Independent candidate for Eastern Victoria

by Bonnie Collings
A desire to make systemic change and provide voters with a different option at the polls is the driving force for Victorian Legislative Council independent candidate Antoinette Pitt in her campaign for the November state election.
A nurse based in the Yarra Ranges, Ms Pitt's key focus areas if elected as member for the Eastern Victorian Region include addressing homelessness across the region, tackling cost-of-living pressures and increasing access to education by fully funding public schools.
Ms Pitt said her political journey began early in her nursing career after seeing vulnerable patients at the rehabilitation hospital she worked at being let down by a lack of healthcare support outside of the hospital.
"Prior to that, I was just an average Joe, I (would) just go and vote when I need to," Ms Pitt said
Ms Pitt also was a job representative with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF), fighting for fair wages, better working conditions, and stronger protections for healthcare workers.
Wanting to "find a better option to vote for", Ms Pitt came across the now deregistered micro-party, Australian Progressives. She stood as a Victorian senate candidate for the party at the 2022 federal election.
After the 2022 election, Ms Pitt said she received a lot of feedback from community members encouraging her to run as an independent candidate.
"Since then, I've had a lot of people saying, 'I don't like the party system, they really burnt me, but I want to vote for you'," she said. "I ended up making too many promises that I would run as an independent so now, I'm running as an independent."
Ms Pitt said running as an independent candidate "was not (her) aim in life", but took on the challenge when the community looked to her for leadership.
"It wasn't on purpose, it was not my aim in life," Ms Pitt said. "It just doesn't seem like anyone else is doing it and a lot of people started looking to me, and I was like all right, fine, let's do it."
Currently living in Montrose, Ms Pitt has lived in Eastern Victoria her whole life and has worked across the many regions encompassed in the Eastern Victorian Region.
While not overly familiar with Gippsland, Ms Pitt said she intended to visit the region to hear from locals.
"I'll be coming out and trying to meet many people out in that area," she said. "Hopefully they come out and tell me what they need and what I can help them with (and) advocate for."
Speaking to the issue of a new West Gippsland Hospital, Ms Pitt said if elected she would push for more so locals didn't have to settle for less.
"There's always money there that (the government) seem to find for other things, but when it comes down to supporting people in community through good healthcare, healthcare support and (ensuring) hospitals are serviceable for the community and appropriate, we're always told to pull our heads in and suck it up," Ms Pitt said.
"I'm just not going to go in with that."
"I'm going to be pushing for Eastern Victoria, I'm going to be going gung-ho to get whatever we possibly can, because every single time we settle, we get less."
Ms Pitt said all her policies were formulated based on what she was hearing from the Eastern Victorian constituents.
"The massive point of difference is that I'll listen to them and not a party," she said.
Ms Pitt said she felt a position in the Victorian upper house would enable her to target the larger, widespread issues she is passionate about.
"The ethics base in me says that it doesn't ring true for me to stand for an electorate, because I am going (to target) such widespread issues," Ms Pitt said.
"I'm going for that upper house position because that's just where I see that I (can) stand for what I'm going to be representing."