Your vote counts: Tanya Wieden, United Australia Party candidate for Flynn in the 2022 Federal election

Here’s what UAP candidate for Flynn, Tanya Wieden thinks about key issues such as housing affordability and the cost of living, and why she thinks you should put the major parties last.

Paying down the national debt, rebuilding trust in politicians and ending the vaccine mandates are among the UAP candidates’ top priorities, as she says negligence from the majors have left us staring down the barrel of an economic disaster.

A hairdresser by trade, Tanya Wieden ran a Gladstone business for a number of years after growing up on a small farm outside Thangool and she says the diversity of our land, our industries and people are what makes Flynn unique.

Here’s how Tanya responded to the questions we put to all seven candidates vying for your vote in Flynn.

United Australia Party candidate for Flynn, Tanya Wieden. Picture: Supplied

What are the three issues that you believe matter most to voters in the Flynn electorate?

1. Relief from the rising cost of living

2. Reduction in government over reach that stifles business growth and also impedes on people’s ability to simply work and make a living.

3. Real representation in parliament. They want someone who is actually going to stand firm on the important issues and stand up for their constituents.

How will you address and seek to resolve the increased pressure of cost of living?

There’s an old saying: “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river, we need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in” that I feel applies to this question.

The solution is more than just throwing a couple hundred bucks at people at election time. There are a number of factors that play in to the issue of the increased cost of living that we’re all experiencing.

First and foremost is gross mismanagement of economic policy by past and present governments. The UAP have multiple policies that aim to keep people from being pushed into the river by their own government.

The UAP actually have a plan to pay down the trillion dollars of debt, using a 15 per cent export licence on iron ore. That might not seem related to the issue but the national debt is one of the big factors contributing to rising inflation and interest rates.

At a more personal level, 20 per cent tax concessions for people living in regional and rural areas like Flynn, reducing tax for people that work a second job and increasing the aged pension by an extra $180 per fortnight.

I encourage everyone to go look at these policies for themselves in more detail.

How will you make house prices and rent more affordable, increase public housing and reduce the number of homeless residents?

The housing crisis is a real threat to every Australian and the people of Flynn are no exception. I hear this all the time in my travels across the electorate – people are really struggling.

There’s hardly any rentals available and prices of both rentals and houses have skyrocketed. If we don’t take real action to address this issue, we are facing the worst housing crisis in history.

It is predicted that home loan interest rates will rise to above 6 per cent pa and in doing so, 80 per cent of Australians will default on their mortgages and lose their homes.

If you look upstream it is obvious – it’s the poor economic management of both LNP and LAB governments and their trillion dollars of debt that is pushing up interest rates and inflation and every day people are drowning as a result.

Only the UAP has a plan to save peoples homes and make housing affordable for all Australians by passing laws to cap home loan interest rates at 3 per cent pa for the next five years and pay down the national debt to reduce inflation.

In addition to that, their policy of making the first $30,000 paid on a home loan tax deductible each year will also help keep the great Australian dream of owning your own home alive.

With the focus of Flynn often being on Gladstone, what are big projects and issues you will address in more remote parts of the electorate?

As I travel around, meet with and talk to the people, business owners and industry leaders of Flynn I am gaining a better understand of their needs everyday.

The big issues are actually some of the most simple things. People just want the government to support the growth of vital industries, tell the truth, and be responsible with the economy.

There are many projects that have been promised over the years – from sealing roads like the Springsure to Tambo road to building dams and not a single dam has been built in decades.

The prosperity of this region has not reached its full potential and there are many projects that would be great for our region, but first we must address the huge trillion dollar debt that the current and previous governments have racked up.

Once we’ve addressed that, we can get cracking on all those projects.

Do you support the Mt Morgan water pipeline project and do you support the rehabilitation of the Mt Morgan Mine by Heritage Minerals?

No answer.

Do you support Gladstone being reinstated as a “Distribution Priority Area” for doctors and what other commitments will you make to health services in Flynn?

Yes, I support that and I also support the UAP policies that would encourage them to move to the regions. It is an Australia wide problem that can no longer be ignored.

The current state funding system is broken and so the UAP will provide an additional $40 billion of funding for health across Australia and will make such funding available directly to hospitals.

In addition to the way health care is funded, the UAP will address understaffed health services by ending vaccine mandates so that thousands of skilled health care workers can return to work and introduce Zonal Taxation which will encourage all people, including doctors and nurses, to move to regional areas to take advantage of the 20 per cent tax concession.

We need a multifaceted approach to reach the desired solution.

Do you support net zero emissions and do you endorse the shift to hydrogen and other renewable industries emerging in Gladstone?

I do not support net zero emissions targets for Australia. It will do nothing for the environment and destroy industries such as mining and agricultural that keep the lights on in people houses and food on their table.

Do you support traditional industries in Flynn such as coal and gas?

Absolutely I support the coal and gas industries in Flynn.

I also support the construction, manufacturing, agricultural, tourism and retail industries across our electorate and will work to ensure that every industry can grow and prosper with as little government constriction as possible which is why the UAP will be abolishing Fringe Benefits Tax and stop Provisional Tax being paid in advance allowing billions of extra dollars to circulate in our economy.

While hospitals are a state issue, residents are telling us it is unacceptable that Gladstone Hospital is a level three facility, without and ICU unit, will you lobby for upgrades to the Gladstone Hospital?

I agree that the Gladstone Hospital should have an ICU unit and I will always support improvements to the hospitals across the electorate of Flynn.

I am also aware that we cannot just continue to throw money at a broken system. The issue of out-dated facilities and understaffed health services is not unique to Flynn.

It is an Australia wide problem that can no longer be ignored. The current state funding system is broken and so the UAP will provide an additional $40 billion of funding for health across Australia and will make such funding available directly to hospitals.

In addition to the way health care is funded, the UAP will address understaffed health services by ending vaccine mandates so that thousands of skill health care workers can return to work and introduce Zonal Taxation which will encourage all people, including doctors and nurses, to move to regional areas to take advantage of the 20 per cent tax concession.

Has Scott Morrison handled this term as Prime Minister well and do you think Anthony Albanese would be a better Prime Minister going forward?

I don’t think either of them are fit to lead our great nation. They have both lost touch with the needs of everyday, hard working Australians.

Morrison thinks that most Australians can handle the rising cost of living and Albanese can’t recall simple economic statistics.

Neither of them seem concerned that we are staring down the barrel of a disastrous economic fallout as a result of their economic negligence and they sure as heck don’t have a plan to fix it.

They are career politicians who have no clue how the real world works. I’ve met many a small-business owner who’d do a better job.

Should people in Flynn put independents and minor parties above the major parties, and why?

Absolutely the people of Flynn should but the majors last.

I would encourage the people of Flynn to think back over the last three or four decades and consider if their lives have improved or worsened under the same old LNP/LAB duopoly?

Are they sick of the buck passing, the government over reach, the empty election promises, being sold out to foreign interests, the increasing cost of living and housing, the declining health system?

Things should be getting better, not worse. It’s time for a change. I believe the UAP is the change we need.

What makes Flynn different to other electorates?

The Flynn electorate is one of the largest electorates in Australia branching out from the coast and a major shipping port all the way out to the coalfields and farming regions of Central Queensland.

I have spent the last four months travelling all over this electorate and the thing that sets Flynn apart from other electorates is the diversity of our land, our industries and our people.