By STEFAN BRADLEY
HOUSING and support for farmers, are the two main priorities for Antoinette Pitt, an independent candidate running for the Eastern Victoria Region in this year’s state election.
Ms Pitt’s nursing career has brought her to Traralgon, Bairnsdale and Phillip Island, which she says has given her an understanding of the diverse communities and health challenges across the region.
But Ms Pitt currently lives quite far away from Gippsland – she’s based on the other side of the upper house electorate – residing with her husband and kids in Montrose in Melbourne’s east. It shows just how big the electorate is.
The Eastern Victoria Region comprises the state lower house districts of Bass, Evelyn, Gippsland East, Gippsland South, Hastings, Monbulk, Mornington, Morwell, Narracan, Nepean and Pakenham.
The Express asked Ms Pitt what she can offer for Gippslanders.
“While I live in the eastern suburbs at the end of the train line, I understand that regional Victorians often experience the impacts of policy failure first and hardest – whether that’s healthcare access, housing shortages, transport, emergency services pressures or cost-of-living,” she said.
“I’ve spent years working with people and communities through healthcare, sustainability and advocacy roles, and I believe regional communities deserve representatives who will actually listen rather than treat them as an afterthought. I am not coming in with a party agenda, I want to meet with people and groups in Gippsland and listen to how I can best advocate for them.
“I also recognise that Gippsland has unique strengths and challenges, from agriculture and small business to energy, environmental concerns and emergency resilience. You are experiencing all the extremes of climate deterioration, flooding, fires, drought and land erosion.
“I want to engage directly with communities across the region to ensure their concerns are genuinely represented in parliament. From my experience so far I’m hearing that regional Victorians are feeling forgotten. Despite supplying energy and food to keep the state ticking over.”
She says the biggest issues she hears from others are housing affordability and homelessness, cost-of-living pressures, access to healthcare and concerns about funding for public schools.
“There is also a growing feeling that many hardworking people are only one crisis away from financial hardship, and that support systems are becoming harder to access when people need them most,” Ms Pitt said.
“In regional areas particularly, people are also concerned about access to services, infrastructure and feeling overlooked compared to metropolitan Melbourne. As part of ensuring the resilience of our regional communities, road maintenance is essential. It keeps people safe, ensures efficient transport energy usage and maintains integrity during weather extremes.”
Ms Pitt said she chose to run as an independent rather than with a party in order to be accountable to “the community first, not a party machine or factional interests”.
“I never expected I would run for parliament, but after years of seeing these issues first-hand and speaking with people who feel unheard, I felt I needed to step forward and be part of pushing for change,” she said.
As a rehabilitation nurse, she said she saw first-hand the systemic gaps in healthcare and support system networks. She’s been part of the Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation (ANMF) trade union. She’s also been a roadie for her husband’s band, apprenticed as a vehicle spray painter and became Australia’s first female professional wrestling referee.
The state election is on November 28.
