Tony Wolfe Independent

Independent candidate in Narracan Tony Wolfe said he would provide a truly independent community voice if successful at the election.

His decision to stand came just six days before nominations closed and was largely driven by what he sees as people losing trust in the party political system.

Mr Wolfe, an electrician at a Latrobe Valley power station and a former Baw Baw Shire councillor for four years including one year as deputy mayor, said he presented himself as a truly independent candidate.

He said he was not aligned with any group or organisation and was not seeking donations towards funding his campaign to avoid any suggestion of a conflict of interest.

In the rapidly growing Baw Baw Shire, and Narracan electorate more widely, Mr Wolfe said services and infrastructure were not keeping up.

A member of the West Gippsland Healthcare Group board of directors when it decided to buy a property at Drouin East for a new hospital 12 years ago, he said he would fight to see it was delivered after the major parties had both committed. He also has a personal need for improved health services needing, as a cancer survivor, to travel to Melbourne for treatment.

Mr Wolfe said the core pillars he would take to the election were government integrity that had caused a loss of trust among people, equality, the environment and community and he supported calls by IBAC, the Auditor-General and Ombudsman for funding independent of government.

He said Narracan “had been forgotten” because it was regarded as a safe Liberal seat saying that although there were significant impacts on the Baw Baw Shire from the winding down of coal fired power generation the shire had missed out on government funding towards the transition, all of it going to Latrobe City.

Mr Wolfe supports the transition to renewable energy sources but believes there is a long way to go creating the new workforce skills that will be needed and in meeting challenging deadlines to build new generation technologies.

Also winning his support is the policy to phase out logging in native forests in favour of timber plantations and investing more in upskilling emergency services to cope with disasters such as bushfires and floods for which “our region is vulnerable”.

Addressing gender equality is another key issue for Mr Wolfe citing that women still lag behind in pay and workforce participation and were victims of increased domestic violence in the region stating violence against women in Baw Baw shire rose 22 per cent in 2021.