Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I believe it is important to involve community in community decisions, and to this end I'm thrilled to be working alongside independent organisations DemocracyCo and Hatrick and Co., who specialise in deliberative engagement process and collaboration.

Last week, I hosted the first of a two-part community leaders forum, bringing together community leaders from right across the electorate of Casey to share their vision for our future community. The first event was an online forum where local leaders discussed what they would like to see in our future community while building connections and exploring opportunities to strengthen our region. We broke out into online groups, with each group brainstorming ideas for the future.

Each group was tasked with being the commissioner for a certain period of time. One group was tasked with being the commissioner for urgency, envisaging ways to improve the community in the immediate future. Next, we had the commissioner for the Senate, where the group brainstormed ideas for the next six years. We then moved into the future, with the last two groups sharing ideas for the next 20 years and the next 100 years as commissioner for children and commissioner for generations.

The first event set the tone for our second event, which is an in-person forum held this Sunday in Mount Evelyn. I'm looking forward to hearing what comes from the forum and to updating the House on the views of leaders in my local community. It is so important that we give local leaders a space to shape our future, to build an even stronger community in the Yarra Ranges.