Establishing a new West Gippsland Hospital and meeting the needs of the people in Monash are amongst the top priorities for Family First candidate Geoff Dethlefs.

"The hospital is something that's important to our electorate, I've lived here for 20 years, and they've been talking about it for 20 years and it's never eventuated," Mr Dethlefs said.
A retired teacher and principal based in Drouin, Mr Dethlefs said another one of his priorities as a Family First candidate was ensuring religious freedoms in education were protected.
"Families choose to have their children educated in a certain school because it matches their beliefs and their understanding of life," he said. "Therefore, they need to have people who have those beliefs and understand that way of life involved in education."
Addressing concerns regarding the cost of living, Mr Dethlefs said his focus would be reducing the price of power.
"If power is high in price, then everything that is produced is high in price," he said.
"If power prices come down then the grocery prices should come down, and then that should mean we are able to live better."
Mr Dethlefs said energy prices would not be brought down by "chasing the renewable dream", instead he preferred a returned focus to coal.
"Coal was God's good gift to us for the last 200 years to enable us to generate power, let's get back to it," he said. "Renewables don't supply consistent power, and we must have base load power."
Mr Dethlefs said while nuclear power should be considered for use in Australia, sticking to coal fired power was the best choice.
"Nuclear is something that we should look at seriously, whether we need to go there is another question than an investigation would guide us towards," he said.
"I think we're safe with coal."
As a Drouin resident, Mr Dethlefs said he was very aware of the need to upgrade roads and infrastructure and acknowledged that planning was required to account for future growth in Monash, particularly around Warragul and Drouin.
"Governments have been famous for planning behind, not planning in front," he said.
"If you try to travel through Drouin at lunchtime or at school times, roundabouts, single lanes, big trucks coming in from the south, it's just mayhem."
"Planning means that you are thinking ahead, and politicians need to learn to think ahead."