Ballarat key to Guy’s premiership

STATE Opposition leader Matthew Guy has said winning all three Ballarat seats at the upcoming election is crucial to the Coalitions chances of taking government in November.

Mr Guy made the statement in an interview with the Ballarat Times News Group last week and said it’s a challenge he can overcome.

“I need to hang onto one and win two others, as simple as that” he said. “I know it’s doable, in all three cases.”

In Ballarat to announce plans for a high-speed, European style rail network, Mr Guy also talked up local Liberal candidates.

City of Ballarat councillor Amy Johnson is standing for Wendouree, former radio journalist and political staffer Andrew Kilmartin in Buninyong, and Louise Staley MP is recontesting Ripon.

All three seats are on margins of less than two-percent, with Wendouree counted as nominally Liberal at the last election although retiring Labor MP Sharon Knight won the primary vote and extended on preferences.

“I think it’s all very close,” Mr Guy said. “We now have two retirements in Buninyong and Wendouree, that means it’s very competitive.

“Andrew and Amy have been working nonstop for some time now, meeting people, talking to people. They’ve been working pretty hard. That gives a lot of feedback as to the policy depth we need to put in place around regionalisation.”

With a focus on decentralising population growth in the state, Mr Guy said that there’s several things a government led by him could do to support Ballarat should more people move here.

They include road and hospital upgrades, relocation of government offices like VicRoads, and potentially VLine, and a ministry portfolio dedicated to decentralisation.

“Our strategy is not about dumping people in regional areas and then leaving, it’s about growing them sustainably,” Mr Guy said.

“Infrastructure priorities have been identified. So we can see whether it’s the link road, whether it’s primary schools in the Lucas area, whether it’s station parking in Wendouree, potentially looking at how we might put in place a Warrenheip station.”

Mr Guy was critical of the current Labor government’s approach to regional Victoria and said that’s resulted in a, “two speed economy.”

“There’s been a lot of government focus on Melbourne and everything’s been thrown at Melbourne, and I think regional Victoria has been left behind,” he said.

“When you’ve got the worst punctuality and reliability on your trains for a very long time and yet the government can find $60 billion to build a suburban rail loop yet can’t find $6 million to upgrade the rail line in Ballarat. I think there’s a real problem of being out of touch.”

As a point of difference to his position that the current government is more focused on Melbourne, Mr Guy said he wanted to his potential premiership to look beyond that metropolitan area.

Part of that feeds back into creating more growth in places like Ballarat.

“We don’t think we should accept Melbourne growing to eight-million people, we think we should try and find ways to grow the whole state and turn Victoria into a state of cities, not a city state,” Mr Guy said.

“That doesn’t mean we expect three-million people in Ballarat, we do not, though we do expect, and would like to see, a greater level of growth in cities that can manage it, sustain it, and get the infrastructure in place.”