00:00It's 4.30 in the afternoon and traffic is all ready at a standstill getting off the Hume in Melbourne's outer north.
00:09Every day it's crazy.
00:11I'm probably waiting here 30 minutes to an hour. It's really bad.
00:16Always bottlenecks all the way here.
00:18How long do you spend in traffic?
00:19Half an hour, an hour a day. Yeah, I'm over it.
00:22Is it going to change your vote at the election?
00:23Probably.
00:24Access to the freeway from dozens of new suburbs is a daily nightmare caused by a population explosion that's reshaped the seat of McEwen.
00:36The electorate takes in new outer suburban estates but also established suburbs like Hurstbridge and growing towns like Gisborne, Romsey and Wallen.
00:45More than half of McEwen voters have a mortgage, a much higher proportion than the rest of the country.
00:49So we are currently in regional Victoria and it looks very much like metropolitan Melbourne.
00:58There are other peri-urban seats like McEwen which are no longer considered safe seats and are changing the political landscape.
01:04I think for the first time in a long time areas like this which have seen massive population growth have unclear voting intentions because we're such a young population.
01:14So 40% of all of us Victorians' children live in the outer suburbs.
01:23McEwen is getting the attention.
01:25At the margin of 3.8%, the Coalition is eyeing it off.
01:29Both leaders have been regular visitors.
01:32Oh, that was a good one.
01:35When was your birthday?
01:37This term, Labor has already spent more than $1 billion on new road connections.
01:40The Coalition has promised $192 million to fix Donnybook Road, although experts warn it will cost much more.
01:48We'll continue to provide funding for Victorian infrastructure, whether it's roads or rail.
01:54I want to build the roads here and the infrastructure here to help families.
02:00How are you, man? Good?
02:00How are you?
02:01Good as well. What's going on?
02:02Rob Mitchell has been the Labor MP since 2010.
02:05Under the former Abbott, Morris and Turnbull governments, we've seen 10 years of neglect.
02:09We have delivered nearly a billion and a quarter of road funding to the seat of McEwen in the area to fix those problems.
02:17But they don't get fixed overnight.
02:19I still think getting out and just chatting to people.
02:21Jason McClintock got into politics after hearing Daniel Andrews criticise small business during the pandemic.
02:27He spent $110,000 of his own money in a failed bid for the state seat of Eltham.
02:32I always back myself. Look at that central corridor, poor planning that's gone on through that, and the road infrastructure is just not there.
02:44Most of the political focus on the McEwen electorate has been along the Hume Corridor, but the electorate is much more diverse than that,
02:50and some voters are concerned that their issues are being ignored.
02:54McEwen takes in sought-after towns like Woodend and Mount Macedon, where other issues are at play.
03:00What are you going to do about climate change?
03:01How are you going to manage those costs?
03:03You're not going to hike reserve bank rates a quarter of a point and suddenly climate change is solved.
03:09Tim Hutchinson has lived in the area for 28 years.
03:13He's frustrated by the dearth of bold policy.
03:15He wants minority government.
03:17I mean, if we had a teal, a genuine teal, that would be an ideal choice, but I don't have that option.
03:24A simple reminder that every vote and every preference counts.
03:31Who has a lot of people who have a lot of value, a simple and critical confidence in the country have been thrown out there.
03:34So, I don't know.
03:35I'm going to make a lot of work.
03:37I don't know.
03:37You're not going to make a lot of work.
03:38That's right.
03:39I don't know.
03:40I don't tell you.
03:41You're not going to make a lot of work.
03:42What do you think?
03:42I don't know.
03:43I don't know.
03:43I'm going to make a lot of work.
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