Legislation a focus for Green

by Bonnie Collings
Delivering strong legislation was among the top priories of Liberal Party candidate Matt Green if elected to the Victorian Legislative Council in November.
Mr Green was recently endorsed by the Liberal Party after party members supported his bid for pre-selection. He will be the Liberal Party's second candidate in third position for the Eastern Victoria Region, on the ticket behind the Nationals' sitting member Melina Bath.
Mr Green is a senior electorate officer for Member for Narracan Wayne Farnham. His pre-selection will not impact his current role.
A self described "politics nerd", Mr Green said his time working in the public service side of politics drove his passion to seek election to the upper house.
"I've always enjoyed public service, I've always enjoyed working with community groups, helping them fix the issue they've got or finding funding for the project that they want to deliver," he said.
"It now really feels like an opportunity to take a next step and not just be someone advising within that, but to actually use my voice to be part of it."
"It's something I'm really excited about."
Mr Green described the role as an upper house member as a "unique challenge" that would be well suited to his skillset.
"I've done a lot of work over the years with the policy side of our party room and I've really enjoyed policy formation," he said.
"It's line by line assessment of legislation. It's committee work. It's really diligent work to deliver good legislation or good policy and that's the thing I enjoy the absolute most more than anything else."
"If we want to get legislation right, that happens in the upper house a lot of the time."
If elected, Mr Green said two areas he would focus on were government services and industry and innovation.
"I have a big focus on actually getting the best outcomes for taxpayers' dollars," he said.
"Having grown up with the advent of technology and all the changes that we've seen, it's always been part of what I do. I think industry innovation and that technological change that government is actually going through at the moment is a policy area that I'd really like to be involved in if I was fortunate enough to get elected."
Already on the campaign trail, Mr Green said cost of living pressures and fuel prices were front of mind for local people.
"The first thing that people talk to me about every single time is the cost of living," he said.
"I'm mindful that we've got a lot of very varied communities across Eastern Region and they all have very unique challenges that they're facing, but cost of living and fuel prices appear to be the two that are absolute most immediate."
Following a significant shift away from the Liberal Party demonstrated in last year's federal election, Mr Green said his focus for the state election in November was to provide a vision for voters.
"I think the federal election result is something that the state team absolutely are mindful of. I'm very mindful of it, having worked through it and watched it," Mr Green said.
"I think the most important thing that we can focus on is actually providing a vision for people to have, to look to, to vote for.
"You have to point out that something is wrong, but you've got to be able to also say we have a solution for it."
Mr Green welcomed the opportunity to work alongside sitting Liberal Party MPs and other candidates in the lead up to the election.
"I understand it's a pretty big task ahead to actually win the third spot in Eastern Region, it'll be a challenge, we haven't held that spot since 2014," Mr Green said.
The Liberal Party's Narracan branch was supportive of Mr Green's pre-selection bid, believing Eastern Victoria was a winnable seat.
Current sitting members for Eastern Victoria Region are: Renee Heath (Liberal), Tom McIntosh (ALP), Melina Bath (The Nationals), Harriet Shing (ALP) and Jeff Bourman (Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party Victoria).