The United Australia Party has selected Ross Creek businesswoman Terri Pryse-Smith as its candidate for Ballarat in the 2022 federal election.
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Ms Pryse-Smith works with her husband at Minitube Australia in Smythesdale, providing animal reproduction and artificial insemination equipment and services.
The 2022 election will be her first time officially engaging in politics, she said, stating "the time for yelling at the television is over".
The United Australia Party has provoked anger and derision at its heavy advertising spend, as well as its vaccine skepticism - the party's Craig Kelly spoke at an anti-vaccination rally in Ballarat in December.
Ms Pryse-Smith said she was opposed to mandated vaccination, and "vaccine passports", and chose her words carefully when discussing vaccines.
She criticised lockdowns for "destroying" businesses, and mandates for "creating a two-tiered society".
More than 95 per cent of Ballarat is fully vaccinated.
In terms of local issues, Ms Pryse-Smith said education is her main concern - before moving to Ross Creek, she worked as an English as a second language teacher around the world.
"Our TAFE funding has been fairly damaged over the past few years, and we have a lot of young people who don't fit the normal national school system and need to go into TAFE, and we do not have enough tradespeople," she said.
"I'd really like to get people into trade schools and into apprenticeships.
"Unemployment is very bad in Ballarat, and I think we need to do a lot more to skill people up to get them into jobs.
"Education is key, without education, without knowledge, we have nothing."
Ballarat's rapid growth is also an issue, with "a black lava flow of roofs" creeping down from Delacombe.
"The infrastructure has to be balanced with that, so that every time you build a hundred houses, you have to have the doctors and schools and buses to go with it," she said.
"I think we really have to look a lot more closely at how we develop our infrastructure so it is balanced and we can support people - there's a very good reason for leaving Melbourne, it's a pretty unpleasant place to live now ... if they're going to come and move here, we want to support them with schools and doctors and chemists and roads."
She also called for more manufacturing in Australia, to create independence from other nations, and in particular criticised China, noting the country has "a strong agenda against countries like Australia", and the major parties, echoing UAP advertising and stating "they've already proven they can't run a government properly".
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"We know how to run a company, and running a country is very similar to running a company, and that's I think that's what Australians want," she said.
"The average working class Australian wants someone who knows how to run a business, because that's what Australia is, and it's floundering at the moment and it needs all the help it can get.
"I just feel very anxious and concerned about the way our country and the world is going."
The date for the federal election has not yet been announced, but is expected before May 21.
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