COMMERCE Ballarat held a State Election Candidate Forum last week, the aim of which was to allow their members to hear from and question those standing later this month.<\/p>\n
Seated at a long table the six female and one male candidates representing Labor, Liberal and the Greens kicked off the event with a three-minute elevator pitch to the approximately fifty Commerce Ballarat members in attendance.<\/p>\n
Facilitator on the night, Nevett Ford Lawyers director Paul Stephens then opened the floor for a Q&A session.<\/p>\n
Andrew Kilmartin, Michaele Settle and Linda Zibell contesting Buninyong, sitting Liberal Louise Staley for Rippon and Wendouree candidates Amy Johnson, Juliana Addison and Alice Barnes fielded the questions, predominantly around the forecast growth of 250,000 residents in the city by 2050.<\/p>\n
Ten questions were asked by the audience, four of which came from local Ballarat councillors, one from the CEO of the Pyrenees shire Council while local health, education, arts and tourism organisations dominated the rest.<\/p>\n
Ms Staley \u2013 Liberal- suggested the use of \u201cplanning flying squads\u201d to facilitate handling the growing pains of the city in years ahead.<\/p>\n
Ms Barnes, Australian Greens candidate for Wendouree said \u201cthe Greens are not allergic to business\u201d when responding to a question from Australian Industry Group\u2019s regional manager Jim Dannock.<\/p>\n
In what was a quiet and attentive atmosphere for most of the night, the temperature of the room rose slightly when Labor\u2019s Ms Addison and Liberal Ms Staley responded to Councillor Ben Taylor\u2019s question about the \u2018red shirts rort.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
COMMERCE Ballarat held a State Election Candidate Forum last week, the aim of which was to allow their members to hear from and question those standing later this month. Seated at a long table the six female and one male candidates representing Labor, Liberal and the Greens kicked off the event with a three-minute elevator […]<\/p>\n