Hi BKop Team
Thanks for your introductory questionnaire. Most of the issues raised fall outside CA’s direct areas of interest although there is quite a number of other areas that we have policies on not covered in your list, such as the CFA levy, logging in water catchments and equality of services for regional areas.
In most other cases, we allow our candidates to develop positions that suit their particular electorates. That’s a flexibility that candidates from most other parties don’t enjoy.
One of the issues you listed was water, on which we do have a policy which is:
Country Alliance will recognise, promote and defend the right of all Victorians to have a fair entitlement to water.
Country Alliances believes:
· water and water infrastructure must remain in public hands;
· existing water entitlements must be honoured;
· full and fair compensation must be provided to any entitlement holder who has that entitlement removed or adjusted by Government;
· environmental water is to be sourced from water delivery infrastructure efficiency upgrades, not from the water market;
· permanent water trade out of existing irrigation districts should be halted, until full social, economic and environmental impact studies are conducted. It should then only re-commenced if the studies find agreed benefits to existing irrigation districts and the Victorian community;
· fluoride must not be put into water supplies, or continued to be supplied, without the genuine support of local communities; and
· dams must be able to be constructed for public, private and small commercial use, where it can be demonstrated there are no negative third party impacts.
On Climate Change, we can confirm it is real. Here’s a quote from our Chairman, Russ Bate, from a yet-to-be-published article: Let me say at the outset that I do believe in climate change; I know it is real because I no longer have to deal with woolly mammoths and other denizens of the last Ice Age. What comes after that in the broader debate is debatable. We do not support a carbon tax.
On Group Voting Tickets, one thing we can say is that we’ll be putting the Greens last. Our approach to the next (Victorian) state and federal election in relation to the major parties is likely to be as it has been in the past – even handed.
Regards
Secretary, Country Alliance
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