Brad Battin had been Victoria’s opposition leader for less than two weeks when Labor issued press releases labelling him a hard-line conservative. In an interview with The Age in January, Battin rejected he represented the party’s right wing .

The Coalition had high hopes for Victoria in last Saturday’s federal elections. It bet that fatigue with Jacinta Allan’s Labor government and mounting state debt would work in their favour. They lost that bet. Regardless of pundits and pollsters, the federal Coalition went backwards.

Tim Wilson managed a narrow and symbolic comeback in Goldstein, by defeating the Teals’ Zoe Daniel, the LNP’s only bright spot in an otherwise punishing night. Across metropolitan Melbourne, the results were grim. Deakin, held by shadow minister Michael Sukkar fell, and Aston, lost in a by-election, couldn’t be clawed back. In Menzies the Coalition’s rising moderate, Keith Wolahan is on a knife’s edge.

Asked by Neos Kosmos about the drumming the federal Coalition received, Battin said he had no intention of enacting a socially conservative agenda. Battin said his focus is on Victoria, “on the issues that matter most to Victorians—cost of living, community safety, and fixing the state’s housing and planning mess”.

“The Allan Labor Government has driven Victoria into a debt crisis, allowed crime to spiral, and made it harder than ever for families to get ahead.

Battin told Neos Kosmos that his main priorities were “restoring integrity to government, delivering economic security, and ensuring safer communities”.

“I will not be engaging in the distractions or ideological battles that other parties might choose to fight.”

The fourth leader of the Liberal Party in four years, Battin said there is much to be done but is confident they’re heading in the right direction.

A rise in crime particularly ‘crime against the person’, is a big focus for him. As it is now for the Labor government, as Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan unveiled the nation’s toughest bail laws, as well as early intervention strategies to address repeat offenders.

Battin a former cop, told Neos Kosmos was prompted to run for Parliament because he saw an increase in youth crime. He wants to “identify the root cause of the problem, rather than just locking young people up”.

“People don’t trust the court system and they don’t trust they’re going to get police response – that’s a resources issue.”

“I think if you don’t change and adjust to the root cause of the problem, you’ll never ever adjust the results or outcome of crime.

“You can identify the highest at-risk youth offenders earlier.”

Battin wants to consider young people’s environment, “who they hang out with”, and if their parents have a troubled history. A challenging home environment said Battin and the over-reliance on government intervention and part of the complex set of issues related to augmented youth crime.

“Why aren’t we dealing with those issues? We don’t, we ignore them and they’re the cheapest ones to deal with because putting them in jail costs us a fortune.”

“If we can get to them earlier and use programmes from around the world, and some here like, Boys to the Bush in Bendigo – a great programme that engages kids and Operation New Start, which I was involved with – which is nearly gone– maybe we can impact.”

He stressed that departments need to work together because currently they don’t.

Battin pointed to many kids from new arrival and emerging communities in school whose parents don’t speak English as being a key risk factor.

Importance of maintaining multiculturalism

He said that in some cases where a child doesn’t speak the same language at home with their parents may cause detachment issues.

He also wants to support teaching of other languages – which has seen a decline over the years to be bolstered so kids are confident with language skills rather than feel embarrassed.

Battin said he’s passionate about maintaining the teaching of languages other than English and recognised the challenge of encouraging it at tertiary level.

“Multiculturalism is the very core of Victoria,” he said, adding “there’s always going to be complications, but it works”.

“But I think it’s really important that we remind people that when they come here… bring your culture too because it’s something we can educate everybody on.

“We want the generations to teach the next generation about their language, where they’ve come from, their history, and why we’re proud of it.” Brad Batton

Culture and its expressions he said is important in maintaining confidence, community connection, family, and tradition.

Battin supports the Antipodes Greek Festival and may exceed the current support it gets if elected next year.

He said that he hasn’t gone through all the Coalition’s budget announcements but regardless will continue to support multicultural events throughout Victoria.

“I went to the festival (Antipodes) this year – it was just fantastic.”

These events are of course important to the Greek community, they are just as important to those who aren’t Greek who can be exposed to the culture.

Recently, the Victorian government announced the commencement of the Victorian Multicultural Review, led by George Lekakis.

When asked if they would consider the outcomes of the review, Battin said “you’d be silly not to look” at any review.

“I think you should be continuously reviewing what are we doing with the engagement of multicultural communities and how can we improve it.”

Letting businesses prosper

Victoria’s going to be left with the largest debt in history of any state in Australia said Battin.

“We’ve got to find ways that we can stabilise that debt, but we also know we can’t tax our way out.

Battin as the Shadow Minister for Small and Medium Business and as a former small business owner said the changes in land taxes cost businesses too much.

He wants to encourage more investment to ensure businesses survive by finding ways for the private sector to get ahead, rather than the public sector.

“Each time a business wants to get ahead in Victoria, they get smashed with taxes and we want to make sure that we have a fairer tax system longer term.”

Businesses are keep telling him they’re tangled up in “red tape”.

“Businesses want consistency and continuity. It’s as simple as that. I was speaking to a few businesses that say it feels like every day they wake up there’s a new rule,” he said.

Battin wants to cut red tape and unnecessary paperwork.

“This is the problem with the government, one business does one thing wrong, they create a whole new regulation, and everybody has to fill in a new piece of paperwork.

“Small businesses don’t have time and they’re struggling– small businesses are the heart and soul of business in Victoria.

“Stop penalising them. Give them an opportunity to actually free up and move forward and grow.”

The housing crisis

Battin wants to look at planning laws to resolve the burgeoning housing crisis. There are thousands of blocks of land “ready to go sitting on the minister’s desk but all they need is a minister who can sign them off” he said.

“It’s a nightmare”.

Battin stressed the government doesn’t need to create a new department to build, but let the private sector do that.

“The government have to stop dictating where people have to live,” he said.

He is also sceptical of high rises and units as being the answer to everything”.

“If people wanted to live in higher rises, they’d have to answer the question why in Melbourne is there so many empty apartments?

“Yet, out in my area there’s no empty houses? People want to live in houses.”

He also wants government to review how they can build affordable houses that land on the market faster ¬– and to look at new growth in Warragul, Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat, and Sale.

Days before easter reports came out about cost blow-outs in the Suburban Rail Loop, and that any future government seeking to cancel it would have to fork out billions of dollars as compensation.

Tunnelling debt

According to The Age, the two tunnelling contracts, valued at $3.6 billion and $1.7 billion each, have become a key political concern for the state opposition which has called on the Allan government to scrap the project now, but have stopped short of pledging to rip up contracts if it were to win the 2026 state election.

Battin said a government he leads would need to review the documents before making a final decision on what to do with the project.

“The government let’s be honest, they’ve released this contract on the eve of Good Friday to try and put it under the carpet because they know this is a bad contract for them and they’ve redacted parts of it,” he said.

“Be honest with Victorian people. Tell them what it’s going to cost. People voted for a loop that was going to cost $50 billion now they find out that they’ve been misled, and it’s going to cost more than $200 billion.

“Tell Victorians the truth and they will reward you for it” said Battin.

“The current government has lied to them on this occasion. It’s going to cost billions of dollars for a project that will never be finished.”