The people are interested in politics

by Voices for Indi

Just months before her spectacular defeat at the 2013 federal election, Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella proclaimed to members of the newly formed Voices for Indi that “the people of Indi are not interested in politics”.

A group of local farmers, small business owners, students and nurses gathered at their kitchen tables with a shared determination to prove otherwise. And so began a movement which disrupted the ‘safest’ Liberal electorate in the nation and delivered the first independent ever to be elected in the seat, Cathy McGowan, to Canberra. In 2019, Indi again made history when Helen Haines became the first independent in the Australian Parliament to follow a retiring independent MP in the same electorate.

The voices of the people of Indi have since created a new standard for effective political representation in Australia. Their message, first heard at kitchen tables across the valleys and mountains of Indi and eventually in the ‘house of the people’ in Canberra, was clear: the people are very much interested in politics.

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