One Nation turns to Bass Coast farmer and mental health care worker for state’s tightest seat

A BASS born and bred beef farmer who has volunteered in her community since she was 14 will carry One Nation into the most marginal seat in Victoria.

Nikole Schellekens grew up in Tooradin and went to Tooradin Primary School and Koo Wee Rup Secondary College, and apart from a short spell away has spent her whole adult life in the electorate.

She runs a beef farm with her husband while raising two young girls, works as a mental health social worker with military veterans, and founded AgMind Australia, which has taken mental health education onto farms through more than 20 workshops across Victoria in its first year.

It has made her a Victorian finalist in the Toyota Wellbeing and Safety in Agriculture category at this year’s Australian Agriculture Awards.

Ms Schellekens said she decided to stand after concluding the people in the race were not representing what locals wanted.

“I looked at Victoria and worried about the future for my kids and decided we need to start standing up and doing something about it,” Ms Schellekens told the Sentinel-Times in her first interview as a candidate.

“It all came back to securing my girls’ future and their chance to afford simple things like buying a house.”

She said her views aligned with One Nation’s policies and that much of her campaign would be spent countering the assumptions people make about the party.

“I want to hear what people want and share what One Nation actually stands for, to undo the misconceptions about the party and its supporters,” she said.

“We are just average working-class people trying to make a difference in this state for the better.”

Her community work runs deeper than the campaign, starting with the local CFA ladies auxiliary as a teenager and running through three years as president of San Remo Preschool, before her current role as secretary of the Victorian Farmers Federation’s Bass Coast branch.

“My grandpa, Jack Charlton, was very involved with the footy in Fish Creek and taught me the value of supporting the community, so it is ingrained in me,” Ms Schellekens said.

“I’ve spent my lifetime serving the community.”

It is not her first tilt at office, after she ran in Bass Coast Shire’s Western Port Ward at the 2024 council elections and missed the third seat by 80 votes, finishing behind Cr Jan Thompson.

The candidate who topped that same ward ballot was Rochelle Halstead, who stood down as Bass Coast mayor in April and is now the Liberal candidate for Bass.

Bass is the tightest seat in the state, held by Labor MP Jordan Crugnale by about 200 votes, and with Ms Crugnale not recontesting, the seat is wide open between Ms Halstead, Labor’s Chris Buckingham and Ms Schellekens across an electorate running from the Clyde growth corridor in the north to Phillip Island and Inverloch in the south.

Cost of living sits at the top of Ms Schellekens’ list of issues, ahead of growth, health services and the protection of farmland.

“It is a major issue affecting everyone, especially down in Bass, impacting mortgages, rent, groceries, electricity and fuel,” she said.

“It’s not an abstract economic issue.

“It’s what people are discussing at school pick-ups or in the grocery store.”

On health she pointed to access to bulk-billing GPs and staffing levels at Wonthaggi Hospital, and said One Nation wanted incentives to get GPs and medical students working regionally.

“Wonthaggi Hospital isn’t functioning at capacity due to staffing numbers, yet the plan is to throw more money at developing it further and hoping for the best,” she said.

As a farmer her other priority is protecting productive agricultural land, and she took aim at renewable energy infrastructure and transmission lines being built across farmland.

“Government and organisations forcing infrastructure like renewable energy and transmission lines onto farming land is despicable,” she said.

“Farmers already deal with things out of our control like drought and international tariffs, and now we face productive land being taken.

“I would prefer to see a million dairy farms over a million solar farms any day.”

Ms Schellekens said her background as a social worker had taught her the value of listening, and an official campaign launch is planned for next week followed by listening posts from Cranbourne South down to Inverloch.

“We need to ensure we have fair representation and aren’t just treated as the poor cousins to the metro areas,” she said.

“We need to make our presence known.”