#farrer — Public Fediverse posts

4/4

#Auspol #Farrer #Milthorpe

The public will eventually see every donation to my campaign because I have committed to transparency. They will not, however, see the full value of those volunteers. Nor will Australians truly be able to compare such efforts with the extensive resources deployed by the major parties, which can call on serving members of parliament, senators and their staff to visit polling booths and campaign trails across the country. Greater transparency would strengthen public confidence in our democratic processes.
Despite the intensity of the campaign, one thing is clear to me: Australia is fortunate to have strong democratic institutions. The election in Farrer was hard fought, highly scrutinised and ultimately decided by voters. That is exactly how it should be. I’ve congratulated One Nation on their historic victory. They successfully tapped into frustrations that many people in regional Australia feel. The challenge now is to convert that frustration into results. Representing anger is one thing. Finding solutions is another. The people of Farrer deserve to see the trust they have placed in their new representative rewarded. He has said they can judge him on how he has delivered on his priorities by the next election. They will.
What should concern the major parties is not who won the byelection but why they were barely part of the final contest.
In what was once considered one of the safest seats in Australia, the race was ultimately between an independent and One Nation. Communities that have long been taken for granted are no longer willing to accept being treated like safe seats that require little attention between elections. They are demanding representation, accountability and genuine engagement.
Trust cannot be rebuilt through advertising campaigns, sophisticated targeting or by blaming political outsiders. It is rebuilt the old-fashioned way: by showing up, listening, being accountable and remembering that politics is not about parties.
Regional Australians are not asking for special treatment. They are asking to be seen, heard and represented. If the political class continues to miss that message, Farrer will not be the last place to send it.

/ fin

3/x
#Auspol #Farrer #Milthorpe
For weeks, a well-known journalist encouraged listeners to put me last on their ballot, repeatedly claiming I was “too scared” to do an interview. The truth was far less dramatic. I had agreed to participate, but the broadcaster was unavailable at the times I could make work in the middle of a campaign schedule that covered such a large electorate. Yet the narrative persisted.
It took weeks for our national broadcaster to consistently refer to me by my name, rather than reducing me to the label of a “Climate 200 teal”, despite my repeated explanations that I was a community independent with my own policies and views.
In interview after interview, I was required to account for every dollar of campaign funding in a way that was rarely demanded of other candidates. Commentators who had clearly never read my policy positions confidently told audiences what I believed, often getting it completely wrong.
Democracy works best when every candidate is subject to equal scrutiny and has equal opportunity to explain their ideas. That principle should not depend on party affiliation.
Social media has intensified the competition. It has democratised participation, giving communities typically overlooked by traditional media a bigger voice. It has also amplified division, outrage and hostility. My family and I experienced that firsthand.
This campaign exposed a hard truth about the state of our public debate. We talk often about “misinformation”, but much of what I encountered was not confusion or misunderstanding but deliberate distortion.
Nevertheless, what stood out the most for me in this campaign was not the negativity. It was the extraordinary goodwill shown by thousands of people who wanted to participate constructively in our democracy. I deliberately ran a positive campaign. Some people criticised me for that – apparently modern politics requires enemies. I disagree. We can advocate fiercely for our communities without hating those with whom we disagree. We can challenge ideas without dehumanising people. We can pursue change without abandoning decency.
More than 800 volunteers gave their time, energy and confidence. They were not flown in from party headquarters, nor directed by professional campaign organisations. They were local farmers, teachers, nurses, tradies, retirees, business owners, students and parents who believed their community deserved a stronger voice. They stood at polling booths, knocked on doors, hosted events and publicly backed something they believed in, often in front of neighbours, friends and colleagues who disagreed with them. That takes courage.
/4

2/x
#Auspol #Farrer #Milthorpe

In another life, I may well have joined a political party. I grew up in a large extended family where politics was discussed around dinner tables, at family gatherings and on long country drives. One of my cousins worked for a Liberal prime minister and another worked for a Labor home affairs minister. One uncle was a National Party-affiliated country mayor, and his wife was president of the New South Wales Country Women’s Association. My mother is a lifelong National Party supporter, while my father, particularly in recent years, tended to vote for whichever candidate he believed would best represent his community.
Like many Australians, I was raised to respect the role of political parties in shaping our nation – they have delivered many of the reforms and institutions that underpin modern life. But many voters feel that parties are losing connection with the people they were created to serve.
In the conversations I had across Farrer, people were typically less interested in ideology than in effectiveness. They wanted representatives who understood their lives, listened to their concerns and would advocate for their communities. They wanted good ideas, regardless of where they came from.
That’s what inspired me to become an independent. Not because I reject politics, but because I believe it works best when it is firmly grounded in the needs and interests of the people. Parties are becoming too focused on managing politics, and politics is now too often performative, designed for media cycles, social media clips and internal party audiences rather than trying to solve real problems for real people.
Throughout the campaign I often spoke about the difference between performative politics and genuine representation. Political acumen is not about mastering factional manoeuvring, nor is it learnt from spending decades inside a party machine. Effective representatives listen, understand complex issues, consult experts and build relationships to properly address community concerns. They know when to collaborate, when to challenge and who to bring to the table.
The media, too, has some reflecting to do. At times during the Farrer campaign, narratives appeared to matter more than facts. Some commentators chose not to use my name when discussing my candidacy – an approach that seemed dismissive. I was said to be unwilling to engage with the press; the reality was often quite different. As the field grew to 12 candidates, it was less possible to meaningfully examine all of us.

/3

A warning from the people of Farrer

by #Independent candidate Michelle #Milthorpe

Saturday Paper 20 June 2026

#Auspol #Farrer

———-

1/x
Two years ago, frustrated with our local representation and the sense that politics wasn’t working the way it should, I did something unusual. I googled, “How do you become an independent?”
That simple search set off a chain of events I could never have predicted: more than 800 volunteers knocking on more than 17,000 doors, hundreds of thousands of conversations across one of the country’s largest electorates, in two federal election campaigns.
I did not win in Farrer. But if the major parties conclude from this latest campaign that independents, minor parties or political outsiders are the reason voters are abandoning them, they will have learnt entirely the wrong lesson. And Farrer was a warning.
For two years I travelled thousands of kilometres, from Albury to Wentworth, Griffith to Deniliquin, Hay to Corowa. I sat at kitchen tables, in community halls, sporting clubs, hospitals, businesses and farms. I spoke to lifelong Labor voters, lifelong Coalition voters, and people who had never voted.
The conversations were remarkably consistent. People were lavished with attention during election campaigns, and forgotten between them.
In March I visited Lankeys Creek – a small community of about 60 people, a camel farm and a bed and breakfast. Residents told me they were tired of being wheeled out every election cycle as an example of a community with poor mobile phone coverage. Their frustration was understandable. The infrastructure exists: the mobile tower that was supposed to solve the problem has been standing there for more than five years. Yet it remains switched off – the community is still waiting for reliable coverage.
For many, that tower has become a symbol of a broader problem.
Across the electorate, people spoke about hospitals that no longer meet community needs, water policy disconnected from the realities of farming, towns struggling to attract GPs. They told me about the trouble they had finding healthcare, childcare, aged care and housing.
Underlying all of this was a sense that decisions affecting regional communities were increasingly being made by people who neither understood, nor experienced, the consequences.
That is the source of disillusionment – not social media, independents or political divisions. It’s the feeling that your voice no longer matters. The rise of independents and minor parties is a symptom of that dissatisfaction.
Too often, the response from the major parties has been to ask why people are voting differently, rather than paying attention to what communities have been telling them for years.
The answer is there if they are prepared to listen. It is not complicated: return to your values, to policy shaped by genuine conversations with the people you are supposed to represent. Be present between elections, not just during them.

/2

"We’re dealing with a weight of hypocrisy here that defies physics."
#australia #auspol #augov #politics #byelection #PHON #Farrer #paulinehanson #ginarinehart #rightwingextremism #racism #obscurantism #idiocracy
https://theshot.net.au/uncategorized/where-one-nation-lies/

Don't panic. The reign of the raving redhead is not nigh. Poor Lean's "win" is just a fart in a hurricane.
#australia #auspol #augov #politics #byelection #PHON #Farrer #PaulineHanson #rightwingextremism #racism #obscurantism #idiocracy
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/farrer-falls-one-nation-crashes-the-coalition-fortress,21041

https://open.substack.com/pub/davidjohntyler/p/the-scorecard?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=ilfcu

Australia. You're standing in it.
A borrowed meme for a borrowed media playbook.
The news media is a joke in rural Australia.
Journalism has become opinion and confected rage.
Lowest common denominator.
#AppallingHansen is a symptom of our concentrated media where independent voices do not reach the so called battlers and the barricades of ignorance.
#Murdoch #Farrer #auspol #The LightOnTheHillIsMissing

RE: https://aus.social/@timrichards/116552883541854678

Resonates! “Every time I saw voters interviewed in the Farrer by-election, it was hard to figure out what they were upset about, and what they would change.” They were never asked those further questions in a meaningful way… or at least in a way that we, watching, (ie not living there) could get meaning from.

#AusPol #Farrer #FarrerVoters #why

@emmadavidson

I try to be kind and buy into the, 'neglected rural folk sending a message to the established parties' narrative.

But then I notice there were 12 candidates. (And none of them were Lab). Hence there were 10 other ways to send a message that did not require voting for angry, racist nativists.

And the two major parties were third and fourth by first pref vote! Hardly punished.

Nah. They're just bigots.

I won't be cycle-touring through there anytime soon, (and asking for vegetarian options at the restaurants and cafes, LOL, massively triggering for this lot), that's for sure!

#farrer #auspol #PHON

I've been going through the #Farrer by-election results for first prefs by polling place, and it's a useful way to find the small towns where I'd feel quite uncomfortable if I stopped for a visit. Which is a legit consideration given how often I'm in tiny towns in that electorate.

Places where 76.8% of voters chose One Nation are unlikely to feel safe to anyone who's LGBTIQA+ or environmentally conscious or isn't white or any number of other aspects of identity. This is a shame, I thought we were making progress in some of those towns.

I used to pick "town to stop at" based on the combo of EV charger + pie shop. Now it'll be calculated based on best pie shop from a subset of towns with a One Nation vote below 37%, and an EV charger. So you create the subset of low-ON vote towns first, then from that a subset of towns with EV chargers, then rank them by best to worst pie shop.

#auspol #FarrerVotes

“the purpose of a system is what it does”

#Auspol #Farrer

You don't get much more anti-establishment than the former MD & CEO of an ASX company.

#farrer #auspol

Former Labor strategist Kos Samaras has summed up the situation regarding the Coalition pretty well I feel. The sentiment is similar to what PK voiced tonight on the ABC.

#auspol #farrer

IMO, the next Liberal Prime Minister has not been born yet.

#FarrerVotes #Farrer #AusPol

Where the fuck even is Farrer. Remind me never to go to that shithole?
#auspol #Farrer

I blame the Libs for being so useless. They created the One Nation plague #auspol #farrer #FarrerVotes

Ms Milthorpe was asked whether she supported the Federal Government’s target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

“I think it’s untenable for us to think we can get there by 2050,” she said.

“I think we can look at a balance but I think we are doing it too quickly and we still need coal and gas for grid stability.”

#AusPol #MichelleMilthorpe #farrer

https://regionriverina.com.au/farley-defends-past-labor-links-as-rivals-clash-over-preferences-net-zero-and-immigration/125075/

Just watched the local news. Good luck to Michelle Milthorpe in #Farrer tomorrow but I am worried. One Notion kicked the ABC out of their news conference which speaks volumes in itself.
I’ve watched PH, Taylor, Joyce, Canavan & McKenzie all false smiles & bs rhetoric & in the case of Joyce the usual idiotic remark. 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼#AusPol.

#Greens preference card in #Farrer should leave far-right parties (Liberals, Nationals, One Nation) unranked. All three are now agreed on racism and bigotry, and should be left to fight among themselves for the voters who share these views #auspol