Greens for Orange City Council candidates Haidee Edwards, AnneMaree McLaughlin and David Mallard

 

Hi, I’m Haidee and I’m a Greens candidate for Orange City Council, on the lands of the Wiradjuri People.

I grew up on a farm in the Central West Region and after spending some time living in other parts of Australia and overseas, have called Orange home for the past 13 years. I have a Bachelor of Arts (Anthropology and Environmental Studies) and am currently undertaking a Masters of Teaching (Primary). I also have four beautiful children. I am a community minded person and have been involved with ECCO (Environmentally Concerned Citizens of Orange), the community gardens, tree planting days, and the school P & C among other things. I care about equality, listening to and advocating for the voices of all people, the environment, and the health and welfare of people.

The Orange Local Government area currently only has one female representative out of twelve. I’m hoping to be elected to create a more diverse representation of our community. In striving for equality, I will always look for whose voice is not represented in information and seek that out. 

Currently we have a crisis in housing affordability. I will support council in their completion of the local housing strategy and advocate for: a temporary freeze on rental increases, development controls that ensure minimum 20% affordable housing stock, and a developer contribution fund for affordable housing. Furthermore, I will campaign for council to donate land to be developed for social housing. 

I will ensure that planning for the future and mitigating against the effects of climate change is a priority for council. For example, the US and Canada have recently reported unprecedented heat waves that has caused a significant number of heat related deaths, hospitalisation and presentations to emergency. Increasing our urban tree canopy and diversifying the age of the tree canopy in Orange in order to cool the city and help mitigate against these events in an agenda item for me. 

I will advocate for sustainable development and liveable cities with an education campaign that goes beyond the BASIX regulations. I hope to work with council staff to set up an education campaign for residents, builders, and home building companies to encourage housing design that reduces our environmental footprints. This benefits home occupants as it means lower power bills, making living more affordable.