When our recycling system totally collapsed, it was the Greens-initiated inquiry in Parliament that Ms Sandell helped establish that provided the solutions to rebuild it.
This led Victoria to introduce a 10c refund on bottles and cans, and overhaul our waste system.
Ms Sandell has also been a passionate local member, more recently supporting the Melbourne community through the pandemic, particularly those hardest hit by lockdowns including successfully getting the Labor Government to commit to increased relief for renters and casual workers.
When nine public housing towers were suddenly forced into a hard lockdown by the Victorian Labor Government in 2020, Ms Sandell was there on the ground each day helping residents access food, medicine and vital information and successfully lobbying for new programs to support public housing residents.
If re-elected in November, Ms Sandell says that stopping Labor’s expansion of dangerous gas drilling, transitioning away from coal, dealing with affordable housing, pushing for more integrity in Parliament and rebuilding the inner city’s life and economy after COVID will be her top priorities.
The Federal Election last month saw big swings away from both Labor and the Liberals, which made clear that Victorians want to see both Labor and the Liberals do much more to tackle climate change, and will vote for parties and candidates like the Greens who push them to do so.
As stated by Deputy Leader of the Victorian Greens, Ellen Sandell MP:
“The federal election made it clear: to get strong action on climate change, we need more Greens MPs and climate champions in our Parliament to push Labor and the Liberals further and faster.
“We did it at the federal election – now we need to do it at the Victorian election too.
“I’m excited to run for the seat of Melbourne again, and continue serving my local community while pushing the next Government to go further and faster on climate change, affordable housing, integrity in Parliament and better women’s representation.
“In Melbourne, we’re seeing housing become totally unaffordable, while the Labor Government has stopped building public housing. Labor is also opening up more areas of Victoria to gas drilling and keeping our polluting coal plants open past their use-by dates. These are some of the challenges that we urgently need to address, and why we need more Greens in the Victorian Parliament.
