Candidate for Murray

About

Ian has been a Goulburn Valley resident for 48 years and runs a cropping and sheep farm at Undera. He graduated from Dookie Agricultural College 1981 and after a short period as farm manager at the former Kyabram Research Institute, assumed management of the family farm in 1987.

Alongside his wife Mandy, a teacher in Shepparton, Ian has enjoyed raising two daughters Anastasia and Sophia over the last 2 decades.

Farming is a passion for Ian who has introduced innovative changes and practices to the farm cropping program. Improving soil organic matter, minimising soil disturbance and reducing fuel usage have been some of Ian’s priorities. Many trees have been planted on his property and they are now a great landscape and wildlife asset.

Ian was a participant in the Fairley Leadership program in 2008 which proved to be a great opportunity to explore a variety of interesting local issues and meet many of the key community leaders in the wider Goulburn Valley.

Ian’s long standing interest in social justice and environmental issues prompted him to stand for Murray in the 2007 Federal election as a response to the mounting abuses of the Howard Government.

In 2008 Ian ran as a Greens candidate in the Greater Shepparton Council election narrowly missing out on winning the seventh and final position on council.

The same year, Ian was involved in the Streetsmart fundraising campaign which encouraged local restaurants to collect money for local homeless people in the few weeks leading up to Christmas.

More recently, Ian has acted as spokesperson for the Solar Valley Goes Solar projects. This successful project is a bulk buying scheme, enabling local people to purchase sustainable technologies more easily and cheaply. Currently 2800 people have signed up to install solar photovoltaic or solar hot water systems in their homes as part of these projects.

Ian is committed and determined to work towards achieving a more sustainable and just Murray electorate. It is about fairness for everyone; now and in the future.
 

Policies

"Murray has been hit hard already by climate change. Only the Greens have the political will to take action to allow existing renewable technologies to replace fossil fuels."

If elected I will take action to:

  • Make Northern Victoria a world-class showcase of renewable technologies. Murray has a fantastic solar resource and thousands of jobs can be created while we drive down our dependence on coal fired electricity;

  • Greatly improve preventative health care services to keep people out of hospitals. There is a glaring need for early intervention mental health care and for publicly funded dental care;

  • Get teachers back teaching rather than testing. They should be given the remuneration and support to do their best for our students;

  • Use the successful Shepparton and Cobram refugee settlement programs as a model for a more humane refugee policy. Offshore processing of asylum seekers should cease immediately;

  • Strengthen agriculture and encourage the uptake of low energy means of production. Agriculture has the potential to store carbon in soils but more research is needed;

  • Introduce high speed and frequent rail services from the Murray River to Melbourne. Interconnecting bus services will be needed to provide a fully integrated service;

  • Secure water for the environment with minimal disruption to agriculture and communities. We need to improve efficiencies and buy water from over allocated catchments to return additional water to stressed rivers and red gum forests.