About Us
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- About Us
Our People
DPIN also has people who are former members of a political party who became disillusioned with the structure, internal politics or direction of the party. These people often experienced difficulty with the unnecessary rigidity, factionalism and in-fighting associated with party politics, even at the local level. This rigidity can constrain the adoption of progressive positions that the Darebin community wants. At least at the local government level, people in DPIN feel that ideology and party strictures should not infect Council politics.
All those in the network are people who have experienced a level of dissatisfaction in their dealings with Darebin Council and want Council to better represent the aspirations of the generally progressive Darebin community.
How DPIN Operates
At the moment, DPIN is an informal collective of people who meet at least monthly prior to Council meetings.
DPIN has no formal or legal structure, or office bearers. At the moment it is merely an informal network of people who share broadly similar political views and seek change at Darebin Council.
DPIN has cultivated allegiances with other community groups and aspires to have affiliate groups as part of its network structure.
DPIN aspires to operate in line with its progressive politics. It seeks to be inclusive, tolerant and fair and to share workloads to help grow the group and support its nominated candidates at elections.
DPIN and Darebin Council
In 2025, DPIN successfully supported a candidate at a by-election to replace the late Cr. Gaetano Greco. This was the network’s first success in having a candidate campaign clearly under the DPIN banner.
It was fitting that our candidate – Cr. Angela Villella – filled the vacancy, as it was Gaetano who first drew people together to contest a number of wards at the 2024 Council elections under what became the DPIN banner.
DPIN holds a strong view that Darebin Council has numerous deficiencies and that Councillors elected from amongst mainstream political parties have, with very few exceptions, repeatedly proved unable to meet the challenges they face. The main reason is that such candidates come from backgrounds where they have had little or nothing to do with local government via work experience or community activism. Such Councillors take far too long to learn the ropes, or worse still, become captives of a bureaucracy that assists the masking of their deficiencies.
Political parties can also seek to stand candidates who can serve an apprenticeship in local government before moving on to higher honours. Such people are more interested in promoting themselves than serving their community. Some also seek to fall in line with views of a higher level of government occupied by their party. This also constrains their ability to represent their community.
DPIN believes it needs to promote candidates for election to Council who have had exposure to the workings of Council and are prepared to take courageous positions on issues that could well differ from those of the Darebin bureaucracy and other Councillors.
Prospects for Growth
Growth of the network is seen as critical. There is a strong belief that this growth can draw strength from the increasing trend nationally for support of independent and minor party candidates. One-third of Australian voters at the Federal level now support parties other than the two major, long-established parties. This trend began a number of decades ago and now seems entrenched. DPIN seeks to give expression to this in Darebin.