Ant Pitt
Independent

Summary

Policies & Commentary

Antoinette Pitt comes from a background in nursing, which led her into the union movement and gave her a taste for politics. Her website – whose colour scheme will give those of you old enough flashbacks to MySpace and/or GeoCities – states that she’s also worked as a roadie, apprenticed as a vehicle refinisher, and become “Australia’s first female professional wrestling referee”. She’s also launched her own small business, Recycle Wise, which is “dedicated to sustainable waste management in healthcare”. She brings a fairly diverse set of experiences to her candidacy, and all of them in some way inform her positions.

Ant describes these not as Policies, but as “Issues I’ll Fight For”, a choice I heartily approve of. They are as follows:

A Home for Everyone
Ant wants to address homelessness, and her chosen solution is “at least 10% public housing in every Local Government Area”¹I for one would very much enjoy watching councils like Stonnington or Bayside react to that. – a considerable increase from the under 3% across the state it currently is. There’s no costing for this, and indeed, the costs would likely vary greatly depending on which LGA is doing the building. It’s a good idea, but probably not one that has much chance of getting very far in the budget-focused politics of today.

Fixing the broken rental system
Ant wants to introduce something she calls a Homeworthy Certificate: “My Homeworthy Certificate plan will require every landlord to prove — every four years — that their property meets minimum legal standards for safety, cleanliness, and habitability, just like a roadworthy certificate for cars.”

Honestly, this doesn’t seem to be too big of an ask, although no doubt a certain percentage of landlords would scream about it, and care would have to be taken that they didn’t simply pass the cost of it on to their tenants.

Equality, Safety and Dignity for all
This is a big one. In addition to her already mentioned support for the homeless, Ant also wants to see better treatment for the LGBTQIA+ community, in terms of health, safety, and consultation on matters affecting them. She’s also wanting to see better provision of health services – including mental health – in regional areas. Ant wants better crisis accomodation for those who need it, safer schools, and in general, communities safer from vilification, discrimination and violence. All of which sounds great, although as always, the question of cost arises.

Greater access to quality Education and facilities
Ant has concerns about the underfunding of public schools, noting that only 1.3% of the state’s public schools are actually funded at the levels recommended by Gonski. She wants to see public schools funded to 100% of SRS, and a requirement of non-discrimination guarantees for private schools that receive public money. Both of which sound pretty good to me, since private schools are currently over-funded by our governments, and a fair bit of the public schooling shortfall could be made up by clawing that money back.

#climaterescue
The unusual naming for this one is due to Ant being a supporter of the Climate Rescue Accord, which has three points:

• Reduce — Phase out fossil fuel use and reduce the production of methane.
• Remove — Stop deforestation, and use natural means to drawdown carbon in the atmosphere while researching technological solutions.
• Reflect/Repair — research cooling solutions and work internationally to apply them.

It’s not a bad plan, although it does leave out some bits (e.g. replacing the energy generated with fossil fuels with the generated by renewables). Suffice to say, Ant’s green credentials are strong, although I’m not sure how well policies like these can be implemented at a state level without federal cooperation.

Integrity First
Ant would like to see IBAC properly funded, properly empowered and free from political interference. Which honestly seems like the bare minimum one should aim for if one is serious about anti-corruption²What this suggests about the major parties I leave to you to decide

Government guided by Evidence
While this sounds like a pro-science position, the details provided show that it’s more an anti-religious position – not that Ant is opposed to religions, just to their undue influence over our laws and their tax exemptions. With you a hundred percent, Ant.

Justice that Protects
Ant feels that our justice system is failing us to an extent – she’d like to see “mandatory cross-checks on bail conditions state-wide, limit the number of concurrent bails a person can receive, and apply GPS ankle monitors to high-risk domestic violence offenders.” All of which sounds fairly simple and reasonably cheap to achieve.

Protecting our food bowl
Finally, Ant wants to see farmers protected from the effects of climate change and assisted in learning how to deal with them – not just for their own sake, but because Australia’s food security depends on them. This is, potentially, one of the most expensive of her promises, and would definitely need a lot more fine detail to be made law.

All in all, Ant Pitt’s positions are all pretty Left-leaning and mostly pretty sensible – there’s a lot of spending now to save later, but that need not be a terrible thing. I’m not voting in Ant’s region, but if I were, I’d be putting her just ahead of the Greens on my ballot.