Meet the Independents: Arif OKIL (Ungrouped, South Eastern Metropolitan)

Arif Okil wants you to know that he is ‘Motivated by passion to represent South Eastern Community’.  It’s good to have a passion in life.

Mr Okil joins the trend of candidates who have chosen to create a political FaceBook page, rather than a website – which makes a fair bit of sense, since one can do this for free, and it’s certainly easier than designing a website.  It can, however, make policies harder to track down.  Fortunately – or unfortunately, really – Mr Okil only started his page a few days ago, and has written relatively little, so it’s fairly easy to find what he does actually have to say.

But first – the weather report.  Oops, sorry, wrong script.  What I meant to say was, let’s take a look at what the other candidates think of Mr Okil.

Interestingly, the Greens have put him at 14 and the Animal Justice Party at 16.  Evidently he is further to the left than his pale blue colour scheme led me to believe (and isn’t it interesting that political colour branding is that powerful?)  The Liberal Democrats have also placed him fairly high, at 17, which is less of a recommendation for me, and in fact, most of the parties seem to be fairly neutral about him, putting him in the twenties and occasionally early 30s.   The only exceptions are the Cyclists and Rise Up Australia, who put him dead last at 41.  The Cyclists seem to be doing the whole preference-whisperer thing, so goodness only knows what their logic is.  As for Rise Up Australia – well, Mr Okil hasn’t said anything terribly pro-choice or anti-Christian anywhere that I can see, and they seem to be treating Independents in other electorates pretty much individually.  I have an awful feeling they may have seen his name, decided that it looked Muslim and dumped him at the bottom of their ticket accordingly.  But this is rampant speculation, based on my dislike of Rise Up Australia, so please take that with a whole ocean full of salt.

Mr Okil’s poster contains the following points:

• Effective use of policies and resources
  • Police
  • Public Transport
  • Local Council
• Improve education system
• Develop advanced health care and hospitals

You know, it’s not often that someone who puts ‘police’ so high on their list of priorities is also into public transport, education and hospitals.  I wonder why that is, actually?  I don’t see any obvious connection, or lack thereof.  Then again, I’m pretty tired right now!

Elsewhere on his Facebook Page, Mr Okil comments that we need a government that cares about Victorian people, and suggest that all Victorians should have access to an online first aid course.  He would also like Emergency and Non-Emergency areas in Victorian hospitals, and he is in favour of a recommended retail pricing system (similar to the one we have for books) for all grocery and medical items, with retailers being required to sell goods for that price or under.  The goal is to prevent higher prices in some suburbs than others, which is laudable, though one would clearly need related legislation to prevent particular retailers from colluding with manufacturers to set prices that will allow them to offer a discount that others can’t afford.And that’s about it.  No detail on how to achieve this, or why these are Mr Okil’s priorities of choice.  I think the most useful summary I can make here is to say that Mr Okil clearly cares about a number of things that are, in my view, well worth caring about.  But beyond that, it’s really hard to say.