Born and raised in Traralgon, Ms Buxton worked as a teacher in government and independent schools before moving into speech pathology, and now runs her own practice, providing services to children and adults in rural communities.
Through her work in education and health and her lived experience of disability, Ms Buxton said she understood the importance of accessible health, disability and community services.
Ms Buxton said she was particularly concerned about the cost of living, access to health and essential services, Victoria’s growing debt and the impact of government policy on farmers and regional communities.
She said she believed farmers and landholders deserved a genuine voice when major infrastructure projects affect productive farmland, livelihoods and communities.
Ms Buxton said she was standing as One Nation’s candidate for Ripon because regional Victorians needed a stronger voice in Parliament and practical, common-sense representation focused on the issues affecting everyday people.
“Standing for Parliament is not about building a political career – it is about stepping forward, having a voice and helping to create a better future for regional Victorians,” she said.
At Saturday night’s event, Ms Hanson participated in activities such as hammering a nail into a coffin that had ‘net-zero’ written on it, and also helped set alight a tower replicating the VNI West project.
Landowners in the Marnoo district were among those objectors to the Victoria-New South Wales Interconnector project, which will enable renewable energy to be transmitted from Bulgana, near Stawell, to across the border near Kerang.
Ms Hanson told an adoring crowd that One Nation leaders had travelled from across Australia to ‘ try and get more members elected to parliament to represent you for common sense’.
“ This net zero rubbish has been forced down Australians’ throats and should never have happened,” she said.
“ The only barrier from stopping it from happening, I’m telling you, is One Nation. We have been fighting against this right from the very beginning. It was common sense that told me this is not good for Australia.”
Ms Hanson said One Nation would not support the VNI West project.
“If we have the balance of power in the parliament here, I will be advising, and I’m sure our leader here in Victoria has also stated, you will not be paying your fines. That will all be wiped. Stand your ground. Do not give up,” she said.
Event organiser and Farmers Fightback founder Ben Duxson, a farmer at Wallaloo, near Marnoo, said objectors to VNI West and the Western Renewable Link, WRL, projects were seeking politicians to support them.
“The way One Nation’s policies are going, they’re going to scrap net-zero, which gets rid of our transmission lines ... and to be honest, it’ll get rid of an energy policy that’s going to be the biggest monumental mistake in history in Australia,” he said.
“ People have had enough of career politicians. People have had enough of being dictated to. People have had enough of interference in our life.
“As a farmer, that’s all we ever get from Labor governments, is interference in our life. We will produce the food, the fibre, and the agricultural products for the rest of Australia and the rest of the world.
“Government needs to get out of our backyard and actually allow us to do it, and that’s the biggest thing.”
Mr Duxson said the Victorian Coalition’s recent commitment to scrap the VNI West project if they were elected was only ‘one-third of the way there’.
“They need to get rid of WRL, and they need to drop net-zero, and then we can actually have a sensible debate over where energy takes us into the next 100, 200 years. At the moment, it’s not sensible,” he said.
Wallaloo East farmer Mark Reading told 3WM’s Country Today that he was once a Nationals voter but would be voting for One Nation at the state election.
“ One Nation’s saying all the right things. The Coalition says they’re with us, but they just haven’t been. They’ve been neglecting us for far too long. So we’ve actually got an alternative now that we’ve never had before,” he said.
“We’ve talked to all the politicians, and the loud and clear message we’ve had is they’re not interested in what we do.”
Mr Reading said 1.5 kilometres of the transmission lines were planned to go on his property.
“ We’ve probably never been more worried about what governments can do, but the local community’s alive and well now,” he said.
“They’ve actually turned us around. We’ve been losing people for a long time, and now we’re all coming together in a common cause.
“They’re actually uniting farmers, which I’ve never seen before.”
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