The Mail asked the Aston candidates three questions ahead of the Federal Election on Saturday 18 May.
Here are the responses we received, in ballot paper order.
Alan Tudge, Liberal
What are your top three priorities for the area?
1. Address congestion through key projects such as duplicating Napoleon Road, building the Dorset Road extension and more train station car parks at Boronia and Ferntree Gully.
2. Making Knox safer with better lighting and security cameras at crime hotspots.
3. Better community infrastructure including $1.7 million for improvements to the Ferntree Gully Quarry Reserve.
What’s your personal connection to the electorate?
Having been the federal MP since 2010, I have been connected to hundreds of community organisations right across Knox.
Why do you want to be an MP?
To make a difference to people’s lives locally and nationally.
We live in the best country in the world but there are still significant challenges and I feel that I make a contribution.
Asher Cookson, The Greens
What are your top three priorities for the area?
To protect the environment in Knox, stand up for a fairer community, and create world-class education and community services for Aston.
What’s your personal connection to the electorate?
I was raised in the Knox area, have lived here for 15 years and undertook my primary education here.
Why do you want to be an MP?
I would like to represent Aston in Parliament because I feel they deserve an MP who represents the needs of ordinary Australians, not corporate interests and the top end of town.
Kadira Pethiyagoda, Australian Labor Party
Did not respond by deadline.
Matthew Sirianni-Duffy, United Australia Party
What are your top three priorities for the area?
Two of the three priorities that I would like to work towards certainly revolve around transportation infrastructure and the need for a train line to Rowville as well as extending Dorset Road through to Napoleon Road to ease congestion.
The third priority that I’d like to focus on is ensuring that our business and industrial sectors experience growth under a UAP government by way of lowering electricity prices and allowing them to be more competitive on a global market, ultimately securing the prosperity of those sectors and hopefully creating job growth.
What’s your personal connection to the electorate?
After moving from Sydney to Melbourne in 1997 I have lived the majority of my life in the city of Knox, first at The Basin and now in Ferntree Gully.
I have seen the area change somewhat over that time, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, but no matter what I love the area and the people in it.
Why do you want to be an MP?
I believe that being in politics is a life of service and I am sick of career politicians making empty promises and changing nothing.
I’m sick of governments not supporting our home-grown industries and sick of them selling off all of our assets that we paid for with our taxes.
I want to stand up for every Australian and put this country, our business and people’s welfare first.
Anna Kennedy, Labour DLP
Did not respond by deadline.
