MUNDARING’s North Stoneville development lit a fire in the heart of Greens Kalamunda candidate Janelle Sewell as she says she feels the community voice wasn’t being heard.

“To have such a large-scale development like what is proposed by Satterley is irresponsible on a lot of levels,” Ms Sewell said.

“I’ve lived up in Perth Hills now for almost 25 years and I have not seen the escarpment looking ever like it’s looked now.

“Whistlepipe Gully, where I walked only last week, is pretty much dead and I actually cried because people who live in Perth Hills understand you actually get to know the trees in the area.

“You get to know the wildlife that visits them and to see them dead is kind of like losing part of your community.”

Ms Sewell said she wanted to run for the electorate of Kalamunda because the community deserved a voice.

“For me it’s actually been guided by the community and ensuring that our community have a voice because they don’t have that at the moment,” she said.

“Labor (says) to its members of parliament what their positions are and I believe that democracy needs to be enhanced by actually allowing there to be voices who are there for the people living in the area.

“That is what I hope to bring, and I hope to bring more environmentally responsible decisions for our community as well.

“We can have development but it’s about the way that it’s done — you can’t have an Ellenbrook style development which is essentially what North Stoneville is.

“It’s very similar to what may be appropriate for Ellenbrook now, but it’s certainly not appropriate for a community that has been ravaged by fire in the past.”

Ms Sewell said she felt her political career was over but her running for the electorate was an answer to a community cry for help.

“What was really surprising to me was I had no intention of running,” she said.

“I thought my political career was over, but I had some pretty highly prominent people approach me across the community and they asked me to run because they needed hope.

“They’ve seen my record when I was a councillor, they saw my record when I worked for the current member of Kalamunda.

“We can only no longer make decisions on a four yearly cycle, so I think I bring those values that people are looking for to the role.

“I’m prepared to fight and be courageous otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”