Kate Lardner is the Green light community independent standing in Mornington. She is an excellent first choice for action on climate and integrity in politics. Her support from Climate 200 indicates her potential to play a positive role in holding the government to account from the cross bench if the good people of Mornington elect her to the Victorian parliament.
Hi, I’m Kate Lardner
Your independent candidate for Mornington.
I’ve spent my entire life here on the Mornington Peninsula – and I’ve lived and breathed this community that we’re all a part of. I was born here, attended school in Mt Eliza, became a practising doctor at a local hospital and, recently, began to raise my family here.
While I love the Mornington community, I also know the challenges that we face. Our health care system is in a crisis – from staffing levels to mental health care, to the accessibility of our increasingly expensive health system.
Integrity in politics is at an all time low, with representatives from both major parties answering to their leadership and donors instead of their communities.
We face a climate crisis that neither major party can seem to grapple with, and we need community voices pushing for action.
I know our community – and I know that we need community representation now more than ever. My policies will all be shaped by community, with consultation before every major vote and throughout my term as your state MP.
Let’s get one of us in Parliament. Together.
Climate
Let’s take climate action that benefits the community.
Climate change is the biggest global health threat of our time – but for Australians, climate action is also one of our greatest economic opportunities.
I worked in an emergency department during the 2016 thunderstorm asthma epidemic and I’ve seen how dangerous extreme weather events can be. We have to act on climate change now to reduce the frequency and severity of bushfires like we saw in 2019-2020.
In the long term climate change also threatens the Mornington coastline that we love.
The good news is that the right kind of climate action can create huge savings for people who are struggling with rising fuel prices and the cost of living. Modelling has shown that helping households switch from fossil fuel based energy to renewable energy now can save them an average of over $5000 per year in energy bills by 2030. It makes a lot of sense when you consider that the cost of solar panels and electric vehicles has fallen significantly in recent years, while battery and storage technology continues to improve.
What governments need to do now is create the right policies and plans and facilitate loans to support people to make the switch.
As your representative in Victorian Parliament I will advocate for:
- Supporting people to switch to renewable energy to unlock savings and protect our environment and our health
- Equitable access to Electric Vehicles (EVs) for all Victorians by:
- Pausing the electric vehicle tax until Electric Vehicle purchases surpass the purchase of fuel based cars in Australia
- Making the electric vehicle subsidy income weighted so that EVs are accessible to all Victorians
- Zero interest loans for purchasing an EV
- Offering training to existing mechanics to up-skill in EV mechanics, and offering TAFE courses in EV mechanics
- Supporting markets for recycled batteries and growing the secondhand EV market
- Implementing 10 new Electric Vehicle charging stations across the Mornington Peninsula
- A target of 100% of stationary energy (this includes our electricity, our gas heating and our gas cooking) in Victoria to be produced from renewable sources by 2030
- A target of net zero emissions for Victoria by no later than 2035
- Compensating private landowners for hosting new transmission lines, that are required for new renewable energy infrastructure
- A Community Benefits Scheme so that communities that harbour new transmission lines receive benefits
- Supporting Victorian communities reliant on the coal industry for a community led, planned transition for workers
- Making the Solar Homes Program accessible to renters as well as property owners
- Setting targets for community energy projects in conjunction with the current state based RET and emission reduction targets
- No new polluting fossil fuel projects in Victoria
- Strengthening our health and emergency response systems to cope with climate-related extreme events
- Facilitating active transport by:
- Implementing the Moorooduc to Mornington bike path that is part of the Peninsula Trail proposal
- protecting the native vegetation along this path, and using it as an educational experience for nearby schools
- Improving the conditions of the roads so that cyclists and drivers can share the roads safely
- Auditing roads that have been identified as high volume traffic roads in the Mornington district, to see whether there are non-arterial roads (council funded) that can be upgraded to arterial roads (state funded). This leaves more council funding to maintain the smaller local roads
- Implementing the Moorooduc to Mornington bike path that is part of the Peninsula Trail proposal
- Improving public transport on the Mornington Peninsula by:
- Electrifying the Frankston to Stony Point rail line and making this a dual line to increase the capacity for passenger services
- Increasing the number of bus services for the current bus routes
- Implementing several bus routes from the Port Phillip side of the Peninsula to the Westernport side, starting with a Mornington to Somerville route
- Protecting against the logging of old growth forests in Victoria (a promise broken by the Andrews government earlier this year)
- Supporting a ‘peri-regional’ zoning classification on the Mornington Peninsula as introduced by the council to reap the funding benefits while protecting our Green Wedge zones
- Protecting our coastlines from erosion which involves studying the effect of the Mornington wave screen on the coastline, and revising the design of the wave screen if indicated