From capping gas prices to housing affordability: How your local MPs represented you on key issues

Using the online tool TheyVoteForYou, we have created a snapshot that allows you to see how politicians in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs wield their power. 

A project of the OpenAustralia Foundation, TheyVoteForYou aims to help voters understand how their MPs have voted on various issues, compare MP voting records and check if they’ve ever voted against their party line.

The website categorises different voting behaviour by grouping them into voting consistently for, voting almost always for, voting generally for, voting a mixture of for and against, voting generally against, voting almost always against and voting consistently against.

For the purpose of brevity, we’ve only taken a look at summarising which issues the local MPs voted consistently for and against.

Aaron Violi
Casey MP
Liberal

Voted Consistently For:

• An Australian Building and Construction Commission;

• Live animal exporting and placing minimal restrictions on live animal exporting;

• Putting welfare payments onto cashless debit cards on an ongoing basis, and;

• Having a referendum on whether to create an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

Voted Consistently Against:

• Capping gas prices;

• Ending immigration detention on Nauru;

• Federal action on public housing;

• Increasing access to subsidised childcare;

• Increasing investment in renewable energy, and;

• Increasing legal protections for LGBTI people.

Dr Carina Garland
Chisholm MP
Labor

Voted Consistently For:

• Supporting the build-to-rent model;

• Criminalising wage theft;

• Capping gas prices;

• Increasing access to subsidised childcare;

• Increasing investment in renewable energy;

• Making TAFE education fee-free;

• The Paris Climate Agreement, and;

• The territories being able to legalise euthanasia.

Voted Consistently Against:

• An Australian Building and Construction Commission;

• Increasing legal protections for LGBTI people;

• No new fossil fuels projects, and;

• Transgender rights.

Michael Sukkar
Deakin MP
Liberal

Voted Consistently For:

• A same-sex marriage plebiscite;

• Charging postgraduate research students fees;

• Civil celebrants having the right to refuse to marry same-sex couples;

• Decreasing the availability of welfare payments;

• Increasing the eligibility requirements for Australian citizenship;

• Increasing indexation of HECS-HELP debts, and;

• Increasing the price of subsidised medicine.

Voted Consistently Against:

• A Royal Commission into Violence and Abuse against People with Disability;

• Building dedicated Covid quarantine facilities;

• Capping gas prices;

• Criminalising wage theft;

• Increasing access to subsidised childcare;

• Increasing legal protections for LGBTI people;

• Increasing marine conservation;

• Increasing political transparency;

• Reproductive bodily autonomy;

• The Paris Climate Agreement, and;

• Treating the Covid vaccine rollout as a matter of urgency.

Mary Doyle
Aston MP
Labor

Voted Consistently For:

• Federal action for public housing;

• Having a referendum on whether to create an Indigenous Voice to Parliament;

• Increasing access to subsidised childcare;

• Increasing protection of Australia’s fresh water;

• Making TAFE education fee-free, and;

• Unconventional gas mining.

Voted Consistently Against:

• Ending government investment in fossil fuels;

• No new fossil fuels projects.

Keith Wolahan
Menzies MP
Liberal

Voted Consistently For:

• An Australian Building and Construction Commission;

• Compulsory income management for welfare recipients;

• Having a referendum on whether to create an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, and; 

• Live animal exporting.

Voted Consistently Against:

• Criminalising wage theft;

• Ending immigration detention on Nauru;

• Federal action on public housing;

• Increasing investment in renewable energy;

• Increasing transparency of big business by making information public;

• Making TAFE education fee-free;

• The Paris Climate Agreement, and;

• The territories being able to legalise euthanasia.

Clare O’Neil
Hotham MP
Labor

Voted Consistently For:

• A Royal Commission into Violence and Abuse against People with Disability;

• Capping gas prices;

• Criminalising wage theft;

• Federal action on public housing;

• Increasing access to subsidised childcare;

• Increasing investment in renewable energy;

• Increasing protection of Australia’s fresh water;

• Letting environmental groups challenge the legality of certain government decisions;

• Restricting foreign ownership;

• The Paris Climate Agreement, and;

• The territories being able to legalise euthanasia.

Voted Consistently Against:

• A citizenship test;

• Civil celebrants having the right to refuse to marry same-sex couples;

• Ending immigration detention on Nauru;

• Increasing indexation of HECS-HELP debts;

• Reducing the corporate tax rate, and; 

• Turning back asylum boats when possible.