Standing together: Nickee Freeman and Chris Burson, from the Australian Values Party and its Victorian counterpart the Angry Victorians Party.
They’re Victorians, and they’re angry — and they’re planning to cause a stir in November’s state election.
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The Tatura-based Angry Victorians Party is still waiting for the Victorian Electoral Commission to confirm its registration, but is pushing ahead with plans to stand candidates in the election.
AVP is the state arm of the federal Australian Values Party founded by OnlyFans model and former soldier Heston Russell.
Not going green: Nickee Freeman withdrew as a candidate for the Greens in this year’s Federal Election due to the party’s support for vaccine mandates and is now a member of the Angry Victorians Party.
Photo by
Liz Mellino
Party state secretary Nickee Freeman was a Greens candidate in this year’s Federal Election before withdrawing due to the Greens’ support for vaccine mandates.
A disability support worker in Shepparton, and a mother-of-one, Ms Freeman lost her job due to the mandate.
“These mandates have impacted many, many people,” she said.
“I personally was prevented from going to work and earning a living for nearly a year, which was ridiculous because I was healthy and well and qualified and competent, and the only thing that was stopping me going to work was that I wasn’t able to comfortably take that vaccine because I had serious concerns about how it would impact my health and wellbeing.
“The financial repercussions of these mandates have been horrendous for many, many people and yes, I can feel a huge anger and resentment.
“I was devastated, like so many others. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my colleagues or my clients.
“There are also people who have died from the vaccine. Why are we not talking about those people as well as those who have died from COVID? That’s reality for many, many families. They’ve lost loved ones to the vaccine.”
Still unvaccinated, but now back working in her disability support job, Ms Freeman said she wanted to see more mature debate of issues within our political system.
“Whoever does have the power, we’ll review each and every policy on its own merit and we won’t say, ‘Oh, we’ll always side with the red team or the blue team or the yellow team’, we’re not like that,” she said.
“We like to look at reasonable, factual information and most importantly of all, we want to be reflective of our electorate.”
The Angry Victorians Party and its federal parent, the Australian Values Party, list their three key strategic objectives as a more enjoyable way of life, a self-sustainable Australian economy and self-sufficient security within our region.
The Australian Values Party’s five-part ‘bill of rights and responsibilities’ includes: respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual; commitment to the rule of law; equality of opportunity for all people; parliamentary democracy; and a fair go for all.
“We put everything that we have to decide and take action on through the lens of those Australian values,” Ms Freeman said.
“They’re already decided by the Australian people. They’re not our values as a party, they’re the values of the people of Australia.”
And the name, Angry Victorians?
“You need a name that is going to attract attention and give you the chance to have the conversations that you want,” she said.
A likely candidate for the party in November’s election is state leader Chris Burson, another former soldier and also a former police officer, who resigned from Victoria Police, opposed to Victoria’s lockdown orders.
He’s likely to stand for the Legislative Council in the Western Victoria region.
Ms Freeman denies the Angry Victorians Party is solely pitching to the highly vocal anti-Dan Andrews sentiment.
“We want it to be a people-power party,” she said.
“Our logo is people over politics. To be a voice of reason in parliament and to actually be part of a mature debate and stop playing this stupid party politics game.”
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