Danielle Green, MLA for Yan Yean. Photo: Ash Long

Yan Yean MLA Danielle Green gave a trademark aggressive speech last week in State Parliament about her political opponents:
It is my great pleasure to join the last grievance debate for the 58th Parliament.
I am pleased to be heading towards my fifth election and having the great privilege of representing the electorate of Yan Yean.
Today I grieve for my community should it have to suffer the misfortune, the indignity and the deprivation of a Guy-led Liberal government after November 24, because the best determinant of future behaviour is past behaviour.
(Mr Pearson interjected.)
That is what Dr Phil says, member for Essendon. When those opposite last sat on the government benches the opposition leader, as the
Minister for Planning and a member for Northern Metropolitan Region in the upper house, oversaw rampant development in the north. Accompanying that we saw zero infrastructure. At the 2010 election the Liberal Party in Yan Yean went to the election promising exactly zero infrastructure, and they delivered that in spades.
They actually delivered some very unpleasant surprises that they did not tell the electorate about before they got in.
They delivered massive cuts to education, which meant that a much-needed secondary college, Mernda Central College, was not built on the land that had been purchased for that purpose in 2009.
That meant that the land that was funded in the 2010 budget for a standalone Doreen Secondary College in Cooks Road, Doreen, did not happen.
We are still feeling the legacy of that to this day with Hazel Glen College, which is a fantastic P–10 school with 3000 students.
It is the largest single-campus school in the country, and it is the legacy of those opposite not because they built it but because they built nothing, and we have had to catch up on that.
They spent not one dollar on arterial roads in the north — not Yan Yean Road, not Plenty Road, not Bridge Inn Road, not Epping Road, not Childs Road and not Craigieburn West Road.
All of those roads are underway or in the pipeline under this government, not under those opposite.
What we do know about the then
Minister for Planning and now Leader of the Opposition is that when he was planning minister it was
all about cuts and cosying up to corporations.
The whole Ventnor saga has been ventilated in recent weeks and people are finally finding out the truth about that disgraceful cover-up and waste of government money.
He himself said, ‘If people find out about this, if it goes to the courts, I won’t be in my job’. I do not ever want to see him as planning minister or as the leader of this state because it would be bad for this whole state and it would be bad for the community that I represent.
I want to commend the member for Eltham for the outstanding job that she has done over the past four
years.
It has been an absolute delight working in partnership with her, and now we are sharing a campaign office. When neighbours become good
friends they move in together. We together have had the need to stand up for our community.
We have been getting stuff done — with the Hurstbridge line, with school upgrades — but we have had a dodgy, dodgy Nillumbik Shire Council led by a Liberal Party member, Cr Peter Clarke.
He has a very similar temperament to that of the Leader of the Opposition – a very short fuse.
He was appointed by the Leader of the Opposition when he was Minister for Planning as the chair of the Victorian Planning Authority.
Then he had to resign. He had to give up the butler and give up the silver service at the table of the Victorian Planning Authority because he and Michael Wooldridge had been ripping off grannies, had been ripping off old people.
Now he is working in lockstep again, working hand in glove, trying to implement the underhanded plans of the Leader of the Opposition.
I quite like the member for Eildon. She is a nice person and she has a good heart. She was on her feet in the grievance debate just before and, sadly, she was defending the Nillumbik council. I mean, seriously!
She was holding them up as a model for community consultation and inclusion.
Well, I am sorry, member for Eildon, but you are wrong. There was no consultation about the Nillumbik Shire Council’s state election advocacy statement that was tabled at a council meeting on September 4.
Indeed none of the councillors had even seen it, let alone anyone in the
community.
I want to know what the member for Eildon thinks and what the member for Warrandyte thinks about Nillumbik.
Nillumbik is represented in the Legislative Assembly by the seats of Eltham and Yan Yean. There was no mention of this.
The Liberal-led council has completely ignored the needs of Eildon and Warrandyte.
On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Black Saturday bushfires
there is no mention and no advocacy for Arthurs Creek, for Christmas Hills, for Bend of Isles, for Panton Hill, for St Andrews, for Strathewen and for parts of Kinglake and Yan Yean that are in Nillumbik — not one mention.
The statement could not even get its geography right. It said the electorate of Eltham included Kangaroo Ground. It does not include that.
Ms Ward — Six houses.
Ms Green — Well, six houses, apparently. But it missed out Research. Doesn’t Research matter either?
And it said the electorate of Yan Yean takes in the towns of Hurstbridge, Diamond Creek, Yarrambat and Plenty.
What about Wattle Glen? What about Doreen? What about Nutfield? What about Cottles Bridge?
Don’t they matter either?
I believe the councillors have been taken for a ride. I have seen a school council newsletter from the principal of Marcellin College that says to his students, ‘Don’t worry. The member for Bulleen, the Leader of the Opposition, has told me if he gets elected, that route A will not occur for the north-east link’.
The opposition have said publicly that they will do the east–west link first and the north-east link at a later stage.
They will renegotiate it.
Anyone in the community who is concerned about routes C and D should look no further than the Nillumbik Shire Council advocacy statement because of what it does — and much to the shock of councillors because it was rushed in.
I called them afterwards and said, ‘Did you realise this statement actually says that Allendale Road should
become an arterial road?’.
They have not even advocated for Bolton Street to become an arterial road. They are talking about Allendale Road, a dirt country lane which is corrugated and has huge hills, and the mayor of Nillumbik wants it to be an arterial road.
When I rang a couple of councillors, they said, ‘Oh, good Lord, that’s a quasi-freeway’.
That is code for the Leader of the
Opposition and the Liberal mayor of Nillumbik working hand in glove to ensure that it is route D, through the member for Eildon’s electorate and through the electorate of Warrandyte.
That is why the Liberal-led council did not mention Eildon and Warrandyte in their statement.
They do very little in between, but this Liberal-led council have advocated for an Eltham North train sta-
tion. Almost no-one lives nearby. Train stations in the metropolitan system will only work if you have a
400-metre walkable catchment.
It is simply about developing the green wedge land between Eltham
and Diamond Creek. They tried it in 2010, when Mr Jack Gange of the Silver Top family ran for the electorate of Yan Yean — and the pieces of silver.
He had been given a promise by the opposition leader that that land would be turned into housing.
He did not get his way then, but they are up to it again.
Allendale Road being bid for as an arterial road, the Eltham North train station and the full duplication of the train line to Hurstbridge are all about delivering on the opposition leader’s commitment to release
300,000 lots of land in Melbourne. There are not enough lots within the urban growth boundary for those
to be delivered, so the Liberal mayor of Eltham is working hand in glove with the opposition leader, just like he did when he was the head of Places Victoria, so that he can deliver on this target.
This is about changing the route of the north-east link, taking it through fire-prone areas and into areas of pristine bushland and where people’s lives would be put at risk.
It would not solve the congestion problems that we have; it would add to them.
My opponent is working in lock step with Nillumbik council.
At the Nillumbik public transport forum the Liberal candidate for Eltham said, ‘Oh, I’m parochial. I’m only about Eltham. Unlike the member for Eltham, I’m not interested in Diamond Creek or Mernda. We’re going to duplicate fully to Eltham’. Well, blow the historic trestle bridge. But Earth to Nick McGowan, Earth to the Liberal candidate for Eltham: You’ve got part of Diamond Creek in your electorate, you twit! I mean, seriously.
You are purporting to represent part of Diamond Creek and you say you do not care about it.
Mr Clark — On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I draw your atten-tion to standing order 119 about the use of unparliamentary language. While the member is entitled to speak with some energy about whatever arguments she wishes to raise, she should be using appropriate language in this house, and I ask you to
bring her back to order.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Carbines) — I ask the member for Yan Yean to continue her contribution being mindful of her commentary on other individuals.
Ms Green — I have an opponent who is trying to mislead people by saying that the Liberal Party are in fact going to duplicate the rail line beyond Eltham, that they actually do give a damn beyond Eltham.
We have a plan that will deliver 20-minute services from Diamond Creek, Wattle Glen and Hurstbridge — and it will not to blow up the green wedge and it will not wreck our parkland.
There are already two platforms at Diamond Creek. There will be a duplication of track between Diamond Creek and Wattle Glen, and that simple duplication will mean that we can deliver those services.
What the Liberal plan also does not say is that we need a new train station at Greensborough. We need a new bus interchange so that buses can turn around quickly and we can have rail and bus services that are quick and effective.
We know that on the watch of those opposite they only ever cut public transport.
I am also very suspicious of the $20 million for recreational facilities in Hurstbridge.
I support the development of recreational facilities in Hurstbridge.
Goodness knows why the council have not supported the upgrade of female friendly facilities at the Hurstbridge Football and Netball Club.
It would not take very much at all. They are hanging by their fingernails to division 1, but the council does not think about that.
Then they want $20 million for other recreational facilities for a township where the population is declining.
What that says to me is that they are trying to develop things in those townships and provide the justification to open up the green wedge, to let it rip.
The Leader of the Opposition has been on the public record in the Herald Sun on at least two occasions saying that he believed that Wattle Glen was a prime place for development.
What we would have, if those opposite got in, are cuts to education and no investment in roads, and we would have rampant development through the green wedge.
That would ruin the character of the north-eastern suburbs and it would do nothing for jobs.
So I grieve if those opposite — especially an opposition led by the member for Bulleen, the former planning minister — were ever to take office.
I will do everything within the fibre of my being while there is breath in my body to make sure that Yan Yean stays in Labor hands.
I will be working in lock step with the member for Eltham, and I will be telling the member for Eildon the error of their ways, that they still do not listen to her and they never will.