Independent candidate enters race for Wannon

INDEPENDENT candidate Bernardine Atkinson has announced she will contest the seat of Wannon in the 2025 federal election, campaigning on policies aimed at restructuring governance and restoring public services.

A key focus of her platform is constitutional recognition of local government to enable direct federal funding and greater autonomy in service delivery.

“Local government is in the best position to provide essential services,” she said.

She argues outsourcing to private providers had increased costs and unemployment, describing it as a shift of public money to “opportunistic oligopolies”.

Dr Atkinson is also advocating for tax benefits for married couples and a mothering allowance for stay-at-home parents, saying it would help strengthen families.

“It would help families stay together if financial incentives for couples eclipsed the attractiveness of receiving much more than the single parenting option,” she said.

Her other proposals include a National Development Bank to provide low-interest loans, a return to local government-managed essential services, and the development of small nuclear reactors for energy and desalination.

She said she was encouraged to run by local supporters but ultimately made the decision herself.

“I was ‘encouraged’ to run, not by lots of people, because politics is a nightmare for most people, but by a couple of politically-concerned, prominent, local women who think my policies are on the right track,” she said.

Atkinson previously served as a councillor in Ararat Rural City and has a background in academia, with research spanning climate change, ecological sustainability, and nuclear energy.

Her campaign is focused on what she describes as “renewing Australia” through economic and policy reform.