By JESSE GRAHAM
THE major parties are finishing off their campaigns for Casey with funding announcements for sporting groups and legal centres, as voters prepare to head to the polls on Saturday, 2 July.
On Thursday, 16 June, Labor candidates for Deakin and Chisholm Tony Clark and Stefanie Perri announced that the Eastern Community Legal Centre (ECLC) would receive $450,000 over three years if their party wins government.
The announcement will provide funding for ECLC’s Yarra Ranges centre in Healesville, which provides free legal advice on a range of issues, including homelessness and family violence.
CEO Michael Smith welcomed the announcement, and said it would give the organisation “certainty”, ahead of a $240,000 funding cut on 1 July, 2017.
“While that’s still 12 months to go, it still leaves the staff and the communities we work with with some uncertainty about what’s going to happen after that,” he said.
The organisation had previously raised the possibility of closing its Healesville office due to funding cuts under a previous budget – but had its funding reinstated by Casey MP Tony Smith.
Labor’s Casey candidate Hovig Melkonian called on Mr Smith and the Coalition to match the funding announcement, but a spokesperson for the government did not comment on whether the funding would be matched.
Mr Smith, meanwhile, pledged $280,000 in funding for netball court lighting in Healesville and Montrose, and new courts with lighting for Coldstream.
If the Coalition is re-elected, $140,000 will be provided for lighting at Healesville and Montrose, while another $140,000 will be used for converting old tennis courts to netball courts, with lighting – the funding would be matched by the Yarra Ranges Council.
Coldstream EFL Netball co-ordinator Narelle Collette said the Coldstream teams currently trained in Yarra Glen or at the primary school, due to the only facilities being old tennis courts with free-standing netball hoops.
Converting the courts to be netball-friendly will allow games to be played in town by about 100 netballers with the EFL and the Coldstream Netball Club, and for training at night.
“It would help all of Coldstream, not just the club,” Ms Collette said.
On Wednesday, 22 June, Greens candidate Elissa Sutherland hosted a screening of the documentary Chasing Asylum at Croydon Cinemas, bringing together about 180 people to talk about asylum seekers and policies ahead of the election.
Mr Smith, Mr Melkonian and Ms Sutherland will face off with independent candidate Peter Charleton, Animal Justice Party’s Kristi Bacon and Rise Up Australia’s Angela Dorian on 2 July.
For more information about each candidate, see Tuesday, 28 June’s Mail.
