• Candidates in Wills
• Prepoll voting
• Climate Policy Summary for Wills
  • Coalition
  • Labor
  • Greens
  • Socialist Alliance
  • Fusion Party
  • Legalise Cannabis
  • Libertarian Party
  • Pauline Hanson’s One Nation
• Wills Climate Candidate Scorecard
  • Vote Climate Wills Scorecard
  • ACF Wills Scorecard
  • Vote Earth (Bob Brown Foundation)
  • Victorian Senate Climate Scorecard
  • Vote Climate One Wills and Senate scorecard
• General Party Climate and Environment Scorecards
  • Climate Council general scorecard and assessment
• Building Your Ballot

Candidates in Wills

Candidates as listed on the ballot according to the AEC candidates list 11 April 2025:

Prepoll voting

Prepoll voting in Wills will be at Brunswick Masonic Centre
6 Davies St, Brunswick VIC 3056

• Opening hours:
• Tue 22 Apr – Thu 24 Apr 8:30 am–5:30 pm
• Sat 26 Apr 9 am–4 pm
• Mon 28 Apr – Thu 1 May 8:30 am–5:30 pm
• Fri 2 May 8:30 am–6 pm
• Election Day Sat 3 May 8 am–6 pm

Divisions: Calwell, Melbourne, Maribyrnong, Wills

Climate Policy Summary for Wills

Climate Action Merribek along with other local groups held a climate and sustainability forum on 18 March. You can watch the video of the candidate discussion (Peter Khalil from Labor and Jeff Kidney from the Liberals were both invited but absent)

Coalition – Peter Dutton has promised a Coalition Government would:

• cancel Australia’s bid to host the international climate summit in 2026
• review the central climate policy of the Safeguard mechanism
• expand gas and introduce gas reservation policy for the East Coast but he refuses to release gas price modelling
• Fast track North West Shelf gas expansion
• build 7 government owned nuclear power stations around Australia. He claimed on Insiders that “power prices will be cheaper under us in the near term” and that his policy would be expected to lead to “a 44% reduction, or of that order, being passed through in energy bill relief” – that is, a dramatic and unprecedented cut in household power bills.
• sack 41,000 public servants, make public servants work in the office 5 days a week. Updated 5 April: now says Work from Home cuts will just be to Canberra public Servants (ABC) .Update 7 April: 3rd update to this policy: Now says natural attrition will be used to reduce public service, and now totally fine with work from home (Guardian | Australia Institute) 4th update: enhanced program of voluntary redundancy to be employed.
• Axe fines for car dealers issued under New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES)
• 12 month reduction in Fuel excise: targeted to encourage fossil fuel use with no benefits to users of public transport, cyclists, EVs and less benefit to small car owners.
• try to clawback $19 billion for Rewiring the Nation. However Dutton now concedes their gas and nuclear plans would involve new transmission capacity
• Looks to redefine gas as a mineral, for gas sector to be subsidised from Critical Minerals Strategy
• scrap three of Labor’s offshore wind farm projects, including in the Illawarra, if elected.
• Federal Coalition have committed $2 million for a scoping study into extending and electrifying the Upfield Line to Wallan. (Facebook)
• Dutton reverses pledge on EV tax break two days after saying he would keep it (The Age)

The Liberal Party do not have a specific climate policy. Their Energy policy is here.

Labor: The Albanese Labor Government has:

• failed to reform national environment laws in this term.
• In the final session of parliament Labor and Coalition combined to undermine the operation of existing laws in environmental impacts on the Maugean Skate in support of about 60 jobs in the Tasmanian salmon industry. The amended laws are general and now may be applied to fossil fuel projects.
• has approved 28 new or extended coal and gas projects since coming to office in May 2022.
• Failed so far to use Water Trigger to assess Beetaloo Fracking impacts on water
• Put in place Capacity Investment scheme to increase renewables in the grid (currently at just over 40% of generation
• Allocated funds for new transmission in Rewiring the Nation as part of Energy Transition
• Introduced New Vehicle Emission Scheme to slowly decarbonise vehicle fleet
• Lobbying to hold UN Climate Conference in 2026, to be held in Adelaide.
• Proposed a $2.3 billion subsidy for household batteries. See ALP policy statement
• Khalil pledges $7m funding to plan, design and for scheduling Upgrade of the Upfield Line (Facebook)
  

ALP Climate Policies: Protecting Our Climate

The Greens are arguing for:

• the government to spend 1% of budget on environment if they hold balance of power
• Strong ambituous science based climate targets
• Propose a $1bn per year Climate Response Service managed by the National Emergency Management Agency to help prepare for fires, floods, and cyclones; and assist with the extensive cleanup to protect communities from climate disasters
• Greens release a solar for Renters Policy. See Greens Media release
• Greens pledge $275 million to help cut fossil fuel sponsorships and boost renewables’ visibility (CommsDeclare)
• Greens pledge to upgrade the Upfield Line to a 10 minute service (Instagram)

Greens Climate Policies: Powering Past Coal and Gas (PDF 60pp)

What about the other minor Parties in Wills?

Socialist Alliance An anti-capitalist party rooted in community campaigns.

Has a 10 point climate action program of rapid energy transition to renewables, phase out fossil fuels, a just transition for workers in affected industries, end to native forest logging and more. Sue Bolton has also been at the forefront for campaigning to upgrade and extend the Upfield Line. Read the Climate Action Policy

Fusion Party (formed in 2021 through an amalgamation of the Science Party, Pirate Party, Secular Party, Vote Planet, and Climate Change Justice Party)

The Fusion Party has a Climate Rescue Policy that includes: Declare an emergency and mobilise to reverse global warming; 10-year transition to negative emissions (reduce and remove); Modernise our transport networks; Drawdown or sequester carbon dioxide; Repair / immediate cooling. At the Fawkner Community Forum Simon, as the Fusion Senate candidate, said he supported duplication of the Upfield Line and extension to Craigieburn. Read the Climate Rescue Policy

Legalise Cannabis Party

The Legalise Cannabis Party is a single issue party for Cannabis law reform, but they support evidence based science. They do not have a specific climate policy but do emphasise that hemp could contribute to sustainability as a major renewable, sustainable agricultural resource, for building products, bioplastics and biofuels. Read their Environment Policy

Libertarian Party

The Libertarian Party espouses limited government, free market policies that increases inequality. They do not have a climate policy. On Energy they advocate for “reform energy policy and remove carbon based regulations”. This includes “Abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Renewable Energy Target, as they impose unnecessary costs on the economy. Additionally, the Libertarian Party will eliminate carbon emissions based regulations for all new construction projects to streamline development and reduce costs.” They also urge removing the nuclear ban. Oh, and they also want to defund and privatise the ABC and SBS. You can read their policy vision here.

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party

Can you believe it? One Nation actually has a climate policy, which is based on climate denial: “We are the only political party to question climate science”. They would withdraw Australia from the Paris Agreement. Bruce Stevens at the Fawkner community forum (Facebook report) said he was in favour of extending the Upfield Line to Wallan. Read the climate policy

Wills Candidates Climate Scorecard

This Wills scorecard has been produced by one of our partner organisations: 350.org to be handed out at Prepoll and on election day.

Vote Climate Wills Scorecard

We worked with Vote Climate on this Wills Scorecard to assess the major parties and all the minor party candidates standing in Wills. Read more at Vote Climate

Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) Scorecard

The ACF scorecard has evaluated major parties on a number of environmental criteria. They have also evaluated various Independant MPs including the Teal Independants. Unfortunately they don’t assess minor parties. Read more

Vote Earth (Bob Brown Foundation)

Vote Earth assessed candidates on 4 criteria: Protecting forests, Protecting Takayna, Fish farms out, Protect Antarctica and krill. Link to Wills assessment

✅ Sue Bolton, Margee Glover, Owen Miller and Samantha Ratnam all received 4 ticks.
❌ Bruce Stevens, Rachel Versteegen, Jeff Kidney and Peter Khalil all received 4 Crosses

Victorian Senate Vote Climate Scorecard

We worked with the Vote Climate Network on this assessment of Party climate, environment and energy policies to rank the parties standing in the Senate:

Vote Climate One Scorecard for Wills and Senate

Vote Climate One uses a traffic light system to assess candidates on climate policies, but lets you make your preference. While this is fairly safe for Wills electorate, for the Senate they allocate Labor as the same level as the Liberals and many right wing parties with poor climate credentials. Labor, based on its track record, clearly deserves to be preferenced before the Liberals and many of these parties. The Vote Climate Senate assessment of preferencing is much better and recommended. Read more on Vote One Climate for Wills.

and for the Senate:

General climate and environment Scorecards

Climate Council

The Climate Council on 3 April 2025 issued a Scorecard on climate for the major parties: Labor Party, Liberal Party and The Greens.

“To help Australians make informed decisions at the ballot box, the Climate Council has released its election report and scorecard of Australia’s biggest political parties: ‘Climate Crossroads: Progress, Politics and a Pivotal Election’.”

The report assesses the track records and promises of the major parties and key crossbenchers, based on expert analysis of policy platforms and voting history. The findings:

❌ The Liberal–National Coalition is rated Harmful

➡️ The Australian Labor Party is rated Right direction

✅ The Australian Greens are rated Strong

Key Findings:

1. We analysed the climate record and election policies of Australia’s major parties, and found that the Albanese Labor Government has delivered clear progress, and the Liberal- National Coalition ranks the worst on climate change. 
2. The last Parliament performed a major u-turn on climate, with significant progress made. The next Parliament could get us on track this decade.
3. The Albanese Labor Government made significant progress cutting climate pollution and ramping up renewables, but failed to curb fossil fuel expansion.
4. Crossbenchers, including the Australian Greens and community independents, pushed the Labor Government to deliver stronger climate reforms.
5. The Liberal-National Coalition voted against every law to cut climate pollution in the past three years. Their policies for this election would increase climate pollution by at least 6.3 billion tonnes. Their policies have been rated as Harmful.
   

Read more and download the report

Tool for building your ballot

If you have scrolled this far …. Build a ballot is an online tool to help you with voting preferences based on some initial questions of your views and aligning them with candidates in your electorate and Senate. It is not perfect, especially with some of the minor parties and Independants. It does allow you to tweek their final suggestions to suit your own preferences. You can then save and it will email you your Ballot preferences prior to election day.

https://www.buildaballot.org.au/

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