HEALTH is the core reason Freedom Party of Victoria candidate Katia Bish is running for the seat of Murray Plains at the upcoming state election.
Having worked as a nurse for more than 40 years, Ms Bish will be on the ballot as a first-time candidate for the newly formed Freedom Party on Saturday, November 26.
After more than four decades working in the health industry, Ms Bish said she was standing for election to provide a voice for healthcare workers – a voice that, she claimed, had been lost in recent years.
“What has driven me is I really want a voice back into health,” Ms Bish said.
“I feel that we have been silenced by AHPRA (the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency) in regard to being able to give patients informed, free consent.
“I want to bring back a voice to health professionals in regards to being able to express and educate the general public and their patients without being silenced.“
As one of its policies on health, the Freedom Party is advocating for the reinstatement of healthcare workers who were removed from the workforce due to vaccine mandates to help ease pressure on the health system — something that has personally affected Ms Bish.
“The mandates affected me personally in regards I can no longer practice,” she said.
“I made a choice over my body not to be vaccinated with my own critical research and statistical data.
“I lost my job because of the mandates, that is why I am very passionate that hopefully one day we do have a royal commission … and we give nurses back the ability to have a choice like we did in the past.
“The Freedom Party would help me into lifting the mandates and getting health professionals back into hospitals where they are needed.”
Ms Bish, who has lived in the Echuca area with her family for more than 30 years, said she wanted to provide voters with a different option to the major parties.
“I felt that the local area in Murray Plains needed a face that they can relate to,” she said.
“My message to voters is we need an alternative choice. We need a voice and a face in the local area of Echuca under the freedom banner.
“We need to give the voice back to the people. I think we have been silenced and we are too heavily controlled by tyrannical politicians.”
This Saturday’s election is not just the first for Ms Bish, but also the first for the Freedom Party of Victoria itself.
Formed this year, the party was officially registered by the Victorian Electoral Commission and will now appear on the ballot for the first time with candidates in both the upper and lower houses.
According to its website, the Freedom Party aims to create “a state whereby personal freedom is central, government power is limited, the rule of law applies equally to everyone and individual potential is limited only by ones’ imagination”.
Alongside its policy of removing vaccine mandates for healthcare workers, the party has outlined other key principles and goals that it stands for.
To help reduce the cost of living, the party says it will offer tax cuts to investors who reduce rent to tenants, while also increasing energy affordability by halting the closure of power stations in Victoria and providing access to known current gas reserves.
On the pandemic, the Freedom Party said it will repeal pandemic legislation, removing lockdowns, mandates and restrictions while also launching a full inquiry into the COVID-19 response.
Among its other policies, the party also said it would introduce a 5 per cent reduction target on all government spending to reduce government debt, halt exposure to adult content in schools, allow pensioners to retain their full pension if they choose to work, and reimburse 100 per cent of GST to small businesses.
Friday: Full list of election day polling centres in the Swan Hill municipality.
