MEDIA RELEASE: Voices for Mallee has chosen not to endorse a Mallee candidate for this election

12/4/2022

Voices for Mallee’s mission to raise the awareness of political process and give community members a genuine political ‘voice’ has been hampered by capacity, kilometres and COVID19.

With the election just over a month away, the group has reluctantly accepted that they are unable to endorse a candidate for this election.

Group spokesperson Barry Parsons said that “We could not be confident that we had engaged with sufficient Mallee people to genuinely reflect their voice and their needs before asking candidates to nominate for our endorsement.”

Voices for Mallee Co-Operative (V4M) was formed to engage the public via Kitchen Table Conversations (KTC) to identify and document the issues to be addressed by an independent candidate for Mallee. KTC’s allow people to share their views on issues in a safe, moderated meeting. These views are summarised in a publicly available document.

V4M remains a non-political community group modelled on the Voices for Indi.

“Our journey has been hampered by many issues: the extensive geography of the Mallee Electorate, COVID19 limiting face to face meetings, illness and injuries of group members and the difficulty of engaging with sufficient electors.”

“Our electorate and our country need people to speak up and hold our politicians accountable. It would appear there are many quiet Australians. Many do not realise that; When the electorate goes to sleep, the politicians rest easy.”

Voices for Mallee will be posting a document reflecting the ‘Mallee Voices’ collected during the last year’s KTCs on its website. After the election, the group will review their goals for the future.