By Jim Mynard
UNITED Firefighters Union senior industrial officer Greg Pargeter has been selected as the Labor candidate for La Trobe.
Mr Pargeter said he had extensive experience successfully representing and advocating members’ issues and concerns before the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.
He said winning La Trobe would be challenging because it needed a swing of nearly 6 per cent.
“However, if Kevin Rudd is to be successful in becoming the next prime minister, Labor must win La Trobe,” he said.
Mr Pargeter lives at Selby with partner Gaylene and their young family. Their daughters attend a primary school in the area. He grew up in Harkaway, and is a first homeowner in the hills where he has lived for more than 20 years.
Mr Pargeter said his family name was well known and respected in the southern part of the electorate, where his father Syd Pargeter OAM, was a councillor for 27 years.
“He was mayor of the City of Berwick and the first Labor shire president of the previous shire of Berwick.
“My mother, Pearl Pargeter, is also well known throughout the region, having been mayoress whilst also successfully managing a fashion boutique in Berwick.”
After graduating with a bachelor of education degree, Mr Pargeter taught environmental science and biology to VCE level at Ferntree Gully Technical School (later Glenfern SC) and Boronia Heights SC.
“I switched on a generation of students to the issues of global warming, declining biodiversity and the risks associated with nuclear power,” he said.
“I taught the concepts of climate change arising from human activities in the 1980s and 1990s, something the Howard Government has only recently acknowledged.
“The Howard Government has only recently acknowledged global warming as a means of promoting their nuclear energy agenda.
“Nuclear energy is not the solution to global warming and it leaves a horrible legacy of nuclear waste for future generations to deal with.
“Together with nuclear energy, the environment and water will be major issues in the election campaign as people look to elect a forwardthinking Labor government,” he said.
Mr Pargeter said the Federal Government had made a flawed attempt to provide vocational training for schoolaged students with its Australian Technical College (ATC) scheme.
“ATCs duplicate the existing publicly funded TAFE system,” he said. “The public money spent on ATCs would have been far better spent on creating more student placements in the existing TAFE system.
“I engage with the community and have organised forums to highlight various issues from the resourcing of schools to the impact of genetically modified food.
“I was elected vicepresident of the Australian Education Union during the Kennett years.
“I have been involved in campaigns with local communities such as the Narre Warren South School Action Group that resulted in building of the nowthriving Narre Warren South P12 School.
“I went on to become a senior policy officer with the Department of Education and Training.
“I provided advice to ministers and the department secretary on matters concerned with education, employment and training policy in relation to State and Commonwealth Government policy initiatives whilst liaising with a wide range of organisations within DET and agencies of Government in Australia and New Zealand,” Mr Pargeter said.
“Industrial relations will also be a key issue in this election as the effects of Howard’s extreme Work Choices legislation impacts on the conditions of employment and job security of more workers and their families.”
