Good evening once again Ladies and Gentlemen. I hope everyone i continuing to keep up with the social distancing and are keeping each other safe throughout this tough time.

Today I'm going to be updating people on what is happening with our campaign heading up to the next election, letting you know some more of the things I ideally would want to achieve if I am once given the honor and the privilege of representing the people of Nicholls once again and also what I'm looking into doing for the rest of the campaign.

This crisis, this pandemic has effected everyone, not just the people of Nicholls but everyone, but there are a group of people tonight who I want to bring up, people who in the latest need to band together have been sort of lost in the shuffle so to speak and are doing it doubly tough because they have already suffered through so much. I of course am talking about those communities in East Gippsland who were devastated by bushfires at the beginning of the year.

It seems almost surreal, like its a whole other era that the people of East Gippsland were going through some of the most harrowing times of our generation as bushfires ripped through towns, communities, properties, businesses, there was not a single of aspect of life in East Gippsland that wasn't touched by these fires. The Australian public banded together to help not only them but all Australians around the country who were touched by the fires, however with a new, larger threat on our horizon, those people, who have already taken one massive kick in the guts from the fires, now risk being lost because our focus is elsewhere.

This cannot be allowed to happen, these communities have fought through so much just to get to the precipice of survival and now with this new threat many of these communities are on the verge of collapse once again.

This is not selfishness from us, we are not saying we deserve more than any other community effected by these fires, but the double whammy of the fires and this new pandemic threatens the very existence of countless rural communities, not only here in Nicholls, but around Australia, We can not, we must not, leave these communities to their own, even with this grave new threat on our doorstep. This is why I will be pushing any government to do more for those areas that were effected by the fires. Not because they deserve it more than other communities, not because we should make this a rich or poor thing, it is simply a humanitarian thing. If we do nothing to help these communities, if we leave these communities to focus on the bigger picture, which I am not claiming is wrong at all, people will lose homes, they will be forced on the street, people will lose businesses, because they can not get out and rebuild, we will a valuable slice of rural Australia. We can not allow that to happen, and though it will be tough in these trying times, we must do more.

In the next few days I will be continuing to outlay my vision for what I hope to achieve if I am once again chosen to be your member of Parliament. I'm actually looking into an idea of being a little more face to face, a bit like the impromptu Facebook Live stream last night, I'm looking into some audio options, no guarantees it will work but we shall see. I really want to have an audio Q&A sort of thing if possible, where I answer your questions that way. As I said no guarantees.

But in the next couple of days I will be also talking to members of the community, over Facetime in case anyone was wondering, I'm not breaking the social distancing guidelines and I will be announcing more visions for what should be.

As I said at the start I truly believe Nicholls's best chance to be heard is to remain independent. We face an important choice in this election, do we want to press forward as a nation that is all about a fair go. Or do we want to go backwards and give into fear? That is the choice facing us. I hope that I am your choice here in Nicholls and I hope the right choice is made Australia wide. Let's work together and keep this "panda" in the parliament.