By Brendan Rees
New Liberal candidate for Cranbourne Ann-Marie Hermans has vowed to “crackdown” on crime and reduce the cost of living for families.
The mother of four said Cranbourne “is really near and dear to my heart” and believes residents “need a fair go.”
She said improving infrastructure, reducing crime, better education and creating more jobs were on her priority list.
“This is an area that is really important to me and something that has really concerned me is that the people here do not have a voice.”
Marking her commitment to the community Ms Hermans visited Kimekai Mixed Martial Arts Gym in Cranbourne, on Tuesday 12 September, and spoke with the owner Leirosa Patterson, who had experienced high energy bills and struggled to “get ahead” as a small business.
Ms Hermans said she was passionate to see skyrocketing energy prices change as small businesses and households struggled to pay their energy bills.
“Electricity bills are going through the roof under Daniel Andrews. People can’t afford to run their business. We need to make it affordable for every Australian to pay their bills,” she said.
She said some households could not afford to keep their heater on.
“They are almost in darkness with two lights on because they don’t want to have a high electricity bill. This is ridiculous to have a family with children living in those conditions.
“Looking around and seeing that people can’t pay their power bills for instance is a real concern for me when I know they could end up as some do in situations where they’re living in their cars until they can find somewhere else to live.”
With a background in education, community development and social work, Ms Hermans said “people matter to me” and families in Cranbourne deserved to be supported.
“Having four kids of my own means I’m really concerned how the families are actually struggling in this area and what needs to be done.”
Infrastructure, she said, needed reviewing.
“At the moment we’ve got 70 per cent of our population in Cranbourne who are actually moving out towards the city to go to work. We need to change that.”
“Roads, roads, roads are really important. If we don’t get that right we don’t get our public transport system right. The people can’t get to where they are going,” she said.
An increase of police numbers was also on Ms Hermans’ agenda, adding people needed to feel safe in their own home.
“We have about 50 families a week moving into the city of Casey. The majority of those are moving into the Cranbourne area; so about 120 people a week. That’s a huge increase.”
“We have to crack down on crime,” she said.
Ms Hermans said Cranbourne had a great sporting community and facilities needed to be developed.
“We’ve got a great racecourse here. We’ve got certain things that make this community really special and unique and we need to develop that.”
“Certainly the cinema issue has become a community issue and that’s something we’d certainly look at funding,” she said.
With the population rapidly growing, Ms Hermans said Cranbourne would need hospital facilities.
“We certainly need to have a good look and overhaul of where we are going to do our medical facilities and what we are going to provide for the people of Cranbourne.”
She also wanted to reduce the cost of living and have affordable housing as high rental costs made life difficult for families.
“It’s difficult to buy a home. Cranbourne is ridiculously expensive at the moment in terms of rental properties and in terms of what you get for that rental price,” she said.
“It does need a good overhaul and that’s something I would be sitting down and talking to Matthew Guy to reduce the cost of living so that we can actually have housing affordability”.
