Below is the Traffic Light Voting Guide for the House of Assembly electorate of Essendon. If you download and print the guide your can fill it in at home and take it with when you head off to vote Alternatively you can follow the guide using your phone as a prompt.

The NORTHERN METROPOLITAN REGION guide for voters in Essendon will not be published until after the ballot draw on Tuesday November 10th.

Voting Traffic Light in the 2026 Victorian State Election

You will receive two ballot papers to vote for your preferred candidates in the Victorian House of Assembly and the Victorian Legislative Council .

To vote Traffic Light, vote for all the Green Light candidates or parties first, then the Orange Light ones. Number the red light candidates last.

Red light candidates are threat to achieving a fair future for us all not just in relation to Climate Rescue, but also a range of social issues most of us are concerned about. The order you number the Red Light candidates will have a significant effect on creating a good outcome at this election. We describe this advice as Strategic Preferencing. Strategic Preferencing combined with your Traffic Light Voting Guide will turbo charge the effectiveness of your vote in Red Light electorates.

Strategic Preferencing in the Essendon District (How to turbo-charge your vote!)

Essendon is a Red Light electorate held by the Labor Party. We strongly advise to you preference the Labor candidate last. Fortunately for Essendon residents, you have three Outstanding Green Light candidates to support. All three are very worthy community independents.

Strategic Preferencing in the Southern Metropolitan Region

Whether you vote below, or above the line, number One Nation or their candidates last. The divisiveness promoted by this party will tear us apart. Your vote can help to exclude them from minority government and preserve our capacity to restore social cohesion. They have the unhinged capacity to take a wrecking ball to the good influence of the Legislative Council.

To do this effectively you will need to fill in all the boxes either above the line or below the line.

Outstanding Green Light Candidates

Oscar Yildiz Community Independent

Issues that matter to the District of Essendon

The Seat of Essendon is a strong, proud and connected community, but residents are rightly concerned about the pressure on Families, Roads, Schools, Health Services, Public Transport and Local Infrastructure.

My priorities are Practical, Local and focused on the issues people raise with me every day.

Government Accountability.

Cost of Living.

Community Safety.

Traffic and Roads.

Public Transport.

Schools and Young People.

Health and Community Services.

Local Business and Jobs.

Responsible Growth and Infrastructure.

Parks, Sporting Grounds and Open Space.

I also strongly support practical environmental initiatives that reduce waste, encourage recycling and reuse, protect our parks and green spaces, improve sustainability and produce measurable environmental outcomes.

One of the reasons I am standing as an Independent is that I don’t believe environmental responsibility should belong to any one political party. Good environmental policy and good economic policy can and should work together.

Vote Climate One Assessment

1. Yes. If elected to the next Victorian Parliament, I will support real and practical action on issues relating to the ecological and climate emergency. I believe we have a responsibility to protect our environment and leave a sustainable future for the generations that follow us.

2. Yes. I am prepared to consider and use the principles of the 3Rs, the Climate Rescue Accord and the Green Transition, where relevant, to help inform my consideration of legislation and policy. As an Independent, I will always assess legislation on its merits, consider the evidence and listen to the community before determining my final position.

Tania Piccolo Community Independent and an Outstanding Green Light candidate

My priorities for Victoria are centred on safer communities, stronger local businesses, cost-of-living relief and greater accountability in government.

Safer Communities

Community safety should remain a core responsibility of government. I support practical measures that strengthen community safety, address crime and ensure Victorians feel secure in their homes, neighbourhoods and local areas.

Supporting Small Business

Small businesses are an important part of Victoria’s local communities and economy. I support reducing unnecessary barriers, improving the operating environment for local businesses and ensuring small business owners have the opportunity to grow, employ and contribute to their communities.

Cost-of-Living Pressure

Many households are managing increasing everyday expenses. My focus is on practical measures that reduce unnecessary financial pressure and help Victorian families and individuals manage the cost of essential living expenses.

Government Accountability

Victorians should be able to expect transparency, responsibility and accountability from their government. I support stronger oversight, responsible decision-making and greater transparency around how public money is spent and how decisions affecting Victorian communities are made.

These four areas form the foundation of my policy priorities: community safety, small business, cost-of-living pressures and accountable government.

Vote Climate One Assessment

1. If I am elected to the next Victorian Parliament, I will support real action on issues relating to the ecological and climate emergency.
2. I support the application of the 3Rs and the Climate Rescue Accord to inform, when relevant, my position and advocacy on legislation and policy.

Ava Evans Community Independent and an Outstanding Green Light candidate

MY PRIORITIES

I’m running to be a strong, local and independent voice for Essendon in Spring Street.

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As a lifelong local, a mum, a Chartered Accountant and someone who has spent six years representing our community in local government as Councillor, including serving as Mayor, I understand the opportunities and challenges facing our neighbourhoods.

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These are the issues I’m focused on, but I also know that good representation starts with listening.

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Over the coming weeks, I’ll be getting out and about across different neighbourhoods in the electorate to hear directly from locals about what matters to you, your family and our community.

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If you see me out and about, come and say hi. I’d love to hear from you.

Traffic Light Voting Guide Assessment

Thank you for sending this through. 

Please find following answers to your questions:

1. If I am elected to the next Victorian Parliament, I will support real action on issues relating to the ecological and climate emergency. This is something that is really important to me.

2. I support the application of the 3Rs and the Climate Rescue Accord to inform, when relevant, my position and advocacy on legislation and policy.

Green Light Candidates

Michal Kedem Victorian Socialist candidate

Addressing climate change and protecting our environment

The climate emergency is a dire threat to our natural environment and the liveability of our cities. Victoria’s Climate Science Report 2024 projects hotter summers, more frequent and severe bushfire weather, reduced water availability, rising sea levels, and intensified short-duration flooding. Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions were 84.2 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent in 2023 with around 90 percent of those emissions coming from burning fossil fuels, and electricity generation alone accounting for 46 percent. The Allan government’s targets fall well short of what climate science requires of wealthy developed states to limit warming to 1.5°C. In 2025, the Allan government opened up a new offshore gas exploration program, a pivotal policy shift after years of more restrictive measures, and locking in fossil fuel development that will generate emissions for decades and is incompatible with any credible path to net zero.

Victorian Socialists acknowledge that climate change is an existential risk with the potential to impact all other aspects of our policy platform and believe the climate emergency demands a response that matches the scale of the threat. The cost of the transition must fall on those who created the crisis and have profited from it.

What we think

1. Climate change is a direct product of the capitalist world economy, which turns everything in the natural environment into a resource exploitable for private profits.
2. Market mechanisms such as carbon trading, offsets, and voluntary targets have had decades to work and have failed. Climate change cannot be addressed without a comprehensive, planned restructuring of the economy away from fossil fuel dependence.
3. The concentration of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere means that net-zero emissions will not be sufficient to curtail dangerous warming. Net-negative emissions — actively drawing down atmospheric carbon — will be required.
4. Nuclear power is neither clean nor renewable.
5. The effects of climate change are disproportionately felt by people on low incomes; their lives and livelihoods need to be protected not only from changes to the climate, but during the transition to a new economy.
6. The economic burden of dealing with climate change must fall solely on those who have profited from destroying the environment: the ultra-rich and the big polluters.
7. The renewable transition, if publicly owned and democratically controlled, is an opportunity to rebuild Victoria’s manufacturing capacity, create skilled and secure employment, and revitalise regions that have borne the costs of the fossil fuel economy for generations.
8. Policy should be focused on mitigation of the crisis rather than adaptation.

We’ll fight to

Emissions targets

1. Reduce emissions by 75 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, achieve a zero-carbon economy by 2035 and a permanent net-negative emissions economy by 2040.

Fossil fuel phase-out

1. Accelerate the closure of all remaining coal-fired power generation, with Loy Yang A to close no later than 2030 rather than its current scheduled date of 2035, with guaranteed jobs, income support and community investment for all affected workers and regions.
2. Reverse the Allan government’s 2025 offshore gas exploration program, prohibit the development of all new fossil fuel projects — onshore and offshore.
3. Make environmental approval for any new resource development contingent on full greenhouse gas emission neutrality.
4. Stop the establishment of a nuclear power industry in the state.

Sustainability

1. No new data centres. Data centres have detrimental environmental footprints, disproportionately high water and electricity demands, and no community benefits to the areas they are placed.
2. Require existing data centres to meet mandatory standards on water consumption, energy use and renewable energy sourcing, with binding targets and enforceable penalties for non-compliance.
3. End all planned waste to energy schemes and ban the creation of future waste incinerators.

Renewable transition

1. Urgently construct solar and wind farms and upgrade the power grid with battery storage to enable the quick transition of Victorian homes and businesses to an all-electric, post-gas energy system.
2. Establish a renewables manufacturing industry (solar photovoltaic, lithium-ion battery and electric vehicles), with guaranteed secure jobs and retraining for workers from the fossil fuel industry.
3. Electrify Victoria’s transport system and commit to 100 percent electric new car sales by 2035, establish a comprehensive fast-charging network across the state including regional and rural areas, electrify the public bus fleet, and end all subsidies and concessions for fossil-fuel vehicles.

Nature and carbon stores

1. Protect, restore and expand Victoria’s natural carbon stores — defending and extending the end of native forest logging introduced in January 2024, establishing large-scale programs of reforestation, restoring native grasslands and wetlands, and protecting blue carbon ecosystems in coastal and estuarine areas.

Adaptation

1. Fund research into adaptation strategies to protect biodiversity, water resources and agricultural yields.
2. Develop a comprehensive urban heat adaptation strategy — including mandatory tree canopy targets, green roofs and walls, shading requirements in new developments, cool corridors in areas of high heat stress, and publicly funded cooling centres accessible to vulnerable communities.
3. Require all new public buildings and public housing to be built to standards that protect residents from extreme heat without reliance on air conditioning, and fund retrofitting of existing public housing stock to the same standard.
4. Develop a managed retreat framework for communities facing unacceptable risk from rising sea levels, flooding and fire, with full financial support for affected working-class residents, no forced relocations without genuine community consent, and particular attention to renters and low-income households with no capacity to relocate.

Democratic rights

1. Repeal the anti-protest laws introduced by Labor governments that have been used to criminalise environmental defenders and peaceful civil disobedience, and restore the right to protest without risk of criminal penalty.

James Williams Greens Candidate

I am a proud Wakka Wakka man from South East Queensland and a strong advocate for the power of education. My parents, from humble Aboriginal families from the bush, understood the value of learning, and as a result, all of my siblings and I attained tertiary qualifications, with several of my siblings completing Masters and PhDs.

Professionally, I have served as a Computer Engineer and ICT Manager for a major not-for-profit organisation, where I used technology to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across Australia. I now work as an Emergency Services Officer, supporting the community in times of crisis, a role I find deeply meaningful.

I have lived in Moonee Valley for nearly 20 years, where my children attended local schools, and I remain actively involved in community life, including as a member of the Friends of Moonee Ponds Creek.

I am passionate about sustainability and renewable energy, believing that innovation through clean solar and wind technology is essential to our environmental future. I am also committed to improving local cycling and public transport infrastructure to make our community safer and more connected.

As a humanitarian and advocate for social justice, I am dedicated to improving opportunities in health, education, and employment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and to supporting refugees and disadvantaged members of our society.

Climate Change Policy

All of our state policy principles and aims should be read alongside our relevant federal policy principles and aims, as well as our state campaigns and federal campaigns.

Principles

1. Human-induced climate change poses one of the greatest threats to our world in human history and requires urgent local, national and global action.
2. We are already experiencing dangerous impacts of climate change; urgent, deep, and broad action is required to avoid catastrophic impacts.
3. The amount of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere necessitates urgent emission reduction and drawdown of greenhouse gases as well as prompt adaptation to climate change.
4. Early action to reduce greenhouse emissions is cheaper and fairer than delayed action.
5. Governments must ensure that organisations responsible for pollution pay for the costs of mitigating climate change and adapting to its impacts.
6. Climate change policy should be based on the best available science.
7. Climate change policy should inform and frame all other policies.
8. Victoria must take responsibility for the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the goods and resources it consumes and exports.
9. Victoria is one of the world’s largest per-capita emitters of greenhouse gases with a large percentage due to the burning of brown coal.
10. The lack of effective global (or Australian) climate action must not prevent Victoria from taking immediate and comprehensive measures.
11. Offset schemes must be carefully controlled to avoid them undermining emissions reduction efforts or being used for greenwashing or fraud.
12. Climate action should prioritise proven solutions such as large-scale reforestation over unproven or harmful technologies that prolong fossil fuel use.
13. Climate change adaptation and mitigation measures should not discriminate or treat anyone unfairly on any basis including gender, age, race, ethnicity, vulnerability, religion, disability, sexual orientation or membership of a minority group.

Aims

Mitigation

1. To achieve net zero or negative total greenhouse gas emissions across all areas of human activity – including via the removal of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, in a way that is environmentally responsible and socially fair.
2. Development and implementation of a detailed plan to end Victoria’s reliance on fossil fuels by shifting to, and beyond, a zero greenhouse gas emission economy.
3. Position Victoria – through appropriate investment in technological innovation – to benefit from the new jobs, skills, technologies and markets available in a zero greenhouse gas emission economy.
4. Provide transitional support for all regions, businesses and communities adversely affected by measures that reduce climate change.
5. Support place-based adaptation and mitigation initiatives which engage the community in identifying local challenges and co-designing solutions.
6. Regulation of the phasing out of existing coal-fired power stations and the banning of new fossil-fuel based power stations.
7. A ban on the exploration and development of new fossil fuel resources including but not limited to coal seam gas and other forms of unconventional gas.
8. Develop complementary mitigation measures in collaboration with other governments where possible.
9. Support for elevating sustainability requirements for buildings and construction.
10. Where practical, support nature-based responses to climate change, such as increasing canopy cover, and planting mangroves to reduce storm damage to coastal areas.
11. Assistance to the agriculture and forestry sectors to reduce emissions from ruminant livestock production and land clearing and other sources.
12. Maximise effective and sustainable carbon farming, bio-sequestration and other drawdown methods.
13. Implement low-cost, high-impact emissions reductions in Victoria’s stationary energy sector, and reduce emissions across other sectors including transport, industrial processes, agriculture and forestry.

Adaptation

14. Government support for adaptive actions to protect the environment and key public assets, and to manage major public risks.
15. The implementation, through public and private action, of Victoria’s climate change adaptation action plan, and ongoing review with community and expert involvement.
16. Assisting the agriculture sector to adjust to reduced water availability and to make itself more energy self-sufficient.
17. Ensuring that planning regulations allow for expected impacts of climate change such as rising sea levels, storm surges and other extreme weather events.
18. Implement adaptation measures that take account of those groups disproportionately impacted by climate change and resulting disasters and emergencies.

Further reading 

• Climate change and energy (federal Greens policy)
• No more coal and gas (state campaign)

Greens state policies