scone.com.auCandidate: Andrew Potts
scone.com.au has sent each of the 17 candidates in the upcoming by-election for the seat of New England a series of questions and we will publish their responses so you can compare each candidate. As each candidate responds we will publish their answers. You can click on 2017 New England By-Election to read more about each candidate.
Andrew Potts, Affordable Housing candidate for thhe seat of New England.
1. What do you think are the priorities for the people of the Upper Hunter area?
The high cost of living in Australia is an issue regardless of where people are living.
High levels of unemployment in the region are also a major concern.
Environmental destruction and pollution of groundwater and waterways as a result of mining and coal seam gas extraction is also a concern for many people.
2. What are you major policies?
We want to remove the tax incentives for property investors to outbid home buyers that have caused the cost of housing in Australia to soar by 1000% over 30 years, vastly outstripping wage growth.
With the billions of dollars that would collect, we would fund public and affordable housing schemes all over Australia to take pressure of the private rental market.
We also want Australia to move to having nationally consistent and improved rights for renters. This means getting rid of “no fault” evictions and introducing multi-year leases for tenants so that people have certainty in raising their families.
3. Where do you live?
I currently live in Ashfield in Sydney but my father Bob Potts was born in Tamworth and began his career at Tamworth airport and my grandmother is from Boggabri.
Her family are descendants of Jonathan Warner, a NSW Royal Veteran Corp officer and Police Magistrate of Brisbane Waters who arrived on the Seventh Fleet. He settled the land that Warners Bay now sits on, which was sold off by his children in the 1890’s who then moved inland to farm around Boggabri.
If elected I will spend the majority of my time in the electorate when parliament isn’t sitting.
4. Would you support funding for an in town rail overpass in Scone?
Yes. Traffic in a community like Scone shouldn’t still be stopping for trains to pass in 2017.
5. Would you change section 44? Why/Why not?
The part of Section 44 that has caused the dual citizen fiasco no longer reflects the make up of modern Australia and contributes to the lack of diversity in our parliament.
My understanding is that this provision of the Constitution was originally drafted with the intent of keeping Roman Catholics out of public office in Australia and we no longer have that sort of sectarian divide in this society.
This issue should be decided the people of Australia in a referendum during a federal election to keep costs to a minimum.
6. Would you support a bill for voluntary euthanasia?
I believe people who are suffering should have the right to make an informed choice about whether they wish to continue living, and be provided with humane options for ending their life with dignity if they chose so.
Without this, some people will commit suicide prematurely as they fear they will lose the agency to do so when their condition deteriorates further.
Having a legal framework for people to end their lives also allows families to say goodbye properly as it removes the danger that they will be prosecuted as accessories to a loved ones’ death.
7. Do you support coal seam gas development?
I don’t believe the long term environmental safety of this sort of gas extraction has been sufficiently proven and I would like to see caution in approving these sorts of projects while the jury is still out.
8. Would you reopen/establish more federal government services in the Upper Hunter area such as the Medicare office?
Yes. Having easy access to these sorts of services improves the liveability of the region and they bring more jobs with them into the community.
9. Would you support mining in the Upper Hunter area?
Agriculture and aquifers should always come before mining. You can only mine the land once and if it’s done wrong you can ruin the water table. Environmental considerations need to be taken very seriously when approving any mining projects.
10. What would you do to create jobs and growth in the Upper Hunter area?
I would like to see Work for the Dole replaced with a less punitive Volunteer for the Dole program that provides people with a larger payment in return for volunteering their time on community projects and with community groups with a focus on developing workplace skills.
I would also like to see an increase in payments for pensioners and unemployed people. When you give low income people money to spend it goes straight back into local businesses which helps them create new jobs. People shouldn’t be pushed into poverty when there are so many applicants for every available job.
11. Will you support the gay marriage bill? Will you support religious protections? Why/why not?
I would vote in favour of a bill allowing all Australian couples to marry if they so choose. Religious celebrants in Australia can already refuse to marry heterosexual couples for reasons of conscience so I do not believe extra protections in that area are necessary.
It is also fair for places of worship to not host weddings that are not in line with their faiths. However businesses that provide goods and services to the public and civil celebrants who perform a legal role on behalf of the state should not be given special rights to discriminate.
12. Do you think there should be a renewable energy target? Why/why not?
Yes. Climate Change is one of the biggest challenges facing the human race and we need to transition to a net zero emissions economy. I believe Australia can achieve this by using a mix of solar, wind geothermal and tidal power generation using pumped hydro for base load supply.
The longer we leave this issue unaddressed the more it will cost us in the longterm.
Getting ahead of the curve in developing new clean technologies will also be very important for the Australian economy going forward.
13. Do you think the company tax rate should be lowered? Why/why not?
No. Many large companies are avoiding paying their fair share of tax as it is.
14. What do you propose should be done with refugees?
The refugee issue is complex. I would like to see Australia accept New Zealand’s offer to resettle some of the Manus Island refugees and I support a refugee swap program with the USA or other countries.
One aspect of the refugee issue that is rarely discussed is that virtually none of the countries between Australia and the countries people are fleeing from have signed the UN Refugee Convention. Not all of those countries are poor and more should be playing a part in resettling the world’s refugees. Australian should apply diplomatic pressure on these countries to sign the Refugee Convention.
15. The majority of federal road funding goes to Sydney, what do you propose to do to get more funding for the New England and where would you spend it?
If New England elects a non-Coalition local member and the Government has to rely on that person to stay in power, they will have a powerful bargaining chip when it comes to negotiating funding for New England. I would consult with the New England community as to where it should be spent.
16. What would you do to make housing more affordable?
Beyond what I have already stated, the Australian Government must adopt a comprehensive national affordable housing strategy and create a dedicated federal Ministry of Housing.
We want to tax properties that overseas investors leave deliberately untenanted. The last Census suggests there are 300,000 of these across Australia and that’s enough to house every homeless person and person on a public housing list in this country. Taxing them will force them to either sell up or rent them out.
We also want to ban full time Airbnb properties that the owner never lives in as they distort the rental market.
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