ALI Cupper has banked some serious political capital this year.
Mildura Base Hospital returned to public hands on September 15, more than a decade after the late and much-loved local doctor Kevin Chambers blew the whistle on the systemic problems under private management.
Last month, Mildura scored $150 million in the State Budget, including $10 million to complete the Mildura South Regional Sporting Precinct.
Also among the Andrews Government’s cash splash was overdue funding to bring Merbein P-10 College’s facilities into the 21st century.
These are just a few of the significant gains under Ms Cupper’s watch.
However, she insists it’s “just the beginning”.
In a bold move to “further change the game” for Mildura and regional Victoria, she is rolling the dice in a new coalition with the Reason Party’s Upper House MP, Fiona Patten.
Ms Cupper will remain as an independent MP and become Deputy Leader of the Reason parliamentary coalition, taking the lead on key regional issues.
Even though she holds a wafer-thin margin in the seat of Mildura after beating Nationals incumbent Peter Crisp by just 253 votes in 2018, Ms Cupper said that ballot-box repercussions did not come into her thinking before teaming up with Ms Patten.
“How people receive this, electorally, winning an election is what an election candidate worries about,” she said.
“I’m not an election candidate. I’m the Member for Mildura.
“The fact I was elected as an independent candidate shows people want results here. They are less sentimental than they used to be about whether ‘is my team in the seat’.
“I will stand in front of my community in two years on a record and they are welcome, as is their democratic right, to vote accordingly.”
She said the decision to link up with Ms Patten, an influential crossbencher in the Victorian Legislative Council, was “really simple for me when I realised all the advantages we would have”.
“The value of having the balance of power in the Upper House is enormous,” Ms Cupper said.
“When the invitation was put to me, it came from left field. I wasn’t expecting it.
“But our community is an increasingly politically savvy and sophisticated community who know what they are worth.
“And while we’ve got our hospital back and $150 million in the budget, we’re worth even more than that.”
The first order of business for the pair is fixing the massive country-city rates inequity.
They wasted no time in bringing up the issue with Local Government Minister Shaun Leane in Parliament this week.
“The Premier has asked me to actually do work on that … I think there is some good work we can do,” Mr Leane said in response to a question from Ms Patten on the need for rates reform.
Ms Patten said she was not aware of the gross rates disparity until Ms Cupper brought it to her attention recently.
“I had absolutely no idea – and I don’t think I’d be alone,” she told Sunraysia Daily.
“I suspect most of the city-based MPs would not understand this. I think it’s an absolute injustice.
“I certainly think this is something I’m 100 per cent behind advocating with Ali.”
At the risk of comparing her to outgoing US President Donald Trump (who wrote a book about this), Ms Patten has certainly learnt the art of the deal.
She has successfully lobbied the Andrews Government on several key reforms.
The most notable was initiating the parliamentary inquiry that led to Australian-first “dying with dignity” laws.
“I do have a great responsibility in the Upper House,” Ms Patten said. “Every time I vote, it matters because I’m quite often making the deciding vote on legislation.
“And a lot of the things I vote on affect regional areas. So to actually want to join with a regional MP, who I knew we had a lot of synergy with, and better represent them in the Upper House, this new coalition is the way to do that.”
One of the biggest projects that is needed in north-west Victoria in the $440 million Murray Basin Rail Project, which has gone off the rails as state and federal politicians squabble over who is responsible for funding.
“I’m flabbergasted about this,” Ms Patten said.
“We’re building a multi-billion-dollar tunnel in the Melbourne CBD. It’s needed and it will be transformative for our public transport system.
“But to ignore the Murray Basin Rail Project in the way that both the state and federal governments have done is an absolute travesty.
“And it doesn’t make sense. If you want to get trucks off the road and reduce the road toll, along with all the benefits to farmers, this should have already happened.
“This will be a real passion for me now, because it’s so hard to comprehend how this has been allowed to be overlooked for so long.”
