First time political candidate Michael Tolhurst decided to run for the Greens in Bendigo East to "be a voice for people who don't see enough being done on climate change, and want to see real action there".
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"The Victorian government says they're acting on climate change but at the same time they are allowing more gas to be drilled near the 12 Apostles and are taxing electric cars with a really poor tax, which particularly impacts rural people."
The civil engineer and water expert believes the government should be investing in a lot more new energy technologies.
"It's disingenuous of them to say they're doing enough on climate change when there's so much more they could be doing."
The young environmentalist grew up in Creswick, living "close to nature, with lots of space" then moved to Melbourne to go to university.
He relocated to Bendigo in 2017 with his wife, Jacqui, who was born here, to take up a job with Coliban Water.
A year with a volunteer organisation responding to the 2015 earthquake in Nepal and a two-month stint working on water and sanitation services in a South Sudanese refugee camp helped form his perspective.
"In both of those situations you're doing the best you can with the resources you have," Mr Tolhurst says.
"It made me realise that the problems we have are political. It also made me realise how fortunate we are and motivated me to do more in Australia.
"Joining the Greens was how I saw I could have that positive impact."
Since joining the party five years ago he has been a committee member and active campaigner at federal, state and local government elections.
The couple have two young daughters, aged three and eight months, and parenthood has brought into sharp focus the problems of housing supply and affordability impacting many families which Mr Tolhurst believes have received inadequate attention from the government.
"There are over 100,000 people on the waiting list and they don't have a plan to fix that."
Locally, acting to protect the Wellsford Forest is an issue he is passionate about.
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